I’ve been checked right out of the internet while some intensely distracting real-life drama is resolved one way or the other. It’s rather liberating in an “I have not the slightest clue what is going on about anything” kind of way. The wife had to tell me why everyone was looking for that moody-looking moon-faced bloke whose all over the news.
Anyway, this post comes once again as a result of discussions with My Mate Dave (who I’m the de facto mouthpiece for until I have any ideas of my own and life gets off my case. Seriously, ask Al Jahom – I’m a total IRL drag at the moment). Roll Dave:
Pointless fact: In 1930 the speed limit everywhere in Britain was 20mph. In that year the Road Traffic Act of 1930 abolished all speed limits. The reason for this was was explained by ex-Lord Chancellor Lord Buckmaster as: "the existing speed limit was so universally disobeyed that its maintenance brought the law into contempt".
The logic holds true today. I'm generally law abiding, except with respect to traffic regulation. It started with the speed limit and has evolved into a more general contempt. As an Italian guy said on TV once: "if there was a crossing with a red light, but nobody was crossing, wouldn't it be incredibly stupid to stop?".
The 70mph limit can't be all that important to road safety because everyone ignores it and we have the safest roads in Europe.
Well, quite. I’m –somewhat tangentially- minded of this article in Wired from a few years back which mentioned the Dutch town Drachten, which did away with road markings, warning signs and traffic lights and saw it’s accident rate plummet to nothing:
Monderman and I stand in silence by the side of the road a few minutes, watching the stream of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians make their way through the circle, a giant concrete mixing bowl of transport. Somehow it all works. The drivers slow to gauge the intentions of crossing bicyclists and walkers. Negotiations over right-of-way are made through fleeting eye contact. Remarkably, traffic moves smoothly around the circle with hardly a brake screeching, horn honking, or obscene gesture. "I love it!" Monderman says at last. "Pedestrians and cyclists used to avoid this place, but now, as you see, the cars look out for the cyclists, the cyclists look out for the pedestrians, and everyone looks out for each other. You can't expect traffic signs and street markings to encourage that sort of behavior. You have to build it into the design of the road."
Sounds like a plan. Build the road so as to encourage driver/user awareness of themselves and others, maintain the burden of personal responsibility, and hopefully self-preservation will make people into better drivers. Makes sense to me at least. Either that or 20mph speed limits everywhere and somehow even more cameras, I mean finding some uncovered inches of public space in which to plant more surveillance is always a giggle.
To be fair, at least the DfT told that minister to get tae fook on the speed limit front, but still…FFS.
