We are constantly being reminding of how dangerous our roads are. Every day, there's another news story about multiple motorway pile-ups, road-rage attacks, and failing brakes in brand-new Toyotas. The Sun newspaper claims that 'it's total carnage out there!' while The Guardian think it's simply 'a matter for considerable concern'. But everyone agrees that driving isn't nearly as safe as sitting in your own front room with a cup of Earl Grey and a Rich Tea (or a rich banker!). As a result, inner-city speed limits are being slashed faster than shop prices to the extent where it's difficult to tell if a car is actually moving or not, and using a mobile phone while driving carries a maximum penalty of 25 years (or a lifetime ban on acrylic nails for ladies in the London boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, and Lewisham which was agreed is a fate worse than prison).
Cyclists have also been officially classed as 'at-risk', and now, clad in all-in-one 'hi-vis' lycra body-suits and flashing lights, they resemble low-flying UFOs speeding along their new (and apparently safe) potholed cycle-lanes.
Cyclists have also been officially classed as 'at-risk', and now, clad in all-in-one 'hi-vis' lycra body-suits and flashing lights, they resemble low-flying UFOs speeding along their new (and apparently safe) potholed cycle-lanes.But with all this focus on road-users, has anyone noticed how perilous it's becoming to be a simple common-or-garden pedestrian? Pavements are supposed to be the safest place, because all we do is walk on them. How dangerous can that be? You just have to put one foot in front of the other, and hey presto, you get from A to B. But, the reality is that pavements in London are the new 'transport front-line', the new 'paving-slab Darfur'.
To start with, as a result of numerous, but always essential, emergency works carried out by numerous utility companies, pavements in many areas now resemble some kind of apocalyptic, post-earthquake artist's model of San Francisco. Paving slabs are so uneven that describing them as a flat surface is like describing China as 'the land of the free'. Our councils invest huge sums of our council tax money into repaving and landscaping our streets, and then allow utility companies to randomly dig them up and simply throw the paving slabs haphazardly back into the hole, or scatter a handful of tarmac over their excavation. This means that the only way to avoid tripping every time your leave home, is to walk with eyes cast down, scrutinising every next step for danger. If the crazy-paving doesn't get you, then the sporadic sprinkling of dog-shit probably will.
So, we shuffle nervously along staring at the floor, looking like sulky teenagers minus the hands in the pockets, thinking that we're probably safe. We're safe as long as we don't lose concentration for a second and miss a piece of British Gas, or BT's latest work of modern art. If we were chameleons this would work, but we're not. Our eyes can only look in one direction at a time (unless you have a lazy-eye like 'crazy Daniel' who lives two doors away), which means that you have a 20% chance of bumping into another downward-looking pedestrian, a 50% chance of bumping into a 'Use Opposite Pavement' sign, or a 100% chance of bumping into a piece of bloody 'street-furniture'.
Where the term 'street-furniture' came from is anyone's guess. Well, actually, it's not, we all know that it was invented by the same companies who make all this 'street-clutter', this useless, pavement-blocking crap. Most businesses have now correctly realised that we are all far too terrified of breaking an ankle to take our eyes off the road and actually look into their windows. Shops, cafes, restaurants, and galleries have taken to strewing the width of the pavement with signs attempting to inform us that, between midnight and 2am only on the first Sunday in October, we can get half a free-range lobster and a glass of Vietnamese Riesling for £6.95. Fantastic value, but little consolation when you're laid-up in hospital with a broken leg and a tray of unappetising pureed hospital 'fayre' on your lap.
Isn't walking dangerous enough already with the cracks, and the dog-poo, and the chuggers, and the road-signs, and pavement-cyclists too terrified to use the road?
Whatever happened to the idea of a pavement simply being an empty flat surface that took you from one end of a street to the other. You may as well just walk along the road into on-coming traffic, your chances of serious injury are far lower.
