Good day my good friend.

What can I say, apart from there isn’t much to say at the moment? Let’s get straight into it.

If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.

James

Well, if you won’t do your job I may as well do it

I’m not an advocate of people taking transport safety matters into their own hands. Often safety rules seem illogical, but there is a good reason behind them. But I do admire them when it is done for a greater good. And a Crosswalk Collective in Los Angeles is doing just that.

The idea is simple. If the city won’t install a crosswalk, the collective will just go and do it. It depresses me to read about how it takes ages to install a crosswalk, yet removing one can be done really quickly. And this is an idea that appears to be taking off more generally. As someone who loves the ‘just f**king do it’ attitude, this I admire.

Reducing speed by provoking feelings of nostalgia

Have you ever been along a road, and seen a sign encouraging drivers to lower their speeds that has been drawn by a child? Sad newflash: there is no evidence that it achieves this, but its very good at engaging young children in road safety issues. But a new study took a slight twist on this: what if you took illustrations from a children’s author, and applied it to road safety?

Turns out, there was a slight reduction in traffic speeds, but the effect was only temporary.

Controlled for developments in speed on the comparison roads in the same period, mean speed was marginally significant lower, and the V85 speed and the proportion of speed offenders were significantly lower in only the first week after placement of the signs.

Sadly, my joy at the thought of having Quentin Blake illustrations outside schools to encourage us to slow down will have little impact. Oh well.

Random things

These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them..

• Machine-learning models vulnerable to undetectable backdoors: new claim (The Register)

• Why does public attention to the environment change so much over time? (LSE British Politics and Policy)

• How Remote Work Helped Tech Companies Outside Silicon Valley Grow (New York Times)

• Does the ‘Future of Work’ Open a New Growth Horizon for Small Towns? (The Daily Yonder)

• Extreme Heat Is a Disease for Cities. Treat It That Way (Wired)

Something interesting

An interesting answer to a question I never thought to ask.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this policy brief by the Asian Development Bank on Strategies for Recovery, particularl focussing on transport in Asia.