I walked this morning to my regular Tai Chi practice with Dr John. And as I always do I came to the T-Junction at the top end of Ashley Road. There is an intricate system of traffic lights – you know the sort, with green arrows so that while one lane is on red, another parallel one can flow round the corner. Naturally, I pressed the Pedestrian button and waited for the lights to change and allow me to cross.
As always, this waiting takes quite a while as all the combinations of red, red-amber, green, green arrows in all directions, have to run their course. I noticed too how dangerous traffic lights were. They engendered a 'my-right-of-way-move now' sort of attitude as a couple of times somebody was beeped as they weren't quite fast enough off the mark for the tastes of the car behind. I sensed as well that people turned off their attention from driving because the light said stop or go, so there was less looking and listening. And certainly as I stood on that corner I saw the acceleration towards me of cars swerving desperately to get round and 'beat' the light before it changed. In fact the traffic lights positively seemed to make the traffic more dangerous, which, of course, is precisely the opposite of their intended function.
Why is this the unintended consequence of traffic lights? It is I think another example of that death by a thousand cuts which is our modern society. At every stage somebody must control our activities, for we cannot be allowed to control them ourselves. No, we could not possibly approach a T-Junction without traffic lights and manoeuvre our way round or across using common sense and courtesy, paying attention to the other cars, for that would be dangerous!
In the same way on trains – we used to be able to open a window, or actually pull a window down as the train pulled into the station and undo the lock of the door as it was still moving – oh! too dangerous – so now we are secured inside till the electronics buzz and we are allowed out: allowed out, not deciding we want to get out and can do something about it.
And if we want more on the law of unintended consequences, look at hospitals: the lethal bugs and infections due to in-sanitation were not a problem when responsibility rested firmly with matron and she had the authority and conviction to do something about it. Now of course with all the health and safety regulations, including the obviously sensible compulsory hand-washing for visitors, we still don't crack the issue. The idea seems to be: the system has dealt with the issue, so it has been dealt with – despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Attempts to create safety and security by by-passing human responsibility and decisive intervention are doomed to failure, and the saddest aspect of it of all is the infantilism it creates. The so-called nanny state is alive and well and dis-empowering at the deepest level. We need to resist it.
The Mapping Motivation Series 