Martin Cassini's Blog Posts Tagged 'control' (4)

No doubt traffic engineers puff with pride at their ability to apportion equal green time to the multiple movements at interchanges such as Vauxhall Cross and Trafalgar Square (6 secs per min). Does it bother them that their complex algorithms kill the rhythm of natural flow, meaning that at least half the time road-users are disadvantaged and needlessly delayed, including pedestrians…

Continue

Government road safety adviser, Robert Gifford, is trying to get drivers to behave better through a Think! campaign. Guess what. He doesn't propose extending our freedom to think! The role of control in corroding sociability on our roads has never been studied. Who will give me a grant to study it?

On Today, Conran CEO, Roger Mavity, said finance directors tend not to make good CEOs. FDs are an important part of the team, but you need energy and caution. A well-designed car has one brake and one accelerator. Two brakes and no accelerator makes an unexciting journey. Applied to politics? It does feel as if former Chancellor, Gordon Brown, now PM, has a brake under both feet. Good FDs are better at controlling than creating. You need a balance between the two skills. Nothing… Continue

In 45 years of using White City roundabout (below the Westway), I've never seen congestion or an accident. Saturday 7 Nov 09 is the first time I've seen it with the shiny new signals "working". Congestion. And a crashed abandoned car. How do the authorities justify expenditure when it causes delay and harm? The traffic control dictatorship is alive and well, and we all suffer the consequences of its unchecked intrusion into our lives.