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Martin Cassini (born 2 October 1947 in Shepperton, England) is a TV programme-maker and traffic writer who advocates reform of the traffic control system. He has contributed to Economic Affairs, The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, BBC Newsnight, Culture Shock (the BBC World Service series about new ideas), and writes regularly for Traffic Technology International.
One day in 2000, at a junction in Cambridge where five-minute delays involving three traffic light changes were the norm, he breezed through without incident or delay … then saw why: the lights were out of action. Next time he took that route, when the lights were “working” again, the usual delays were back. Previously he had remarked that lights were often badly phased, but here was evidence that traffic lights were unnecessary per se. Subsequent observations confirmed his view that humans managed well when left to their own devices. Two years later, he discovered shared space, and found he was not alone in seeing that good design and freedom to filter could provide solutions to congestion and road safety.
Cassini pinpoints main road priority (with acknowledgements to Kenneth Todd), as the fatal flaw at the heart of the system. Removing priority, he says, would remove the source of conflict as well as the “need” for lights and the need for speed. It would give all road-users equal rights and responsibilities and enable them to do what is natural and intrinsically safe: approach junctions carefully, watch the road, and filter, more or less in turn, as is normal in all other walks of life. He does not claim “filter in turn” (or the “all-way yield”) is a panacea, and concedes that in some circumstances external controls might be useful, for example, at major junctions at peak times, but he thinks coercion should be used only as a last resort.
“The current system places the onus on children to beware motorists, when it should be the other way round,” he says. “Many accidents are not accidents at all. They are events arising from conflicts contrived by the rules and design of the road.” Thus he advocates a live-and-let-live approach based on co-operation and context. His ideas overlap with shared space, which is demonstrating in Bohmte in Germany and Drachten in Holland that peaceful coexistence can flow from freedom to use our own judgement on sympathetically-designed roads which stimulate rather than enforce appropriate conduct. His ideas also echo the theory of spontaneous order, which states that the more complex the ballet of human movement (for example, a skateboard park), the less useful are attempts to control it.
With freedom to filter, road capacity is optimised: instead of consecutive queueing, the result is simultaneous progress –”infinitely more efficient and civilised”. He condemns the stop-start drive cycle produced by traffic lights as the most environmentally damaging form of traffic management, pointing out that the electricity alone required to power the UK’s galaxy of 24-hour traffic lights produces 57,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.
Following his 2008 BBC Newsnight report, which featured Susan Greenfield, Hans Monderman and Ben Hamilton-Baillie, he was encouraged to start a campaign. Called FiT Roads, it aims to make Roads FiT for People by freeing them to use commonsense and common courtesy on roads free of counterproductive traffic controls. Current projects include an extended trial to compare junction efficiency, journey time, safety, air and noise pollution with and without standard traffic controls.
Cassini is a graduate from Wadham College, Oxford, (Modern Languages and Literature, 1971), and a member of the International Advisory Council of the Kyoto World Cities New Mobility Program. In 1992, a video he made for the European Parliament – which featured Lysette Anthony, Norman Pace, Henry Porter and Mark Steel – won two international awards.
Publications
- In Your Car No One Can Hear You Scream! Are Traffic Controls a Necessary Evil?, Economic Affairs, 2006, vol. 26, issue 4, pages 75-78, at econpapers.repec.org
- Cassini, Martin (December 2006). “”In Your Car No One Can Hear You Scream! Are Traffic Controls in Cities a Necessary Evil?”". ‘Economic Affairs’ 26 (4). doi:10.2139/ssrn.10.1111. ,
- Institute of Economic Affairs’ article proposes the abolition of traffic lights at the Institute of Economic Affairs website
- Cassini, Martin (2008-09-21). “C-ing red” (in English). The Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-10-16.
- “I like traffic lights, but only when they’re dismantled”, Martin Cassini, January 23, 2007, The Times
- The case against traffic lights, Martin Cassini, bbc.co.uk, 14 January 2008
- “Rip them out”, The Daily Telegraph, 14/10/2006
References
- London: still stuck in a jam, Nico Macdonald, spiked, 19 March 2007
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Categories: Living people | English documentary filmmakers | English columnists | Road safety | Transportation planning | Sustainable transportHidden categories: Wikipedia articles needing style editing from September 2008 | All pages needing to be wikified | Wikify from September 2008 | Articles needing sections | Autobiographical articles