An Open Letter to Drivers Who've Had Enough of Congestion
Dear Better-than-average drivers of the world,
I know that you are feeling frustrated by the driving experience. After all, the car industry's adverts show beautiful, clear, empty roads without another car in sight, but your daily reality is often the complete opposite.
Roads are heavily congested and getting worse. You have to slow to 20mph/30km/h in an increasing number of residential streets. You aren't allowed to rat run in low traffic neighbourhoods. Parking is hard to come by, forcing you to drive around looking for a space, getting increasingly stressed. And you have to watch out for speed, bus lane and traffic light enforcement cameras that will fine you if you do the wrong thing.
I get the frustration. It feels like there is a ‘war on cars’. And don’t get me wrong, there are people out there who do want to prevent you from driving and get rid of cars from our towns and cities altogether. But these people are a tiny minority. Most people are not seeking a war on cars; they recognise that cars are going to be an important part of our transport system for decades to come.
Unfortunately, some politicians are seeking to exploit your frustration for your vote. They promise to end the war on cars, get rid of slower speeds, remove enforcement cameras and prioritise cars. For a frustrated driver like yourself, it sounds great.
There is only one problem: they are selling you snake oil. A bunch of policies that will actually make your driving experience worse, cost you more money, and increase the prices you pay for goods, making your cost of living worse. Let me explain.
Schools
Slower speeds and speed enforcement cameras are common around schools. You might think removing these will speed up your journey.
Unfortunately, when speeds increase around schools, parents worry about their children's safety. Instead of walking or cycling their children to school, they drive them instead. More people driving means more traffic congestion for you. You already feel the difference when there are school holidays and your commute is a lot quicker; that's the same effect, in reverse.
Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods
Like slower speeds around schools, low-traffic neighbourhoods get people out of their cars and walking, cycling and using public transport more. That means less traffic for you. Remove these and more people will drive more, and the congestion you face will get worse.
Cycling
Perhaps you believe that creating space for cycling is a bad idea. After all, cyclists don’t pay directly for the roads (although they do pay taxes), and you have seen them breaking road rules. But when you make cycling difficult, people don’t stop travelling; they drive instead.
More traffic. More competition for parking. Every cyclist you see is one less car in your way.
Parking
Maybe you are fed up with struggling to find a parking space and wonder why they can’t just build more. There’s a catch: when we build more parking, more people drive, and that means yet more traffic getting in your way.
Speed Cameras
Perhaps you are fed up with speed cameras and have been fined. But take the cameras away and the worst drivers benefit: the ones who go far too fast for the conditions. They endanger you and your family, and when they inevitably cause crashes, you are the one stuck in the traffic they create.
Bus Lanes
Maybe you are frustrated at a bus lane that sits empty while you’re stuck in traffic beside it. You might think converting it for all traffic would help. But take away that lane, and many of the people who currently take the bus will choose to drive instead. The road fills up again, fast. A better fix: if the bus lane looks empty, ask for more bus services. Better buses get more people out of their cars and out of your way.
Road Widening
Maybe you think widening the most congested road will help. But drivers have already adapted to the congestion that’s there; some travel earlier or later, some re-route, some work from home, some take the bus or cycle. Widen the road, and they adapt again: fewer detours, less remote work, more driving. This is a well-documented pattern in transport.
Houston’s Katy Freeway is a famous case, widened to 26 lanes (yes, you read that right!), only for travel times to get worse within a few years as the extra capacity simply attracted more traffic. The end result of widening: more cars use the road, it fills up again, and you’re left with congestion again, just with more lanes, and billions of taxpayer dollars spent.
Fares
Perhaps you are considering a politician promising free or very low public transport fares, hoping it will get people out of their cars and out of your way. Unfortunately, very few people give up driving because fares are cheap. Worse, these policies are often funded by cutting maintenance and services. As services get worse, people use them less and drive more; congestion gets worse for you, not better.
If you genuinely want more people on public transport and off the road, the better ask is for politicians to spend money on improving bus services, frequency, reliability, and coverage. That does far more to shift people out of cars than a cheap fare ever will.
A Change Worth Backing
Everything so far has been about defending what already works: don’t remove the camera, don’t remove the bus lane, don’t widen the road. But there is one genuinely new idea worth getting behind: road user charging to replace fuel taxes.
You might worry this means paying more. Humans don’t love change, and nobody wants a new tax. But road pricing is one of the few tools that reliably gets people to switch out of their cars and reduces congestion for everyone left on the road. Once drivers experience the benefits of quicker, more predictable journeys, most don’t want to go back to sitting in traffic.
So the next time that a politician comes calling with their snake oil solutions to your transport headaches, tell them that you want solutions that will actually work and get other people out of their cars and out of your way.
Yours sincerely,
Russell King
Driver and Founder of the Transport Leader Newsletter and Blog