A near miss

[Martin Cassini]

Outside Lambeth North tube this evening, as I was about to cross the road, a bus come to a stop in the left-hand lane just short of the traffic light. A guy had already started to cross in front of the bus, apparently unaware that the (shaded) traffic light was green. He must have assumed the light was red because the bus was stationary. I began to follow him, but an instinct prompted me to hold back and call out, "Careful!" At that instant, a BMW sped past in the outside lane, missing the guy by a whisker. It was another example of how the rules of the road put us in mortal danger. There is a fatal disconnect between what's happening on a social level, and what's happening on a control level. At the risk of repetition, accidents are not accidents. They are events contrived by the rules and design of the road.