Cross-walkers – Maybe they should be!
The last image was brought to you by the numbers 3, 4 and 5, so, continuing on a numerical theme, here’s the sad reporting of 3 pedestrian fatalities by the Barcelona transport authorities. (Photo date, Sept 2009.)
It’s an attempt to pass on the responsibility for personal safety to pedestrians who are given a narrow patch of tarmac to cross a wide stretch of road that’s used mainly by motorised vehicles. Before the advent of “Autogeddon“, for around 7000 years, the street was a place for individuals to mostly do as they pleased in relative safety. For the last 100 years or so, society has given urban streets and other roads to people, initially a small minority, who have questionable ability to drive heavy machinery at fairly high speeds and who, under current legal conditions, are often regarded as not being sufficiently punished should they cause fatal or serious injuries to others because of poor driving. Some sections of society are however unable to buy-in to the mobility that car ownership is meant to bring, and yet they have to live with the associated effects of collisions, air-pollution and community severance. I’d like to think things are changing, through the creation of shared spaces, 20mph zones and increasing levels of cycling, but society is becoming so hard-wired to car dependency that it will take a while to apply the brakes…let alone select reverse.
One thing worth wondering about is that the message on the road might be working. After all, the paint hasn’t been maintained in bold white paint to reinforce the message. Then again the number hasn’t changed, which means the authorities might have reached a level of annual road casualties they can’t or won’t do anything about. It’s not acceptable to stop working towards zero road casualties, but it sometimes feels as though this is what happens in motorised societies.
Sorry, perhaps that was a bit heavy for a blog about creating a chain of images, but this is one of many issues that photos can help to raise awareness about. It’ll be an ongoing project for me and photos will be added to the “Car Trouble” section of the website.
I have to say I was having difficulty with connecting the previous and current images. The rule that an image should follow the previous one on the basis of some element of content (etc?) should ideally be obvious rather than tenuous. This perhaps raises another issue about how much writing is needed to point out or even justify a connection. People might like photos to speak for themselves, but it’s so tempting, as with anything visual, to write stuff in order to explain it. Happy to receive support, criticism and suggestions as the photo-chain lengthens.