I think we should organise a mass trolling effort!

I think you’re comitting a mopery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mopery

Oh god. I’m going to jail to be raped in the showers aren’t I..

I was a good boy today. I stopped at lights (they were red and it was very busy on the roads)

“wonders what it’s going to be like on the way home”

Me too. No close encounters with:

That minor annoyance aside, what do you think of the overall sentiment?

I did originally begin to contribute to this thread the other day as it’s a subject I find interesting, but I decided I couldn’t do with the aggro of the STW righteous crew, so I didn’t hit the post button. Instead I pasted the text here where nobody will read it. You can have a look if you’re interested.

I stopped at red lights this morning too. Last night I only had to stop at two sets, all the others were on green.. (“whoops!!!”)

I agree with the sentiment of the BBC article. Having driven in a few other places round the world the UK seems particularly obsessed with traffic lights and totally opposed to using them flexibly.

Good blog jackthedog

JTD I am totally disagreeing with you on the basis that you cite Apple in your blog and because your hero is Hans Moleman

Hopefully also you are who I think you are.

That is an acquired feeling of priority, not a natural one. It’s the legacy of a half century or more of a road network being designed to discourage natural human interaction and turn our day to day movements into a series of easily modelled binary interactions. We’ve ended up letting a system serve itself first and us second.

I’ve been following the shared space concept for some years and have watched its profile grow massively. What was a niche thing is now on the international table as a potential and logical way forward. It seems we’re finally starting to realise the lessons we’ve been taught by our past mistakes, and slowly we might start to see them being followed.

It would certainly be a shame if we ignored the solutions that evidence has shown to work, and instead continued to legislate and signpost and road mark and segregate ourselves into frustrated, unproductive and senseless oblivion just because we don’t have faith in our human capacity to unlearn illogical, inhuman habits and return to our natural state.

Even if it transpired, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it has been a one way journey and we’re all helplessly beyond the point of no-return, incapable of dealing with sudden responsibility ourselves for the rest of our driving lives, it will only take the passing of our baffled generation to sort itself out. Though I assume nobody would think themselves, their friends or families as baffled – just the idiot mentalists in other cars, those other people, other people’s friends or other people’s families. Basically everyone who isn’t us.

We’re all so scared of one another. Of course we are – none of us are allowed to behave naturally. That’s what needs to change, and it’s easily done. And like every technological or social advancement, the majority will dismiss and resent and resist it at every turn until the the day they start taking it for granted.

Shit, seems I just took my lunch break. I can’t help myself.

20 mph limits means far far less need for traffic lights – because at 20 mph cars can negotiate and compromise on junctions with other vehicles. There is also far less need to overtake bicycles

We do suffer from a lot of bad road design in the uk as well.

Jackthedog – I agree

Junkyard – it works wherever it has been introduced. Needs a flexible and imaginative approach to road engineering tho

I tried to cover that point in my post. They aren’t because they’re positively encouraged not to be by the current environment.

In a system that encourages reason, kindness and consideration, they will be all three. Humans aren’t stupid. They’re just currently trapped in a situation that requires them to be stupid.

Isn’t that the real problem. People who can make decisions about town and city planning are unsure and un-dynamic as decision makers so the problem just continues as no one will make the initial change. I know one t&c planner and he is a right straight laced non forward thinking idiot (for want of a better word) and if everyone who works in his office is like that no real decisions will ever be made subsequently no progress will be made.

The nature of Gaussian distribution means that 50% have less than average intelligence – unfortunately average intelligence is pretty shoddy to start with.

TJ like Mexico city, Delhi, Cairo etc?

A crowded shopping street of pedestrians – whilst it can get fractious with the mass of people – its nothing like the daily anger and confrontation on the roads in our cities.

You’d have redesign cars. Its not the difference between a road and a shopping precinct – it’s people in their protective bubble of steel.

I’m finding myself totally agreeing with Jackthedog.

A few examples come to mind.

Commuting in the car#1 – junctions with the lights out work better, I’ve seen this a few times even at really busy junctions, people just get on with it. Without the lights to think for them they are forced to think for themselves and generally slow down, act cautiously and fairly.

Commuting in the car#2 – I like it when cyclist RLJ or proceed before the lights change. It actaully minimises conflict between the cars and bike instead of both the car and the bike moving of together you pass the bike furthr down the road when both of you are up to speed.

Riding the bike through town – Pedestrians ignoring the “red man” at crossings winds me up, I have a green light and therefore “priority” if i stop at the red so should they? Take away the system of lights and we would just get on with it.

It can work

I can show Danny Mac on a bnike aand show you that it works to balance on rails buT iw opuld not encourage it for all

You cannot comapre here to Holland for Bike related issues due to entirely different cultures re Bike use.

I am not saying it would not or could not work I am just not sure you can plant something from abroad to here when the attitudes are different to start with

It would be an interesting transition

I wish i had JTD view but I tend to think peole are selfish bastards interested in theior own welfare and saving 3 seconds of time becaus ethat is how they are rather then th eroad smake them behave like that.
I would be delighted to be wrong and see brotherly love, peace and cooperation burst on to our unmarked un trafic lighted roads.

I am not saying it would not or could not work I am just not sure you can plant something from abroad to here when the attitudes are different to start with

Cultures are created and attitudes formed by the things we plant. To shift them you just have to plant the right thing, and so far we haven’t.

Once it was acceptable to drink drive, to smoke near babies, to consider women second class citizens and to have a thriving slave trade. Times change, and not long after they do we wonder with amazement how we ever got things so wrong before.

I wasn’t I was judging from the 50% mark down (and even up for that matter).

which is my point t&c planners like the one I’m thinking of don’t ever challenge the status quo or even consider that it may be wrong.

for anything

Their attitude to bike in particular represents an entirely different attitude to a whole host of issues. One of them being their attitude towards oil. Which I believe is at the heart of our problem and Hollands enlightenment. Even more so than safety of children/citizens which is often cited as the reason for the push bike-centric culture.