I wonder if this will lead to less cars on the road? Probably not - silly me!

The other day I happened to be walking through a leafy, suburban area, that I hadn't visited for some years. It used to be quiet and peaceful but, on this most recent occasion (at about 2:30pm on a Wednesday afternoon), a car went past me every second or two - and at a junction with a main road there was a queue waiting to exit on to it.

Just a generation or so ago there was one car per family (or, in the case of my family, zero cars). Now even the family cat and dog have a car (and I'm sure that, just yesterday, I spotted a hamster taking its driving test!).

We've built our whole civilisation around the internal combustion engine (a very stupid and short-sighted thing to do) and now the foundations of the whole flimsy edifice are beginning to be undermined.