War on our roads
The biggest indictment of the current system? It makes children responsible for road safety. They are forced to learn age-inappropriate road safety drill to help them survive on roads make lethal by the rule of priority. Priority grants ownership of the road to main road drivers. It tells them to neglect side roads, and ignore people on foot wanting to cross. Regardless who was there first, toddlers and children must wait - at the ideal level to inhale the particulate matter that lodges in the bloodstream, damaging lung function and brain development in children, and killing us all softly and invisibly.
Peace on our roads
Scrapping priority enables all road-users to merge sociably in turn at low speeds. Low speeds mean low revs and low emissions. Freedom to go on opportunity avoids the stop-start-stop-restart drive cycle produced by traffic control, which maximises emissions. Filtering at low revs cuts fuel use and emissions by a factor of no less than 29. Instead of blighting streets with traffic lights - those weapons of mass distraction, danger and delay, those symbols of a dysfunctional system - we should rewrite the rulebook and reform the driving test, putting sociable interaction and equality at their heart.
