“It’s not my fault.” “He wasn’t paying attention.” “She suddenly jumped in front of my car.”

Recently, ironically enough on the way home from doing a recording for a documentary on carfree cities, our car bumped into a pedestrian. My driver and the other passengers immediately launched into a chorus similar to the above phrases: he should have been on the sidewalk, the driver honked in warning, he wasn’t paying attention, etc.

It amazes me that we can build a transport system that relies on the infallibility of its players, with full knowledge that if one thing is guaranteed, it is that people will do stupid things. They will fail to pay attention, they will pull out without seeing someone else, they will run into the street chasing a ball. Given that mistakes will happen, the only way to avoid tragedy (other than take the obvious step of removing cars from cities) is to slow down speeds so that collisions become minor bumps, not major crashes that can cost a leg...or a life.

After all, if we are behind the wheel of a car that ends up killing someone, how much comfort will it be to know that “it wasn’t our fault” (though if we hadn’t been in a car, we could never have killed someone so easily and unintentionally)?