Good day my good friend.

Today, friend, I am angry. Angry and tired. Its related to what I said yesterday about the narrative on road closures, and specifically this video of a 5 year old boy cycling on a road and getting a close pass from an oncoming vehicle.

It caused some reaction, including this:

In case you didn’t know who Sajid David is, he has recently been the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The latter of which he clearly didn’t learn from, nor has bothered to read the Highway Code. Maybe that hellsite shutting down might not be a bad thing.

If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me. I know that plenty of you have suggested articles – I will get to them soon!

James

When self-regulating, people do unsafe things sometimes

The world of psychology and road safety is fun. My all-time favourite, if somewhat unscientific, experiment in this field is Dr Ian Walker’s ‘wig experiment’, but this is important stuff. Very simply, many of us can be very bad at self-regulation, and the data proves it. From mobile phone use to older drivers, self-regulation is tied to our personal beliefs, which translate into what is and isn’t safe.

A key issue is how multi-faceted this is, and consequently how hard it is to measure what factors most affect self-regulating behaviour. This new study uses a multi-variate survey and a bit of data magic (or Bootstrapped hierarchical linear regression mode – yeah I have no idea either, but it seems sound). And in doing so, it links many of these variables to self-regulating behaviour. Which is very useful for policy people making sure fewer people are killed.

High Speed Rail improving economies is not just about building the thing

Let’s kick this hornet’s nest. The evidence indicates that, generally, High Speed Rail investment is good for cities. Whether it is good enough to cover the cost is something else that I don’t want to get into right now, and could be a newsletter in itself. Anyway, its not as if just building a high speed line and saying “hey economy, do economy things now” actually does things on its own. So surely something else is at play?

As this new paper on the experience of China shows, an important matter is policy (and its delivery) synergy. Specifically one that encourages urban agglomeration effects. The impact is that not only are the economic benefits greater when policy is aligned, but there is a higher likelihood that those benefits are diffused throughout the city. A good example being building supporting public transport networks to serve the new high speed lines. The key lesson being is that its one thing to have a high speed rail link, but accepting it and making the most of it is quite another.

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.

• How Workers and Pro-Union Politicians Team Up for Fair Trade (Naked Capitalism)

• Tanker Market Revival Could Prompt More Ship Acquisitions (Hellenic Shipping News)

• How the IMF could help the Global South fight the climate crisis (openDemocracy)

• Delegating trust is really, really, really hard (infosec edition) (Pluralistic)

• World’s CO2 Hotspots Pinpointed by Al Gore-Backed Climate Project (Bloomberg)

Something interesting

This is interesting. I kind of hoped driving less and weaning ourselves off fossil fuels would be higher up, but hey-ho.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

It’s not often I do this, but a good friend is doing something amazing. Beate Szoboszlai, the Head of the Futures Programme at TRL, is heading off to sail around the world. And you should follow her adventures through her blog, her Insta (@luckysailorgirl), or Facebook. And give her every word of encouragement and support. How amazing!