A man of many.... hats....

Not sure I can be bothered with a rant tonight about the new utterly ridiculous 'Nice Way Code' campaign by the Scottish Government and various transport organisations that should know better. Something like £460k spent on it. And we get meaningless nursery stuff that's not going to change any perceptions on the road. But hey, it's full of marketing speak and will tick a box somewhere and means they don't have to worry about any of that inconvenient stuff like enforcement, or redesigns of streets.

"Hey everyone, be nice, there's a good lot" is the message. Much like rule 144 of the Highway Code, You 'MUST' (ergo backed up by legislative consideration) be considerate to other road users. I could have saved them a hefty marketing fee by pointing that one out to them.

But no, we get an advert aimed at drivers telling them to think bike, think horse (the idea being that people are more likely to give horses a wide berth, except on a 'miles travelled' basis horses are actually killed more often on the roads than cyclists; and very few people driving in cities will have come across horses, and really... Horses? Not, "don't run people over because they're people"....? The 40 second ad has 34 seconds of a driver hilariously getting the wrong end of the stick when told to treat cyclists like horses as he feeds them sugar lumps and brushes hair. It's all very slick. Very professional. And very dehumanising.

The second advert, aimed at cyclists, is the bête noir of red light jumping. Now it does happen, and I do think that cyclists shouldn't do it. Let's get that right out there. But it's strange that they pick on that one aspect when it's also something motorists do a-plenty; the example they use has the cyclist more amber-gambling than red light jumping; and there's a strange schoolroom scene with the teacher pouring scorn on a child in the class who cycles because other cyclists run red lights (the ad is all about "don't give other cyclists a bad name").

Naturally I got buzzed closely on my ride home tonight, as if to prove that nothing is going to change. Honestly, how many people out there who break the rules, or put the lives of others in danger, are going to see these ads and think they're targeted at them, or that they should change their behaviour? It has been compared to the drink drive campaigns, or the classic 'clunk/click' seatbelt campaign. Both of which were backed up with enforcement action - are the police going to be pulling over road users and fining them for not being nice'? Hell, they've already said many times in Edinburgh that they won't enforce 20mph zone (seriously, they're on record stating that), so I can't quite see this flying.

A pointless waste of money that could have been used for some flagship example of street redesign that removes conflict and keeps all road users and pedestrians happy. But no. The 'Nice Way Code', with its primary colours and humorous approach to deaths on the roads of Scotland (interestingly the drink drive campaigns, or 20's plenty campaigns, didn't go with 'jokey' messages, much as in the Netherlands their campaigns around basic road safety were called 'stop the child murder'). It's embarrassing, and misses the point of just what kills people on the roads of Scotland by reinforcing misconceptions and pandering to certain types of road user who mistakenly think they are constantly under attack.

£460k, down the drain. But I'm not really in the mood to rant about it, so I might save that for another day.

Oh, and I have lots of hats. I was referred to as a man of many talents the other day. I have more hats than talents.