(Similar version published today by Newspress.) There are some fair comments in yesterday's report from the Transport Committee, and balanced comment in some of the reactions, but no-one else seems to be pointing out that many of our congestion (and road safety) problems are caused by the traffic control system itself. Until we've seen comprehensive reform, any talk of congestion charging is premature. It's obvious to everyone except the "experts" that most traffic lights are not only badly…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 24, 2009 at 19:00 —
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Below is a link to a presentation by Chad Dornsife about speed limits and the law. In his view, no speed limit is legally set. Improper practices and funds diverted from safety are costing lives. Millions are suffering financially from the abuse of police powers founded on improperly established limits. If the limits were
prima facie and set properly, most speed traps wouldn't have any customers. In the start-up phase of its new freeway camera enforcement program, the state of Arizona…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 19, 2009 at 13:30 —
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Regarding our JETs (Junction Efficiency Trials - awaiting the kiss of finance for lift-off), do we give the public advance notice of a traffic lights switch-off or not? The advantage of no advance warning is the possibility of a "purer" result, with behaviour uninfluenced, and a clear reading of how people interact without formal controls. Mind you, good results have been witnessed countless times when lights are out of action, indeed it's what started me off on this quest to change the system.…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 16, 2009 at 15:46 —
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Next week I'm planning a bit of filming and updating of the video, The Case against Traffic Lights, for a council meeting in 10 days' time. One of the things I might try is crossing the road with a radio mic on so I can do a walking commentary. I'm sure that if drivers only had to worry about watching the road and other road-users, things would be fine. When they saw someone trying to cross, they would slow down or wave them on. But they are torn, between a system of control…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 16, 2009 at 12:30 —
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There is some good material in the DfT's grossly overdue Greener Future charter, but reform in one vital segment is missing. The segment accounts for a king-sized slice of the carbon cake. It is responsible for waste on a prodigious scale, and is run by unelected, unaccountable technocrats. It criminalises the citizenry, and turns our public realm into a stage set for conflict. The segment that needs reform? The traffic control system itself. It is built on a fatal flaw - directional priority -…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 16, 2009 at 8:30 —
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In
Emotional Design, Donald Norman writes: “The principles for designing pleasurable, effective interaction between people and products are the same ones that support pleasurable and effective interaction between individuals.” - Our road network expresses the precise opposite of emotion. The public realm is where human beings live and interact. It is the mark of a country's civilised values. Yet we have abandoned it to technocrats who, Dementor-like, destroy its soul. They turn it into a…
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Added by Martin Cassini on July 13, 2009 at 9:30 —
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My heated debates with traffic engineers often concern their practice of giving everything, including road safety, an economic value. They allow £2m for a life. Today, in the 4th Reith lecture about the new citizenship by Michael Sandel, I heard my objections expressed along these lines: cost-benefit analysis is spurious because there are certain things which can’t be measured or given an economic value, most notably, human life. In renouncing moral judgement, the technocrat becomes…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 30, 2009 at 12:30 —
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The following, from a piece about crowd behaviour (Guardian Weekend, 27.6.09), is relevant to our debate about solutions being within us rather than in formal traffic control. Paul Wertheimer, of Crowd Management Strategies, investigated the crowd "stampede" (10 dead) at The Who concert in Cincinnati in 1979, and is the expert witness for the family of the man who was crushed to death in Walmart last year. He bases his theories on first-hand…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 29, 2009 at 9:30 —
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Discussing bio-engineering in his third Reith lecture about the new citizenship, Michael Sandel said, “Changing our nature to fit the world, rather than the other way round, is the deepest form of disempowerment”. It echoes something I said in my Newsnight report: “Instead of making human nature conform to a system, shouldn’t we devise a system that conforms to human nature?”
Added by Martin Cassini on June 28, 2009 at 22:30 —
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Familiar territory to us, but there's quite a good overview of shared space on Yahoo News, with a useful round-up of pros and cons, and plenty of comments
here. (Back tab to return to site.)
