Mr French is a fairly prominent US traffic engineer. I don’t think he’s malicious. He is, however, completely wrong about or unaware of the fundamentals of safe systems. He has convinced me that we desperately need an overhaul of traffic education. For traffic engineers.

Traffic engineering has developed a system forgiving for exactly one group of people: dangerous drivers. In so doing they make roads dangerous for everyone else, especially those outside of a car. The profession treats the paint on a car with greater sanctity than human lives.