Peace breaks out between cars and people and bikes in Holland

Today began in Bradford and ended in Utrecht but to be honest with you I am a little unclear as to what happened inbetween. We flew to Schipol, we visitied a town, we visited two villages and we came to a city is all clear in my mind, but what they are called will have to wait till I get home or reconnect with my luggage. This is a logn story involving a very long corridor and my tightness as a Yorkshireman which means that I would rather type in the foyer of the lounge of a dodgy hotel, than pay five euros to type in my now distant room.
The details of where I have been are a irrelevant, what is certain is that we have been given a bit of a revelation and that revelation is called shared space. Basically some places in holland have suspended all traffic laws and removed traffic lights and warning signs to see what happens. Surprisingly what happens is that people become more courteous, community is built and the major accident rate is reduced by up to 80%.
Our excellent teacher illustrated the principal with a story. He ahd been walking with the inventer of shared space down a lane which was full of cow pooh. In the fields along the roadside were cows, all you could hear were cows, and if you sttod still a cow would come up and lick you. The quiet dutchman pointed at one of those red triangle warning signs with a picture of a cow on it.
"What does this say"to drivers down this road?" he said to our teacher.
"I don't know, beware of the cows?"
"No," replied the dutchman, "it says to a driver on this road, so full of cow smells, cow sights and cow experiences: YOU ARE STUPID!"
Because if you tell people the obvious then you treat them like children and they behvae like children. I can't begin to tell you how many situations there are where this applies. the upshot of it all is that we need to design cities and towns where we allowed shared space to happen. It's a risk but then it might just mean that people take responsibility again.