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item0062B 922, 923
922 9
February 2004
Speed bumps
An awful legal error
Ken Livingstone has declared war on sleeping policemen, the dreaded
speed-bumps. This will form part of his Manifesto for re-election as
London's popular Mayor. And I sign up to his campaign. I have long
regarded them as illegal obstructions, which should long ago have been the
subject of Police prosecution.
But the speed-bump disease was only contracted, in the 1970s, because of
an awful legal muddle, a professional lawyers’ error. If only we had
understood the law properly, they would never have seen the light of day...
The sad, gruesome history is this. During the 1970s and early 1980s, the
highway engineers, as a profession, became increasingly concerned about
the hazards of vehicle speed, particularly in busy residential areas, and
they wanted to introduce lower speed limits. But their lawyers said they
could not. Yes, said the lawyers, there was indeed a general statutory
power for local highway authorities to impose such speed-limits as they
considered appropriate for local circumstances. But that was overridden,
the lawyers collectively advised, by the parallel provision which declared
that the National Speed Limit for built-up areas to 30 miles per hour.
That, they advised, placed an effective floor on speed-limits, permitting
variations above 30 mph, but not below.
So
the Highway Engineers addressed the speed-control problem in some other way
– by coming up with the grotesque idea of road-humps. Throughout the 1980s,
this disease gripped Britain. Until somebody had the bright idea of
challenging this legal consensus, and going to the country’s top Leading
Counsel for a new Opinion.
Counsel took precisely the opposite view. True, he said, Parliament has
said that, other things being equal, the speed limit for built-up areas
should be 30 mph. But that does not detract in any way from a highway
authority’s power to impose lower limits where particular local
circumstances required it. This view has rapidly gained currency –
producing Home Zones, and 20 mph residential areas – all without any change
by Parliament.
So
Ken Livingstone is on sound ground. In my view, all speed humps should be
ripped up, as illegal obstructions to the Queens highway. Speed-limits of
20 mph should be widely introduced. This month, Swansea City Council is
introducing them for all street networks in the vicinity of school entrances
– a classic example of a “local circumstance” which every highway authority
is entitled to take into account.
Have you any
favourite speed-bump stories?
Drop me a line
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923
9
February
20034
Pickling
Culture
It was the 19th century English
anthropologists who first popularised the concept of "culture". They
wanted to find a way of describing
the totality of each "strange" tribal
life-style which they came across, in their exploration of the world's
peoples. The concept of "culture" was in that context a
sympathetic one, seeking to convey to "Western" readers a
holistic understanding of an entire,
wholly different, way of life - a "culture". Those
early anthropologists were true pioneers, fearless investigators, and they
occupy a rightful prominence in the history of the 19th century. They created the academic subject of
anthropology - their successors sought to create
sociology
- and the term "culture" has survived, and become
entrenched in our thinking.
Yet it is now becoming a dangerous, restrictive,
and authoritarian concept. It now threatens to arrest the
development of human civilisation, and to inhibit the flowering of the
human spirit.
How can that be?
Because it has become a
static, rather than a dynamic concept. It pickles cultures in the
past, rather than allowing the human spirit to breathe and create new
solutions to new problems. The Victorian anthropologists used the term
culture
like a snapshot, to present a coherent account of all aspects of a complex
way of life, in a single book or essay. For that purpose, they had to
describe the systems they observed
as at a single point in time.
The problem is that the snapshot quickly became the definitive statement of
that life-style, those conventions. In "folk-inspired" 19th century
German, the term Kultur become even more specific in that it was used
to describe "what it is to be German", at a time when the disparate
parts of Germany were fighting to build a larger national identity. To
this day, if you can prove you are "von Deutscher Kultur", you are
entitled to citizenship of the German state. It is divisive,
retrogressive way of thinking about human nature.
The truth is that "culture" is changing all the time - and the term is
only useful to describe a snapshot. David Goodhart, writing in the
February Prospect
magazine, argues that Britain risks becoming too diverse culturally, thus
eliminating those elements of "common culture" which underpin civic order
and civic consensus. He ignores the probability - which is that
influence of certain distinctive UK traits (tolerance, equality for women,
equality before the law, a non-intrusive State) will interpentrate the
conventions of incoming groups, generating new cultural conventions.
The problem is that the concept of culture easily becomes static, it
becomes an objectively-defined value system which seems to conflict with
other static "cultures".
That is what is dangerous, and restrictive .
For the traits of civic society which are said to from part of its
culture are themselves changing, all the time. They also vary
dramatically from city to city, region to region. And in each
location, they are in constant flux, new conventions adapting to
circumstance and facilitating social intercourse and discourse. This
is an exciting and fast-moving process.
Just
think of the cultural changes that have occurred in most parts of
the UK, over the past twenty-five years. The position of women in
society, although still disadvantaged, has been transformed.
Homosexuality, of both sexes, is now widely understood and accepted.
Marriage across racial and cultural boundaries is accepted without even a
raised eyebrow, particularly in our great cities. Religion, and the
divisiveness of religion, has been severely weakened by contemporary
developments. Our sense of individual equality has strengthened, and
is continuously being strengthened, to the point where there are complaints
(which I do not share) about an excess of individualism.
And while still too limited, the international horizons of our citizens have
been dramatically broadened, both by television and travel.
These are massive cultural changes -
and all for the better.
Would we have got this right, if describing "British culture" in 1975?
I think not. And even as individuals from a greater range of cultural backgrounds come
to live together, new conventions arise and are created, to handle the
points of conflict - that is the rule, even if there are tragic
exceptions.
I therefore
resist the Goodhart analysis. I recognise the
importance of the issues he is raising - but I am critical of his blinkered
approach to cultural evolution. Even as he speaks, new cultural norms
are evolving, in the great laboratory of human experience that we find all
around us.
Are you worried about weakening
"British" culture? Drop me a
line
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