Car in a china shop cracks up porcelain people

A DANISH transport expert (copenhagenize.com) uses an audacious metaphor when talking about cars, vulnerable road-users, namely pedestrians and cyclists, and the unacceptable number of road deaths and serious injuries in urban areas.

“So someone let a bull into society’s china shop. We all realise that and it doesn’t look like the bull is going anywhere. All the fragile fine china on the shelves is getting knocked about and smashed on a regular basis. It seems quite ridiculous that nobody is talking about the bull. Instead there is constant talk of wrapping up all the pieces of porcelain in thin bubble wrap and tsk-tsking about how dangerous it is to even consider placing fine china on the shelves of a china shop now that there’s a bull stampeding about.” In Ireland, where there is a strong car culture, we utterly ignore the bull.

Commonsense tells us to calm and tame the furious animal, eg, by implementing lower speed limits. We simply prefer to wrap up fragile cyclists and pedestrians in bright safety vests and to force people to stay away from roads and streets – those public spaces where they have always been welcome until recently. Don’t forget: the chance of a piece of porcelain being seriously cracked or destroyed if struck by a bull is 50% if the animal is travelling at 50km/h, but only 5% at 30 km/h.