Britain is breaching the UN Convention on the rights of the child, says the Children's Rights Alliance for Europe. It is the most punitive nation in Europe, with child protection services unfit for purpose. "We punish children through the courts for things that were once seen as pranks," says Dr Mike Lindsay. "Six children were given Asbos for climbing a tree in Gloucester. We seem to want to criminalise and punish everyone." He is calling for an overhaul of the juvenile justice system.…
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Added by Martin Cassini on November 15, 2009 at 11:30 —
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On the Today programme, scientist and author of The Master and his Emissary, Dr Iain McGilchrist, talked about the role and function of the brain. He deplored the destructive intrusion of compliance, regulation and other mechanisms into our lives, which interrupt the flow, and waste our potential for creative thinking (or words to that effect). Highly relevant to traffic control which wrecks the organic nature of social interaction.
Added by Martin Cassini on November 14, 2009 at 14:30 —
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In a new game devised by traffic engineers, drivers in Camden will be "rewarded" for doing 20mph by getting three green lights in a row, and "speeders" will be punished with a red. Not sure how it will work in different traffic volumes, or how they will stop "speeders" without stopping non-speeders in the same wave. Of course there would be no need for such games if we were free to act according to context, unmolested by "experts".
Added by Martin Cassini on November 12, 2009 at 22:00 —
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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.
Added by Martin Cassini on November 10, 2009 at 14:30 —
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More background on the Bristol lights-out campaign and my involvement
here. [Back tab to return to site.] They edited out the crux of what I had to say, viz. that lights are only a symptom of the underlying cause of most of our problems on the road: priority. Replace the skewed system of priority with equality, and most of our problems will vanish in a puff of…
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Added by Martin Cassini on November 7, 2009 at 10:00 —
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In
Errornomics, Pulitzer winner Joseph Hallinan says that Hudson Bay pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, credits his team for helping bring the plane in. Instead of one chief, there was a group of equals. “As a result, it’s proven you make far fewer errors.” Similarly, if nurses stop seeing surgeons as superior beings and speak up if they see something wrong, it reduces errors. There is a clear parallel with life and death on the road. In removing responsibility and treating us as subservient…
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Added by Martin Cassini on November 4, 2009 at 11:00 —
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While Boris and Westminster congratulate themselves on obvious pedestrian improvements to Oxford Circus (costing £5m) – marking diagonal as well as right-angle crossings – Oxford Street and the rest of London continue to fume at innumerable unnecessary lights. The other day I was in a bus on an Oxford St crammed as always with bumper-to-bumper diesel buses. At one junction we had to wait for three complete signal cycles before we got out of the junction. Why? Because the "experts" who run and…
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Added by Martin Cassini on November 2, 2009 at 19:00 —
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Tomorrow's Sunday Times is covering Bristol's plans to follow Portishead in switching off lights at a number of junctions. It was inevitable that as soon as one trial showed that we're better off left to our own devices, others would follow. The bandwagon is rolling. But as I've said in a piece for the Bristol Evening Post, lights are only the
symptom of the underlying
cause of our problems on the road: priority. Priority imposes unequal rights, it sets the stage for competitive…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 31, 2009 at 17:30 —
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It's unlikely Shaw was thinking of traffic controls, but this is pertinent: "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." Twenty years ago I worked with John Tagholm on a TV proposal called
Experts can be bad for you. It challenged the medical, legal and planning professions. For the last ten years, I've challenged traffic 'experts'. Yesterday a traffic engineer suggested I didn't understand the complexities. The complexities of a system you promote? I asked. If the 'experts'…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 17, 2009 at 10:30 —
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Another piece by the Bristol Evening Post (link at end) quotes Councillor David Pasley’s surprise at how well things have gone since the lights were switched off in Portishead. An angry man just posted the following comment (I think he’s angry because he’s been saying this stuff for years, and now, with virtually no reference, and certainly no payment to him, other people are shouting Eureka!). - Not everyone was amazed at the improvements brought about by switching off traffic lights in…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 16, 2009 at 11:33 —
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My campaign is spreading, particularly to Bristol.
Article here. They still seem to miss the fundamental point about priority, which makes roads dangerous in the first place and produces a "need" for lights - at least it wasn't picked up by anyone else on BBC Radio Bristol this morning where I was asked to appear.
Added by Martin Cassini on October 15, 2009 at 10:10 —
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Traffic light de-commissioning in Portishead is "a terrific success" and spreading, not only to the town's two remaining lights - which would make Portishead the UK's first traffic light-free (and congestion-free) town - but to Weston-Super-Mare, where a big switch-off is in prospect, and to roundabouts at M5 exits from Weston to Bristol. This is partly about a successful challenge to 80 years of traffic policy and practice. Meanwhile, the country at large remains in the grip of high-cost…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 9, 2009 at 18:30 —
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Three weeks in, and the lights-off trial at the double junction in Portishead has reduced average journey times for all road-users from 240 to 20 seconds - a drop of 83%, with no adverse safety effects, indeed if anything an improvement. Engineers say it's early days and only demonstrates that no control works at this location. They would, wouldn't they? Extrapolate that 83% of saved time, fuel and emissions across the country, across the decades ..!
Added by Martin Cassini on October 3, 2009 at 12:00 —
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Day 2. For motorists it's a dream. Chronic consecutive queueing has given way to sociable simultaneous filtering. The congestion conjured by traffic controls has vanished into thin air. "It's a million times better," said the owner of an estate agency on the junction. "Fabulous," said Olivia Jackson, a passer-by, echoing the views of many. But Ken Rossiter, partially sighted, said driver re-education should have preceded the trial. My sentiments too: I proposed an accompanying public awareness…
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Added by Martin Cassini on September 15, 2009 at 20:00 —
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