James May: Traffic Engineering

[Fidgits]

Taken from a recent Daily Telegraph, Top Gears James May on Traffic Engineering:

This week I am indebted to a Mr Brownridge, who, in what must have been a very bored moment (since he wasn't being paid for it), has penned me a treatise of medieval density on the subject of traffic engineering. "What's it all for?" he wails, or at least I sense wailing in his outraged reversion to block capitals.

He refers not, of course, to the business of building roads and bridges, all of which is noble stuff. He means those devices used by local councils deliberately to frustrate the flow of traffic - extraneous lights, speed humps, one-way priority restrictions built for no apparent reason into perfectly wide roads, advanced stop lines for bicycles and so on; all of them approved by the same officials who, at a later meeting, will no doubt stand up to pronounce that congestion is ruining the local community. Something must be done.

Fortunately, I have a few ideas. As a man who believes fervently that society should strive for as few controls and regulations as possible, rather than as many as we can dream up, I would get rid of at least 75 per cent of the traffic lights in my area - at one junction, the approaching motorist can see 12 poles of lights in one go. We might as well have a permanent firework display.

I know it's a cliché that the traffic flows better when the lights break down, but it is also often absolutely true. The business of traffic management should be wrested from pesky, meddling theorists and placed in the hands of those whose concern it is - the road users. A surgeon recently told me that he regarded surgery as a last resort, a sign of the medical profession's failure to persuade the body to heal itself. Traffic lights should be viewed in the same way.

Even pelican crossings would come in for severe scrutiny if I were running England. The zebra works better, because the cars stop only when someone is crossing the road, rather than when some urchin has pressed the button and run away.

Some of my neighbours are actually campaigning to have the timing of a nearby pelican changed, for the benefit of the old and infirm, who take longer to cross. Why not just ask for a zebra? Then they can take as long as they like. I can simply slow a bit to let a student from the nearby Rambert Dance Company skip lightly across, or come to a complete halt, apply the handbrake and fiddle with the radio while an old dear sallies forth on the great and arduous journey to the Other Side.

And before you ask, a zebra crossing even works for the blind. Once they've found it, we will see them and stop. All it takes is for someone to lower the window and say, "Off you go, mate," and the system works perfectly. Why should the sightless man trust a red light more than humankind's innate wit? Make drivers take responsibility for when people cross and they will do it perfectly well.

There's more. Some years ago, a colleague came up with a theory that all car mechanics are aliens, sent to earth to spread confusion in advance of an invasion by talking pure Vulcan to the population. The whole thing stacked up rather nicely. In fact, Houston would have only one problem with it - how did they get here?

I can now reveal less that they arrived in small flying saucers that were parked at T-junctions and disguised as mini roundabouts. I realised this when I asked myself what the mini roundabouts were for, and noticed that they served no purpose whatsoever.

What was originally the main road is still instinctively perceived as such by drivers, and those on the minor road still wait until the main one is clear. This is exactly what happened under the old "Give Way" system, so every mini roundabout amounts to a waste of tens of thousands of pounds that could have been spent on park benches or hospitals.

In any case, anyone who knows anything about space will tell you that a straight road is a roundabout of infinite radius.

[Rillo]

spot on! :D

[Andy_F]

Good stuff that.

[Jiberjaber]

What a load of un-informed journo rubish he spouts!... he has certainly gone down in my estimation........ how he can get TE mixed up with TP for a start! never mind.