February 20, 2008

Years ago, when journalists had typewriters, they had to think very carefully about their intro before launching into their article otherwise they’d have to screw it up and start again. Now, we can bash whatever rubbish we like down on the screen, see if it works, delete it and start again.

Technology has made us lazy and too many machines do our thinking for us. From microwaves cooking our meals to satnavs telling us where to go, it’s all getting easier and easier, and as a result we’re using our brains less and less.

On the road, we can’t afford to make mistakes like a lazy journalist experimenting with his intro, we have to get it right. Yet technology is all around us, overriding our own common sense and turning us into driving androids.

Is this really the best way?

Apparently not, according to a new study that says we are better off without traffic lights and white lines and pedestrian crossings and everything else that is supposed to make driving easier and safer.

The report, called Travel is Good, by the County Surveyors Society, is even being adopted by the Tories who are planning on implementing many of its suggestions if they get into power. It borrows heavily from the ‘naked streets’ theory and proposes that we strip our roads of lights and signs so that we start engaging our brains once again.

It says: “Paradoxically, creating barriers and divisions may worsen safety because drivers and riders feel more confident and speed up, despite the limitations on the speed at which the human mind can take in the amount of information now displayed on our roads. The human response to increased in-car and on-road safety may be to increase risky behaviour.”

At first it sounds crazy, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea, especially after reading some impressive stats.

In the Dutch town of Drachten the removal of traffic lights at one big junction resulted in crashes falling from 36 in the four years before the scheme was introduced to two in the next two years. The average time for each vehicle to cross the junction fell from 50 seconds to 30 seconds despite a rise in the volume of traffic.

In Kensington High Street, West London, fewer pedestrians are being injured after almost 600 metres of railings were removed to allow people to cross where they liked. In the two years since they were removed, pedestrian casualties declined three times faster than the capital’s average. Traffic engineers believe that drivers are keeping a sharper eye out for pedestrians because they may cross at any point.

I mean, think about it. You would never speed across a junction without traffic lights. I’ve driven across one of the busiest junctions in London - where Tower Bridge meets the Highway - when the traffic lights were broken. Cars crept across, slowly and steadily, allowing each other to go, one at a time from each direction, like a well behaved queue entering a theatre.

You see, people know that if they don’t concentrate and keep an eye out for every hazard, be it other cars or pedestrians, they’ll crash. So they think bloody hard and it works.

But if there are traffic lights in place and they go green, we floor the accelerator assuming all is going to be clear. They don’t consider the idiot cyclist who’s slow crossing the junction, or a distracted pedestrian.

So bring it on.

Let’s strip the streets bare and trust drivers to think for themselves. It might even get London moving again.

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