Anarchy in the AA

Josh Heller meets Martin Cassini; the man spearheading a campaign to destroy traffic lights and make our roads a place of "peaceful anarchy."


Rarely is a truly innovative idea met with immediate and raucous approval. Martin Cassini, although he cannot take credit for the idea itself, has seen firsthand the resistance to initally shocking proposals, even when the strength of the argument is so overwhelmingly powerful.
Since 2000 Martin has been trying to get the attention of those who can make it happen, to eliminate traffic lights and remove needless road markings and street signs. There are few people who don’t react with derision when first confronted with this concept. Yet anyone who sticks around to actually hear what is said will struggle to disagree.
The idea, unlike our roads, is simple. The control and manipulation of the roads is forced on us from above, and this unnatural state of control is counterproductive as it shapes the way we behave. Traffic lights are almost totally unnecessary. They are rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of how the brain works as we are naturally problem solving and co-operative. Traffic lights are telling us we’re stupid creatures who need to be herded around the roads. “Spontaneous order is a concept which states that the more complex the ballet of human movement the more futile our attempts to control it.” Traffic lights discourage the natural tendencies of negotiation and conflict resolution. Cars speed from light to light trying to beat them. Frequently traffic is forced to stop even when it is safe to go. This quite rightly enrages drivers, furious at an imbecillic system that makes no sense. Traffic lights are accidentally but brilliantly named, because they actually cause traffic. If there were no traffic lights we would see a natural flow of cars, congestion would be drastically reduced.
This point of view does not come from a horrible Jeremy Clarkson-esque demand for rights for road users. It demands a far greater concern and recognition of pedestrians than in the current system. People are often concerned that it would be more dangerous for pedestrians. Yet neither the intutition nor the actual results back this claim up. Drivers should naturally slow down when they see a pedestrian. When you put some thought to it, then you realise it’s quite a terrible situation to have the onus of responsibility on the pedestrians. We teach children to be so thoroughly careful about crossing the road that they should wait until there are no cars that could physically reach them. Meanwhile drivers are told never to slow down and simply allow pedestrains to cross.
“I hold traffic engineers and policy makers to account. they’re not deliberately guilty, but in their misguided way they have blood on their hands. Which ever way you look at it they have blood on their hands. Firstly for making our roads dangerous in the first place, for setting the stage for conflict. They cause “accidents”, which I call euphemisms for predictable events rising from the dangerous rules of the road, and secondly, for the extra emissions we get from idle traffic. 3,200 are killed on the roads in “accidents” but 40,000 die prematurely from respiratory illness exacerbated by particulates in the air.”
This is another important part of the concept, a reduction of wasteful emissions and needless pollution. As any cyclist knows, it takes a huge amount of energy to start a vehicle. “The start, stop, drive cycle required by lights maximises emmissions and fuel use. In a shared space or a deregulated scenario where you allow people to filter in turn, cars never have to come to a full stop. It kind of approaches slowly and glides through.” The current Mayor is targetting a cut in carbon emmissions and pollution. Perhaps the single most effective step in reducing energy use in the captial would be to get rid of traffic lights. This is in addition to the energy wasted by the actual use of the lights themselves!
February 12th 2007, a day that will live long in the memory of anyone who was at LSE last year. After severe storms overnight, some power things flooded. The point is that loads of buildings in Holborn had no power. This included the LSE which meant everyone had the day off. It also meant that there were no traffic lights working in the vicinity. Conventional wisdom would have it there would be “chaos” and loads of accidents and the like. Yet every one who remembers that day knows that the cars flowed beautifully. Cars gave way to pedestrians, taxis waved people on, with eye contact and a natural turn based system there was a drastic reduction in the amount of traffic.
Some argue that it has been put in place in London, “Kensington High Street is often cited as an example of shared space, it is in fact anything but. If you try and cycle along Kensington High Street, you can’t. They’ve narrowed the carraigeway because they’ve widened the pavements. and they’vve widened the centreal islands, it looks neater. But now buses and and cars and trucks take up all the space on the road and there’s no way to squeeze through. That’s one big problem. The other problem is that it’s still plagued by traffic lights. I know the people who did it, they are wonderful guys. They told me they did what they could within the restriction imposed by the traffic engineers in charge. The council manipulate everything, they wouldn’t allow true shared space to be put in. True shared space would see the road and pavement levelled.
The anger and irritation that drivers suffer through the illogical system we currently have can lead to dangerous situations. “I want to examine the role of traffic controls in road rage. In my view the unreported cause of road rage is vexation with traffic controls. What raises your stress levels is when you stop at a red light and you can see there’s nothing on the junction. That is such a kick in the teeth to an intelligent sentient human being. So then you’ve had to stop at a red light, when the light turns green that’s when the pedestrian turns up and you speed off and hit someone. It is statistcally much safer for cyclists not to wait at a red light. I say that cyclcists and all roadies should be free to use intelligent discretion and go when it’s safe. Emma Feller (51), Victoria Buchanan (28) and most recent ly Amelia Zollner (24). All killed on their bikes as they waited at red lights. I am certain that if traffic had been moving and filtering on the junction and there had been interaction and eye contact, that those human beings would be alive today. “
The reduction of traffic lights doesn’t neccessarily mean the instant elimination of all of them. “I do concede that at major junctions at peak times possibly you might need some controls. I’m not saying we don’t. Yet putting traffic lights at every little junction is so counterproductive. All road users should be free of the tyranny of mandatory lights and free to go on opportunity.”
There have been fantastic results in Sweden and Holland where this has been used. Accidents and congestion have dissappeared since shared space was introduced. On the accident side, At a major intersection in Drachten in Holland, previously with traffic lights they used to have five fatalities a year and now they don’t even have any collisions.
The argument is to powerful to be swept aside, too overwhelming to be ignored. We must reduce emmissions, fatalities and general frustation. There must, at the very least, be controlled scientific trials on the effectiveness of this system.

Martin Cassini is a producer and broadcaster and has started the Road User’s Freedom Movement.