Comment 60822

By moylek (registered) - website | Posted March 09, 2011 at 10:27:02

I really enjoyed Jason's article and I mostly agree that we need to make our streets safer by making them more fault tolerant. And I really like the concise phrase train-and-blame.

But ...

We needn't all wield train-and-blame like a rhetorical cudgel to put down everyone who suggests rules & penalties instead of progressive measures such as narrow roads and pedestrian meadow medians and spike-belt roundabouts.

After all, if train-and-blame is such a dead-end strategy, why don't we just get rid of drunk-driving penalties altogether? And speeding penalties, for that matter. And maybe all those pesky four-way stops in Westdale? That's all just train-and-blame!

Oh ... right. They sort-of work. We can't completely rely on train-and-blame, but it is a useful tool. And one of the marvels of our civilization: we are taught the legal and moral rules of our society as we grow up and they guide our conduct, sometimes as internalized codes and sometimes as explicit external coercion.

The next time you are patiently waiting at a stop light on an empty road at 1:00 am ... think warm thoughts of train-and-blame. It's why you're still sitting there like a good Canadian.

Comment edited by moylek on 2011-03-09 10:35:13

-- Kenneth Moyle Hamilton, Ontario

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