Tory transport culture wars risked making roads less safe, says minister
Conservative policies that pitted drivers against cyclists risked making the roads less safe by inflaming tensions, a minister has said, promising that the era of transport culture wars is over.Lilian Greenwood, whose Department for Transport (DfT) role includes road safety and active travel, said seeking to divide road users into categories was pointless given most people used different transport methods at different times.Speaking to the Guardian after the announcement of more than £600m for new cycling and walking schemes across England, Greenwood condemned the way Conservative governments had moved from boosting cycling under Boris Johnson to clamping down on active travel measures when Rishi Sunak was prime minister.Sunak’s government explicitly sought to present its transport policy as prioritising drivers over the needs of cyclists and others, a shift in tone accompanied by an occasional embrace of conspiracy theories about supposed efforts to limit driving.Such an approach was “infuriating”, Greenwood said, and had potential repercussions for safety.
She said: “There are issues on our roads,I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about this in relation to the work that we’re doing in developing the road safety strategy, and some of it is about trying to create that culture of mutual respect between everyone using our roads,“And I think it’s really damaging to that,We want to create a system that works for everybody,It’s really frustrating to see and it speaks to the mixed messages from the previous government.
”Asked if Labour believed there was a war against the motorist, Greenwood replied: “I think the opposition want to create some sense of that.But people are not one thing or another.A lot of people who cycle, also drive; a lot of people who drive, also walk or sometimes take public transport.“So that’s not how we want our roads to be thought of at all.We want to build a system that makes journeys safer, easier and affordable for everyone, and that should be our starting point.
”While the Labour government has promised “unprecedented” levels of funding for walking, wheeling and cycling, there has been some criticism about a perceived lack of ambition on the issue.Earlier this week, more than 50 groups connected to transport and public health urged the DfT to set specific targets for levels of walking and cycling in the upcoming third cycling and walking investment strategy, saying the current plans were too vague.Greenwood, while not saying whether the eventual plan would include targets, said the consultation taking place on the strategy was a genuine chance to listen, and that she welcomed the groups’ input.“What campaigners want is for us to take active travel really seriously.It’s about long-term funding certainty so you can properly plan,” she said.
Greenwood, who chaired the transport select committee from 2017 to 2020, said putting in place a proper strategy for improved safety on the roads was “probably top of my list” in terms of priorities.“Last year, roughly 1,600 people were killed on our roads, and 29,500 seriously injured, and that has been flatlining pretty much for the last decade,” she said.“That is unacceptable.“We in the department don’t talk about road traffic accidents.We talk about collisions or crashes because 90% of those feature someone making a bad decision or a wrong choice.
They’re preventable, and it requires determination, leadership and action to make a big difference to that,“It’s quite shameful that the last government did so little to tackle that and didn’t have a proper road safety strategy,”
Damn dalmatian! Fury erupts after David Jones cancels Christmas window display to promote joy of … its loyalty program
Two weeks out from Christmas, the footpath outside Sydney’s flagship David Jones store would usually be packed with eager-eyed families lining up to view the retailer’s traditional festive window display.But on Friday morning, Elizabeth Street was mostly empty. An upset-looking child in a pram stared forlornly at a Valentino advertisement.Sydneysiders have come out swinging after the department store replaced its famous Christmas window display with a celebration of its new loyalty program and associated mascot, Domino the Dalmatian.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailA spokesperson said “We acknowledge that this year’s display has fallen short of expectations and has not reflected what many in the community were hoping for
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Disney wants you to AI-generate yourself into your favorite Marvel movie
Users of OpenAI’s video generation app will soon be able to see their own faces alongside characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney’s animated films, according to a joint announcement from the startup and Disney on Thursday. Perhaps you, Lightning McQueen and Iron Man are all dancing together in the Mos Eisley Cantina.Sora is an app made by OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, which allows users to generate videos of up to 20 seconds through short text prompts. The startup previously attempted to steer Sora’s output away from unlicensed copyrighted material, though with little success, which prompted threats of lawsuits by rights holders.Disney announced that it would invest $1bn in OpenAI and, under a three-year deal perhaps worth even more than that large sum, that it would license about 200 of its iconic characters – from R2-D2 to Stitch – for users to play with in OpenAI’s video generation app
Musk calls Doge only ‘somewhat successful’ and says he would not do it again
Elon Musk has said the aggressive federal job-cutting program he headed early in Donald Trump’s second term, known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), was only “a little bit successful” and he would not lead the project again.Musk said he wouldn’t want to repeat the exercise, talking on the podcast hosted by Katie Miller, a rightwing personality with a rising profile who was a Doge adviser and who is married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration deputy chief of staff.Asked whether Doge had achieved what he’d hoped, Musk said: “We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful.”Doge created chaos and distress in the government machine in Washington DC, and by May more than 200,000 federal workers had been laid off and roughly 75,000 had accepted buyouts as a result of purges by Musk’s external team of often-young zealots
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Gloucester prop Afo Fasogbon: ‘I’m quite chilled off the pitch – until it’s time to go to work’
The 21-year-old came to rugby via an unusual route, but it is one that may soon see him in the England squadTo announce Afo Fasogbon as English rugby’s next big thing is not entirely accurate. He may be big – 6ft 4in tall and about 130kg (20st 6lb) – but as far as the internet is concerned he arrived some time ago. Video footage of the young Gloucester prop waving off the more experienced Ellis Genge after edging a scrummaging duel at Kingsholm last year went viral almost before Genge had reached the touchline.Should the 21-year-old make a strong impact off the bench against Munster in Cork on Saturday evening, however, he could soon be vying for even greater recognition. England are suddenly lighter in the tighthead department after Will Stuart’s unfortunate achilles injury, with Asher Opoku-Fordjour also out of action
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