20mph switch goes down like flat tyre

WHEREAS José Mourinho once banned his players from playing Pokemon before a matchday, and John Toshack banned gravy, it was Pep Guardiola at Barcelona who put a spoke in the wheel of his players by stopping them driving their sports cars to the stadium.

It seems it was about ego and self-indulgence. In the car we have at last something not found in Egypt, although someone will always bring up the ancient chariot as the precursor of the Morris Minor.

The Greeks might have given us gears and the Romans roads, but it was the Germans who got the towels on the bonnet first in the person of Karl Benz, regarded as the inventor of the first petrol driven motor car, patented in 1886.

I fell madly in love with my first car, Austin by name. Things went smoothly at first, but we soon hit bumps in the road and the strange noises wouldn’t go away even when I turned up the radio.

The relationship would break down on a weekly basis and we drove one another mad. Indeed, it seems most drivers develop a relationship with their car, but today driving is more about control, power and status.

So when the Senedd last week approved legislation to lower the speed limit on residential roads and busy pedestrian streets from 30mph to 20mph, the first country ever to do so, the move went down with the autophiles like a flat tyre.

Perhaps worried that their expensive shiny chariots might be overtaken by an electric scooter, their reasons for opposing the scheme include the cost, increases in journey time, congestion and ‘annoying drivers’.

Yet I prefer to believe the evidence of the Senedd that decreasing speed reduces accidents, saves lives, reduces petrol consumption and makes our communities a safer and more welcoming place for children, cyclists and pedestrians. No doubt, supported by the double yellow liners and pavement parkers, there will be a hot emission of libertarian protest, but really nothing more than airbags.