Saturday 14 November 2009

Campaign against red lights

We've decided to copy the other local media outlets and MPs hoping to be reelected, by starting to campaign against red lights. As the evening post rightfully points out, cars, buses, bicycles and pedestrians just need to get on better. That means you, pedestrians -stop blocking our way.

Rather than go through various committees, we are going to advocate ignoring red lights completely. Here's a start on Stokes Croft, as viewed from Ashley Road. You can see from the cars in the sprint-finish when the lights on the croft change, and then it all goes quiet as pedestrians get their 20 seconds.



You can hear an ambulance coming, which forces drivers to give way. What to do? Pull forwards into the junction? You could be blocking it. So S57HBW solves the problem by turning off the road, going over the green man.

Notice how some of the pedestrians were not looking around while they crossed on the green man; many had hoods on, others umbrellas. After the car has crossed, someone runs across -talking on a phone. That's dangerous; if she'd been hit she'd have been another "pedestrian on the phone" statistic. If troublemakers like Crap Cycling in Waltham Forest can go on about car drivers on the phone, we should be able to denounce pedestrians walking dangerously.

That's the kind of give and take we need: they give us the right to turn while they have the green man, and we take it.

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