Added by Martin Cassini on June 28, 2009 at 15:55 —
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Will our JET ever see lift-off? At a junction where lights failed and congestion disappeared, only to reappear when the lights were back on, we are proposing a lights v no-lights Junction Efficiency Trial to see what happens long term when people are left to their own devices. But officials are calling for signs at every single approach telling drivers and pedestrians to look both ways and beware, as if they wouldn't do so anyway! The thought of distracting signage defeating the object by…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 26, 2009 at 12:30 —
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According to DfT statistics, the number of people killed on UK roads is at a record low. In 2008, there were 28,567 KSIs (killed or seriously injured), 7% down on 07. Despite that unspeakable annual toll of dead, injured and affected, these figures are publicly welcomed. On FiT Roads - where equality would bring a culture of "After you" rather than "Get out of my way!" - there might be no KSIs at all. Any accidents that might occur would be true accidents, down to human error alone, not events…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 25, 2009 at 13:30 —
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Jonathan Glancey (Guardian 20.6.09) recommends Ruskin's Unto The Last as essential reading for politicians. "Political economy is not a mechanism, it's an organism." I couldn't help seeing a parallel with our unjust traffic control system. Traffic engineers see humanity as chaos to be ordered and mechanised. Would it function better if it were seen as an organism and free to self-organise? You can guess my view. Bring on the JET (Junction Efficiency Trial) to prove it right or wrong!
Added by Martin Cassini on June 20, 2009 at 22:00 —
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Taking it in turns – it’s how we behave as social beings. Main road priority, on which the traffic system is based, subverts the natural order. It imposes unfair rights-of-way, and puts the vulnerable road-user at a dangerous disadvantage. Most accidents are not accidents at all. They are events contrived by the rules of the road. Traffic lights exist to break the priority streams of traffic so that others can cross. Like other control measures that try to undo the damage caused by the original…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 17, 2009 at 14:30 —
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May has it about right when he says, "I've always believed that society should have as few rules as possible ... In May's world there'd be only one law: don't be a prat. That actually covers everything. Not paying your tax is being a prat. Neglecting your children is being a prat. Doing 100mph through a town centre is being a prat. As long as you're not a prat, you can do what you like." - It's another way of saying, "Be considerate", which is what the vast majority are when free to choose.…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 17, 2009 at 13:30 —
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An article in the New York Times about artificial intelligence (31.5.09) concludes with a quote from Dr Henry Baird, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. "Machines' abilities are slowly improving, but there is still a huge gap between human inborn perceptual abilities and machine skills." Yet traffic engineers and policymakers still refuse to trust us and insist on controlling our every move.
Added by Martin Cassini on June 17, 2009 at 11:00 —
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If we needed an anthem for FiT Roads and the culture of cooperation, it could be
We Can Work It Out (McCartney/Beatles). Or
One Love (Marley), which you can see by Playing for Change
here.
Added by Martin Cassini on June 16, 2009 at 20:13 —
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Freedom from traffic controls could bring safe, happy roads. When we're free to act naturally, we get along fine. Take away signals, abolish priority, and we'd soon get into the groove. Sweet music, like
this. (Back tab to return.)
Added by Martin Cassini on June 16, 2009 at 17:00 —
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At a meeting with a council to discuss a JET, the question arose, What if there's a fatal accident during the lights-off phase of the trial? The council leader is a man of action, so I hope he won't let the fear factor deter him. Lights take our eyes off the road and encourage speed: a recipe for danger. But when lights break down and there is no priority, we approach carefully and watch the road: a recipe for safety. A traffic engineer asked if I would take responsibility for a death under…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 16, 2009 at 14:30 —
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Today's story about traffic pollution damaging lung function in children is not new. Despite the work that many of us are doing, the authorities fail to take note, let alone action. Under Livingstone, it was TfL's duty to reduce seven key emissions, but he choked traffic flow with hundreds of new traffic lights, and left lights operating even when side roads were closed. Policymakers continue to preside over a system of grotesque inefficiency and waste. One of the points made in my 2007 article…
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Added by Martin Cassini on June 9, 2009 at 22:00 —
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WMD & D (2)
