George Monbiot has an idea of how to make it impossible to break the speed limit by utilising the black boxes needed to police congestion charges. It would probably cut road deaths, but I don’t believe it would be the cure all he imagines.
I always stick to the speed limit in 30 and 40 mph zones, but sometimes my mind wanders. Just imagine if drivers didn’t even have to concentrate on keeping to a certain speed. Knowing the machine was doing it for them, they’d start checking out the shop windows and other cars and completely fail to spot the person stepping out in front of them. And you’d still get the idiots who insisted on pushing the maximum speed allowed even when common sense dictated they should be doing less. The scheme could displace pedestrian deaths from places where speed kills to ones where distraction kills.
Ha, well spotted. The obvious solution is to move all shops and distractions out of sight. Also the use of electric fences along the road side would deter would-be roadkill from straying into the path of any Kensington Tractors. In fact mild electric shocks could be used in-car for when drivers eyes stray from the road. Maybe I need to go and have a lie down…
I’d be all for banning cars completely.
Less controversially, how about making the congestion charge higher for short journeys? Make the rate per mile proportionally lower for longer journeys, so that it costs as much, charge wise, to go 2 miles as it does to go, say, 30. The statistic is that 25% of car journeys are less than 2 miles, which is pathetic, and they wonder why the country is getting fatter.
I’d also like to see people take some sort of mandatory cycling test within a few months of getting their licence. This would involve an on-the-road section where they could see all the bad driving habits they should avoid. There’s nothing like having a car go past at 30 only a couple of inches away from you to sharpen the mind.