All Blog Posts (375)

How does Westminster Council justify new "instant contravention" powers allowing wardens to nab motorists who stop for seconds? "To deter unlicensed cabbies". Where is the protection for you and me? We can appeal if we feel we have a case. How reassuring. Thus do the traffic authorities grow their tentacles and truss us up, ever tighter.

Unerringly, the "debate" on Today about Spain reducing its national speed limit from 75 to 68mph "to conserve fuel" missed the point. George Monbiot claimed, spuriously, that "going faster means more noise", and Tiff Needell complained, reasonably, about loss of choice. Surely the real point is about the vanity of one-size-fits-all "solutions". It’s not speed that counts, it’s revs. If…

Most junctions could be safe civilised spaces, but they are dehumanised by traffic experts. Instead of harnessing our instinct to take it in turns based on time of arrival, they make us live and die by rules of priority which impose unequal rights, make roads dangerous, and produce a "need" for traffic controls. It’s a circular argument incorporating a dead end. Government…

Football and traffic regulation have plenty in common. Their governing bodies are both anti-freedom and antediluvian. Both are scandalously overdue for reform. On the roads, we could replace regulation and control with one rule: drive on the left; and two bits of advice: take it in turns and mind how you go. "Accidents" would virtually disappear, but in the event of a disputed…

Chris Kelly reminded me that Milton Keynes is installing signals at roundabout junctions which by all accounts used to flow perfectly well. A case of regression to the mean-spirited and counterproductive?

In today’s Guardian Weekend, Oliver Burkeman identifies leeway for choice as a key to the success of WeightWatchers. "Allowing people a feeling of autonomy rather than insisting on rigid meal plans makes it far likelier they’ll stick to the programme … we need this feeling of autonomy in order to thrive … its points system, while not a straitjacket, is still pretty strict – it’s the…

Thanks to Ian Perry for emailing this. It's about traffic lights out of action at Frideswide Sq, Oxford. Some road-users want lights left off, but others say over their dead body. (Who can blame them as long as the system is based on priority rather than…

"What don’t you like about traffic lights?" I was asked by The One Show’s Anita Rani in Portishead today for an item that is due to air tomorrow (Wed 2 March). "They make us stop when it’s safe to go. They take our eyes off the road. They encourage inappropriate speed, generate hostility, extend journey times. They deny infinite filtering opportunities and expressions of fellow…

A good anti-regulation piece by Richard…

I’m just back from a necessary drive across central London and back, made twice as long because of innumerable traffic lights that block progress, whether there is conflicting traffic or not. Every urban trip you make, on foot or on wheels, is plagued by impositions on your time and insults to your intelligence. As if we can’t decide for ourselves when it’s safe to go! Indeed, being…

The RAC has published a report about traffic lights. Among their "ideas" is amber-flashing lights off-peak, "so drivers can cross with caution". As mentioned before, this exposes the shocking assumption that with lights, we don’t need to exercise caution; all we need to do is obey the system, which usurps our judgement and turns us into unthinking robots. Obviously amber-flashing…

At major junctions at peak times there is a case for traffic lights. Otherwise, the case against them is far stronger. It’s richly ironic that so much public money goes on systems of control that seek to achieve what we can better deliver naturally.

Sniffer dogs take their cues from their handlers and can be misled; sophisticated neuro-imaging lie detectors are prone to being outfoxed. "I enjoy devices such as brain-scanning lie detectors and hi-tech sniffer dogs," writes Ben Goldacre in his Guardian column, "because their appeal speaks to our desire for simple mechanical explanations in a complex world." The parallel with…

This report proves "the Buchanan-Cassini hypothesis that at given junctions within a given road network, the removal of traffic control will bring universal benefits".

So seamless is the improperganda purveyed by road safety "experts", that it can produce these remarks in today’s Guardian about the road death of a child: "The victims and perpetrators in an accident are two parts of a whole," writes surviving sister, Kira Cochrane. "The dearth of communication [from the driver] was a wicked, vexed lacuna." No, the wickedness is the failure of…

The Standard reports a party thrown by BJ for outgoing TfL roads boss, David Brown (salary: £316,655 pa). An unnamed TfL spokesperson claimed Brown was "a first-class manager who has saved London £100s of millions". Funny, 1000 new sets of traffic lights, each costing £150,000 + running costs, sprang up under Brown’s watch. He refused to appear on my Newsnight report, and always…

FiT is not strict regulation, but an informal arrangement meaning filter more or less in turn. Point made in this hilarious spoof article.

In a commentary about the wave of protests in North Africa, Peter Beaumont in The Observer writes, "Corruption is often rife; a culture of repression is vigorous and deeply ingrained." These words apply equally to traffic control based on anti-social priority, intolerance, coercion and repression. Far-fetched? With thousands killed and tens of thousands hurt on our roads every year,…

If mobile phone use is banned because it takes our eyes off the road (I often ask), should traffic lights and speed cameras be banned for the same reason? Now simulator tests carried out at Kansas University show that using your mobile might make you a safer driver. The monotony of driving, say scientists, is itself a risk. 45 people who drove for 30mins while talking on the phone were…