Life begins at 30
Want a sweeter, more sustainable life? Cut the speed limit on all roads to 30mph, argues Glenn Lowcock.
What would happen if we cut the speed limit – gradually, step by step – from 70 mph, to 50, 40, and finally, 30? We’d adapt. Where once a ‘tolerable’ one-hour regular journey could take us 50 miles, we’d now go only 25 miles in that time. So we’d simply, sensibly, review the radius of our daily lives, and ‘shrink to fit’.
“The radius of our daily lives would shrink to fit”
It would mean fewer people commuting by car (so less congestion for those close enough to do so), and more working from home. We’d get to spend more time where we actually live – rather than trying to get somewhere else. We’d turn again to the local schools, shops and community hospitals that we used to rely on. We’d see businesses relocating and people moving closer to the facilities they need.
Our ‘localised lives’ could bring some surprising little changes. Handymen might come into their own again, as the higher cost of transporting goods forced up the price of new products. It would be much cheaper to pop down to the local repair shop to fix a washing machine than pay through the nose for a whole new one. It could even be a wake up call to manufacturers to design more durable products in the first place.
Clearly, there are lots of things in life that wouldn’t be quite so easy. Like popping into the supermarket to buy a bottle of wine. First off, it might take a while to get there. Second, you’d end up paying a fair bit more for something that had been trucked (slowly) around the country.
On the plus side, home or ‘near grown’ food and drink would become the cheaper option. While we’d find ourselves eating locally sourced stuff, we wouldn’t have to change our diets completely, because we could order on the web, from shops in the region.
We’d still need a break from it all, of course. And that’s fine; we’d have trains. Really smart ones travelling at thrilling speeds far greater than 30mph. The government would surely save enough on road widening and so on to create a network of motor rails – like the ‘Chunnel’ – to carry us and our cars around the country.
Legislating like this is not draconian. It’s not as if speed was a universal human right. Government already restricts things like cigarettes, and alcohol, and gambling – and speeding; lowering the limit would be just another tool for social change. Like road pricing, it would get us out of our cars – without penalising the poor.
And not so many of us would get killed. Twenty mph zones are already creeping in across our urban areas precisely as a way of reducing road fatalities, as well as tackling pollution and congestion. So why not 30 overall? There are fuel savings to be made in slowing down, as well.
Finally, the shift might bring another welcome change – weakening our fixation with the speed, glamour and status of cars. They’d all be rather irrelevant when zippy little sports cars were left chomping at the bit. Imagine, hybrid models like the Smart car, perfect for getting round town, might take over as the new Porsches…
So, who’s up for slow travel?
This is an edited version of a ‘modest proposal’ by Glenn Lowcock, a landscape architect and a member of the Secular Franciscan Order, following the example of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of ecology.5 January 2008
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RE: Life begins at 30
This "proposal" leaves me...flabbergasted. I can only speculate as to Mr. Lowcock's seriousness, but I detect nothing whimsical in his tone so I am left to assume that he intends to be taken seriously and I'll try to address his proposal as such.
What percentage of people does Mr. Lowcock believe would support his proposal voluntarily and accept such dramatic and wholly artificial limits on their personal mobility? If he clings to the merest sliver of belief that a democratic majority might support his proposal then I would welcome the introduction of it into any legislative process...where I happen to believe that it would die a swift and unceremonious death. If, on the other hand, he is of the mind that his proposal would need to be forced upon an unwilling population -- which presumably would come to appreciate the "greater good" that had been done on its behalf -- then he will have exhausted my supply of bonhomie.
I suppose it's nice to engage in fantastical speculation every now and then about how the world would be a better place if everyone else would just behave -- but that's not the way things work. End of story.
I rarely drive 55
when I travel on highways, I typically travel between 70 and 85 miles an hour. I love going fast. It is such a rush. It is nothing quite like the joy of a well tuned car just shooting across the landscape. But in my rush to go somewhere else, it is a more important force. That is the impetus to escape local merchants and doing something they don't offer locally.
In the quest for a local community, one often forgets that most of the choices made are a form of economic elitism. That everybody has enough money to buy essentials at the price set by a sole vendor. For example, in supermarkets there there are three choices for me regarding purchasing groceries. A farm stand 6/10 of a mile away, a mini market about 2 miles away, and a full-featured supermarket 4 miles away. I always go to the full-featured supermarket. Why? The farm stand doesn't have everything I need and what it does is usually 50% to 200% more expensive for the same quality goods. The same is true for the mini-market. but if I'm willing to travel, I can get everything I need for less money and less time (two hours every week and a half versus trips every couple of days to the closer stores). If there was no competition because of transportation limitations, I would be paying anywhere from 200%-300% premium for supermarket goods and, because of restricted choice of employment, a bigger chunk of my income.
Another example is hardware stores. I have two stores within a 5 mile radius of my house. Don't go to either of them because, I can't stand the employees. It is the worst customer service I've ever seen. Instead I go a half hour either to a medium-sized regional hardware store or to Home Depot. Better service, better products, better prices.
medical care: I would be dead today released a couple times over if I had to count on local doctors. My condition isn't that unusual but the 15 to 20% post diagnosis fatality rate is not due to the disease itself but to the skill of the practitioner treating it.
I could go on but I think you get the point. Transportation especially convenient decentralize transportation produces economic and social freedoms that are worth maintaining. Maybe in the future we won't have enough energy to do so but if that case arises, we are heading back on the path of short lifespans, higher mortality from childbirth, limited experience in the world and knowledge of other cultures. Heck, we might as well start drawing "here be dragons" on the maps. Never forget that small towns, limited experience communities are among the most repressive culturally, sexually, intellectually groups that you will find anywhere.
Life begins at 30
The 3000 or so Britons who have been killed on British roads this last year by cars travelling faster than 30mph would certainly agree with Glenn Lowcock – in retrospect, so to speak – as might the 100,000 who have been seriously injured in the same period.
But these figures neglect the millions of future inhabitants of the Earth (our children and their children…) who will die out if people like your two commentators (e.g.' I never drive at 55') insist on continuing with 'business as usual' when the climate change writing is looming larger on the wall for all thinking people to see.
Glenn Lowcock's article uses 'reductio ad absurdum' to great effect. The message for mankind is that, again in retrospect, it may in a century or so not appear to be absurdum at all.