I WAS saddened to hear of the death of Sir David MacKay (Herald Obituaries, May 16). He was a champion of rational thinking and of the use of numbers, principles almost totally absent in discussions on transport, health and the environment. It’s astonishing to remember that, during the 18th century, Scotland not only played an major role in the evolution of enlightenment thinking, but that in the 19th century Glasgow was a world pioneer, putting those principles into action, eliminating cholera through the application of health science and bringing fresh water to the city through huge infrastructure investment. As David MacKay always pointed out, rational judgement is all about scale and numbers. On climate change, the amount of fuel burned by cars compared to leaving your phone plugged in makes a mockery of tokenistic campaigns urging you to “turn it off”. Forget about the phone, drive less. You would have to leave your electricals plugged in for thousands of years to match one mile of driving.
Similarly recent letters in The Herald attacking cyclists (May 9 & 16), show a total disregard for science and number. Even though cars have violently killed 45,000 people in the UK in the 21st century and almost half a million indirectly through pollution, inactivity and climate change; even though road deaths are reported almost every day in The Herald; even though the forces required to move cars vastly exceed those the human body can withstand (while pedal cycles are benign); even though for every harmless cyclists riding the pavement a thousand life-threatening cars straddle pavements, and even though for every cyclists “jumping” a red light, a thousand motorists exceed the speed limit; even then, with all those facts, accessible to everybody, still the cyclist, the answer to all the above, is persecuted.
How far we have fallen from the enlightenment! How can it be acceptable to say that cyclists should be Tasered for going through a red light (Letters, May 16)? David MacKay’s science is an antidote to hate. We should use it.
Norman Armstrong,
The Whitehouse Cycling Research Centre, 1641 Maryhill Road, Glasgow.
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