“Go and play in the traffic!”

The long tradition of April Fool news stories in mainstream outlets seems to be in abeyance thanks to the internet - in any case, there are now so many odd and surreal news items out there that the odd spaghetti tree would probably slip through unnoticed (I rather like the conspiracy theorists’ explanation that switching on the Large Hadron Collider precipitated us into a parallel and comparatively insane universe).

This one had my antennae twitching but, as far as I can see, it first appeared six days after the crucial date:

Giant coloured spots appeared on Norman Way in Colchester, with locals told that the “temporary street art” was intended to encourage children to walk or cycle to the nearby school.

Quite apart from aesthetic considerations - the colour combination is frankly nauseating - and the distraction for drivers, decorating the road surface with the same brightly-coloured designs used widely in school playgrounds suggests that the designers have little or no practical knowledge of child behaviour.

The spots are part of a Healthy School Streets initiative on the part of the Council - savour those capital letters: a sure sign there’s a PR company or quango involved somewhere - designed to reduce and control traffic around schools. It’s the sort of project guaranteed to appeal to high-ups who want to be seen to Make a Difference and just the sort of idea likely to be swapped around at conferences (Head Teachers are prone to the same kind of thing, making schools doubly 

vulnerable).

The timing is interesting, to say the least; ‘temporary’, yet right at the start of the Easter holidays - and a month or so before the local elections. The overall impression is that the peasants should shut up and not interfere when their betters decide to act for their good:

A spokeswoman for Essex Council [...] said residents were consulted on the idea. They said 74% agreed with the principle of setting up School Streets in Colchester.

Doubtless this survey was carried out with the help of the usual leading questions - ‘Do you agree with our plan or would you prefer to see more horrible road accidents involving children? - and the residents agreed in principle without being given any clear indication of the form the measures would take. Certainly one local Councillor, who memorably described the results as ‘Teletubby land’ says she was not shown the design in advance.

For me, though, the oddest aspect is the stated aim of ‘encouraging children to walk or cycle to school’. For one thing, the design is limited to a small area and youngsters are hardly likely to find a few coloured spots on the road at their destination sufficient incentive to warrant walking all the way and, more to the point, surely deciding the means of getting to school is up to their parents, at least until they are of an age to find the brightly-coloured circles embarrassingly infantile and patronising.

If I am wrong, and it is really children who are deciding whether to walk or drive to school at an early age, the results could be interesting; if parents have abdicated responsibility to that extent, will they have the discipline or authority to prevent their infant offspring from succumbing to the lure of the ‘attractive’ street art and jumping into the road?