| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Lower Richmond Road | |
| Posted by: | Richard Carter | |
| Date/Time: | 17/12/09 08:52:00 |
| Irrelevant question, Simon: a person can have a view on drivers whether or not he's a driver himself. But there's a bigger issue here that Matt has raised: it's to do with the way that cars have come to totally dominate our townscapes in a way that's not life-enhancing. Look at any pictures of Putney (or anywhere else in the country) from 50 years or more ago and you'll see what I mean: streets that are not clogged up, either side, with cars. Sure cars have brought benefits, personal mobility of a nature people wouldn't have guessed at before the car age, but they've also brought a terrible toll: 20,000 people killed and seriously injured every year in the country as a whole, and who knows what less obvious disadvantages. Who would now let their children play out on the street - not because of paedophiles (despite the obsessions of the Sun and the Daily Mail) but because of the danger of being knocked down by some idiot only concerned with getting somewhere - and for what? What we really need is a move towards safer streets, and a start would be 20 mph zones wherever people are around. Even better would be 'home zones' - residential areas where the onus is on the driver to be safe and an automatic assumption that it's the driver's fault if someone is hurt. That would induce a big change in drivers' attitudes, and we need that because we simply can't go on letting the car dominate our lives. |