Thursday 14th September

Leonard Cohen wrote a song “there is a War” – between all sorts of people and even those who know there is a war and those who don’t.  But sometimes I feel there is a war between car drivers and pedestrians. Okay, so let me state right here that I do not drive.  I am however thankful that I have a partner who does drive as it saves a lot of time and carries heavy shopping etc, etc, etc.   So, I am not arguing in any way that there should be no cars, simply that cars should not be anywhere near pedestrians – and vice versa.

The current chaos emerged from a gentler time when the only vehicles were horse-drawn, and in towns that would have been pretty slow.  Mind you the smell and problems of horse manure would have been problems we live without – instead we have car fumes polluting the air.  In modern planned towns like Stevenage cars and pedestrians are kept well away from one another, but in most places it is a free for all.  I am sure that many car drivers get annoyed by dithering pedestrians and having to stop for crossings and people walking really slowly in narrow streets – even though they peep their horns the dogged walker seems oblivious.  Car drivers almost all seem in a hurry, impatient to get to wherever they are going.  Having to slow down or even to stop is such a nuisance.

Our town has a lovely square, hundreds of years old, but in my mind it is spoiled by car drivers who seem to be driving round in an almost constant stream.  And there are eight exits at four corners and yet hardly any driver ever thinks to indicate.  After all they know where they are going, why should they even think it might be of interest to wretched pedestrians who just have to wait and dodge the cars as best we can.

I walk the dogs in the morning, part of the way along the boulevard National.  When a lorry passes at probably only 50 miles an hour, you can really feel the speed and the air current rushing past.  Once or twice I have got out of a car in a lay-by on a motorway and it is truly frightening the speed of the traffic. It didn’t need terrorists to make me realise that lorries were in fact dangerous weapons.

Maybe in the future more and more town planners will pedestrianise more areas, it must be for the benefit of both car drivers and people to be kept apart.