Successful dieting and FiT Roads

[Martin Cassini]

In today’s Guardian Weekend, Oliver Burkeman identifies leeway for choice as a key to the success of WeightWatchers. "Allowing people a feeling of autonomy rather than insisting on rigid meal plans makes it far likelier they’ll stick to the programme … we need this feeling of autonomy in order to thrive … its points system, while not a straitjacket, is still pretty strict – it’s the wiggle-room that makes the difference." Parallels with life on the roads are clear. It beats me how the subjugation of human behaviour to inflexible systems – symbolised by the red light and the fixed speed limit – is enshrined in the law of the land.