> First, get rid of speed bumps. It is ridiculous in 2025 to limit car speed by making roads unpleasant. Second, it’s time to make speed cameras properly Bayesian: every time you drive past a camera at a legal speed, you should earn points which you can redeem against future offences. When you think about this a little, it’s not quite as mad as it first sounds.
Speed bumps are a symptom of bad transit design. They mean the road was designed to encourage faster traffic than is appropriate, eg, a broad flat road feels pleasant at a high speed, even if that road passes next to a primary school where the law mandates a lower speed in order to reduce the rate of child slaughter.
As I understand it, the UK has already spent the last 60 years making the roads more pleasant for drivers, to the detriment of other road users (those walking, cycling, taking mass transit, etc.) and many of those living next to roads. Will the hedonic treadmill (hedonic highway?) for car ownership ever stop?
There are roads through towns and villages which are hundreds of years old, and not designed for the traffic. Towns where houses needed special barriers added because drivers keep crashing their cars into the walls, as two lanes of car traffic can only barely fit down a lane earlier used for horse-drawn carts.
The Tories should order these buildings torn as they also make the roads unpleasant. /s
Second, the point system is easily gamed - drive in circles past a camera to build up points.
And of course there isn't a hint about the environmental costs of encouraging more driving.
eesmith•4mo ago
> First, get rid of speed bumps. It is ridiculous in 2025 to limit car speed by making roads unpleasant. Second, it’s time to make speed cameras properly Bayesian: every time you drive past a camera at a legal speed, you should earn points which you can redeem against future offences. When you think about this a little, it’s not quite as mad as it first sounds.
Speed bumps are a symptom of bad transit design. They mean the road was designed to encourage faster traffic than is appropriate, eg, a broad flat road feels pleasant at a high speed, even if that road passes next to a primary school where the law mandates a lower speed in order to reduce the rate of child slaughter.
As I understand it, the UK has already spent the last 60 years making the roads more pleasant for drivers, to the detriment of other road users (those walking, cycling, taking mass transit, etc.) and many of those living next to roads. Will the hedonic treadmill (hedonic highway?) for car ownership ever stop?
There are roads through towns and villages which are hundreds of years old, and not designed for the traffic. Towns where houses needed special barriers added because drivers keep crashing their cars into the walls, as two lanes of car traffic can only barely fit down a lane earlier used for horse-drawn carts.
The Tories should order these buildings torn as they also make the roads unpleasant. /s
Second, the point system is easily gamed - drive in circles past a camera to build up points.
And of course there isn't a hint about the environmental costs of encouraging more driving.