Watch your step

Why can’t we have traffic laws for pedestrians?

Imagine you’re driving down Piccadilly one day. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, you brake to a halt, causing the car behind to smash into you. Or you change lanes without indicating, right into the path of someone who’s overtaking. Or you change direction completely, executing a perfect one-eighty into the oncoming traffic. What sort of punishment would you expect? Forget points on your licence, you’d be scratching the days on your cell wall. Yet repeat these crimes in their two-footed versions on Piccadilly’s pavement and no one will say a thing. Not to your face, that is. Inside it’s different. Inside they’re dreaming of attaching you to the nearest lamppost à la Mussolini.

Why can’t we regulate pedestrians in the same way that we regulate our roads? Admittedly cars kill and people don’t. Not those doing the cutting up, anyway; one of these days a cuttee might make the lamppost scenario come true.