Mobile phone use and traffic controls

[Martin Cassini]

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If mobile phone use is banned because it takes our eyes off the road, should traffic lights, speed cameras and speed limits be banned for the same reason? On our way back from Folkestone the other day, on the outskirts of London, we hit congestion. Almost invariably, the snag was traffic lights blocking natural flow. At the junction of Sidcup Rd and Court Rd we had to endure half-a-dozen signal changes before we got through. Like thousands of other junctions in London and across the land, that one is likely to work better under FiT (filter in turn). After finally getting across, in the queue coming the other way, we saw the result of a shunt – the grille of a Peugeot gaped open, its huge bumper lying ignominiously in the road. No doubt the driver would be blamed for a failure to concentrate. But the traffic control system is at least partly to blame for loading us with undue demands for attention. Our hands are already full with controlling our vehicle and avoiding collision with a million others, without the added burden of a control system breathing down our necks and beating us up if we put a wheel wrong. Traffic managers have a dark legacy to answer for, but they seem unaccountable. First they fail us by contriving a dangerous system based on anti-social priority. Then they devise a high-cost system of control to "solve" the defect of their own devising (having neglected our highly-evolved social skills and ability to make intelligent judgements). They treat us like sheep, then blame us when things go wrong. Where there could be harmony, they create discord. Even when the defects in the system are pointed out to them by critics like Martin Cassini, they find excuses for inaction. And, at public expense, they continue to get away with untold damage, inconvenience and waste. Are politicians listening? Do pigs fly?