All Blog Posts (375)

The following comment appeared on my YouTube channel (mjcassini): "I was travelling with a friend and his young daughter. She asked what the red light meant. He said, Stop. And green? He said, Go. And yellow? GO FASTER! I laugh at the joke, but also the fact that it is what a lot of people do. Later, of course, he explained what it really meant."

It goes without saying there are too many cycling deaths on our roads, and the idea of extra mirrors to boost lorry driver awareness of cyclists is welcome. I'm not one of those who call for segregated cycle lanes – I'm for integration on Equality Streets. But last night I nearly became another statistic. Cycling back to central London through Oakley Square in Camden, as I pulled out…

If the Big Society is about less government and more personal responsibility, why does the state persist in usurping our judgement and demanding bovine obedience on the road?

Lollipop men and women facing the axe from council cuts have sparked claims that children will face greater danger as a result. In 2009, twelve under-18s were killed or hurt on UK roads every day. Prof John Wann of Holloway College says that children's perception of speed is undeveloped (is that stating the obvious?) Like Brake, he wants more regulation. They see the…

"Mubarak’s resignation is the greatest day of my life!" said El Baradei, "It marks release from 30 years of oppression." Maybe, but don’t succeeding governments find different ways to oppress us? I don’t want to downplay the news from Egypt or overplay my campaign for traffic system reform, but when you consider that the annual casualty toll on UK roads alone is 28,000 (and I argue…

Last night’s Culture Show had a clip of the BBC Arts programme, Monitor, in which Huw Wheldon asked Orson Welles, "You had never made a film before, so where did you get the confidence to make Citizen Kane?" Welles replied, "Ignorance!" Commenting on the clip, Stephen Frears said, "The more you know about a subject, the more aware you are of the problems, and the less adventurous you…

Pursuit of what is "sensible, just, right and proper" was stated by an MP as motivation for rejecting EU guidance on voting rights for prisoners. Yet MPs back a traffic control system which endangers life, subverts our social nature, and puts the onus on children to beware motorists. What is "sensible, just, right and proper" about that? In deferring so abjectly to traffic "experts",…

Goldsmith’s graduate, Daniel Cox, 28, was hit by a truck at the junction of Dalston Lane and Kingsland Road in East London last Wednesday and died on Friday. If instead of priority and signal control, we had equality and sociable filtering, would he be alive and unscathed today?

From Metro (leg-pull?): As Ben Fogle waited at a red light, he was threatened with a parking fine because his stop-start eco engine was inactive.

Manchester Council is closing libraries, swimming pools and public toilets to meet budget cuts, but it’s OK: traffic lights will continue to operate (to general detriment) as usual.

Sometimes I comment at the end of articles that hit my Inbox, like the following in response to this about the NYPD cracking down on cyclists who run red lights. "So much blame going back and forth! The real culprits are policymakers who force us to live and die by a flawed system. Why do we "need"…

In his new film, I Am, Tom (Liar, Liar) Shadyac, who gave away most of his Hollywood millions, explores the idea that our materialistic way of life goes against our true nature, which is to co-operate and unite. He wants to show that the power to change things lies in our own hands. Readers will see parallels with FiT…

Funny how ideas travel full circle. Post new-Labour thinking is in reaction to the statism of Brown and the legislative mania of Blair. Politics lecturer, peer, and adviser to Ed Miliband, Maurice Glasman, sees the "big society" as the rightful territory of traditional Labour, because, alone among the parties, Labour’s values are…

Re the Guide Dogs Association for the Blind in the Telegraph: in the inimitable line uttered by the chain gang boss in Cool Hand Luke, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." From Boris…

Traffic regulation takes legal precedence over equality and social custom. Instead of being able to respond to social and spatial prompts in the world about us, we must obey a context of regulation and reprisal. Instead of a sociable, "After you," we are wound up into thinking, "Get out of my way!" How much longer are we going to put up with manipulation by overpaid, unaccountable regulators lording it over us and making us dance to their…

Comment on my mjcassini YouTube channel: "I am a police officer in a large town in Western Australia with a population of approx 32,000 people. We have countless roundabouts and not one traffic light. These roundabouts keep traffic moving and drivers only have to 'give way' to traffic in one direction, so are far safer. Sure, there are minor bumps, mainly caused by inattention or inconsiderate driving, but the number of serious or fatal…

Never expected to quote Meg Ryan in relation to traffic system reform, but her comment about the value of "mindfulness meditation" (today's Observer) is apt: "by simply refocusing our awareness, we reshape our experience." The awareness that needs refocusing on the road is from priority to equality, which will level the playing field and allow all road-users to interact sociably and safely. Article…

In a typically alarmist manner that missed the real point by a mile, Torquay’s Herald Express warned of trouble at the junction of Torbay Road and Shedden Hill where "traffic lights have been out of action since December 20". As is often the case in these situations, the opposite was true. No lights meant no trouble, as evidenced by this typical reader's comment: "I've been past that junction several times since the lights were out of…

Online exchange re Road to Nowhere videos (at my mjcassini YouTube channel): 'janhanjanhan' wrote, "Removing lights can only work for intersections with little traffic where lights make us stop when it's safe to go (as said in Part 1). Removing lights from major intersections would result in chaos - everyone would block each other in the intersection, or just one direction would…