Part 1: Roads unfit for people

Updated critique of traffic controls with proposals for change based on a trust in human nature rather than an obsession with controlling it. Includes clips from Newsnight report

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• traffic lights
• traffic system reform
• Martin Cassini
• mjcassini
• Susan Greenfield
• Hans Monderman

[mjcassini]

Seems a perfectly reasonable recommendation to me - with the added bonus of reducing your grudge and making you feel better disposed towards the world and your fellow travellers!

[mjcassini]

DMarksmanLima21 - yes, the self-serving system perpetuates the vicious circle (and the divide between Them and Us).

cyberpsygen7 - precisely, formal traffic control turns us into negligent automatons

[mjcassini]

furyofbongos - If my failed efforts to get successive governments to wise up and take action are anything to go by, you could be right

[carcabe]

It is a beautiful thing that free people can get along and cooperate much better than they do under state coercion. Thanks for posting.

[mjcassini]

@carcabe

Thanks for your comments

Martin (Cassini)

[law53ut]

Wonderful video & the studies that you have done are not a surprise. What is a surprise is that it is SO HARD to get the bureacracy to see it, accept it, change it. There are 2 many panels, too many further studies, no one in charge that dares to say yes. Political BS. How do we get thru that? I lived in Boston for 2 yrs, every one there was courteous and I never saw an accident. I came back to live in a western state & congestion and accidents galore. It was opposite of what you would expect.

[mjcassini]

@law53ut

Thanks for your comment. Yes, policymakers & traffic engineers have been ruling our lives for too long, failing in their duty to our time, health, quality of life and the planet. I've been pushing at the Berlin wall of the traffic control dictatorship for a decade. They are paying lip service, but still preside over an unfit system and find reasons for inaction. And they miss the wider context. Give me two years in a meaningful position! See cause on Facebook, Roads FiT for People.

[inlineschool]

I do not think this would work on all junctions by any means but lights should not be the default option.

[goPistons06]

it seems that traffic regulations are just another set of ineffective government regulations

[andrewh817]

@green6866 It depends on what you mean by a "workable solution". If workable means beneficial for city revenue and people who depend on that revenue, then obviously things are workable now.

But why would fewer lights be nice? What methodology are you using to determine where lights should and should not go?

[GeezerWithaGrudge]

I recommend that all the exhaust fumes created at stop lights be pumped into the offices of the state DOT. Either they'd clean up the mess they've made, or they'll suffocate. Either way, the rest of society wins.

[GeezerWithaGrudge]

I recommend that all the exhaust fumes created at stop lights be pumped into the offices of the state DOT. Either they'd clean up the mess they've made, or they'll suffocate. Either way, the rest of society wins.

[DMarksmanLima21]

In Huston Texas a study was made about the possible effects of traffic cameras on increased accidents. It was concluded that more accidents occur at intersections where cameras are installed. Increase of 33% and higher, if I remember right. So what does our governments do all over the USA. They start installing MORE traffic cameras! It's the increase in city government revenue that they see and nothing else!

[cyberpsygen7]

i think the green light makes me go through intersections without paying any kind of attention to what might be in the way.