It is my own challenge that I am interested in maps. I have a particular interest at present in maps that can show me the roads that existed in 50AD and the time of Wim and Wuh, the time of the early Roman occupation of Britain. What I am finding is that maps don't normally tell you when or if things existed, but rather that they currently exist or that there is some evidence now that they exist.
Did you know that in older AA maps of the UK, one was easy able to find a roadmap that would show you the location of churches. Today, one is unable to buy maps that show the churches and pubs, but they do show where one can find the cameras that will photograph your car while you are driving on English roads. So what has happened that we now have shifted our attention and priority from objects and places of potential hope and solace, i.e. churches and pubs'Where can I get some peace and reassurance?', and to objects and places of fear, 'Where do the spy cameras lurk to entrap me and set the basis for my punishment?'
One might be forgiven for asking the question whether this represents a softness or disfunctioning of our brain. Its a new madness that we are no longer to be entrusted to drive at at a safe speed.
My supposition is that people need to be guided not punished. They need to be reminded not threatened. They need to be advised and shown, not scared and shocked.
I know that I personally respond better to a sign that tells me my speed than one that threatens me with a fine. In the former, I learn how much I need to adjust while the latter just confuses me.
Perhaps in this digital age, we should have signs in some places that advise us exactly how much we are over the safe and recommended speed limit. These signs could show us different colours of deviation from the recommended speed, such as a number in red when we are driving at a speed that encurs a fine and a number in orange when we are driving above the recommended speed limit. So if we are within 5 percent of the speed limit the number and colour that we see contains information that we can use. Obviously, any system will be abused, but such a system may actually help drivers. More signs that actually guide one to a safe speed limit would probably help.
I would find it helpful if I were shown speed differential information while driving that displayed dangerous speeds and zones based on cummulative accident records, climate, topography, and road conditions. It would be nice to know that a certain spot has ten times as many accidents as another. These days, the sites of accidents are so clean one has no idea that an accident has occured there. Do we forget the damage of death so quickly that we do not give others a basic history lesson that might help them survive?
One is reminded that if you forget history or do not know it you are more likely to experience the worst of it. Had some one said that smoking kills and marked the numbers for one to view then it would have been useful information to those that think. In the information age, we need to innovate the ways that we can gather, transmit, share, and use data that will benefit everyone that views it. We need gadgets that can collect information for us and then give us a realistic assessment of the value of the information in specific situations. We better start soon or we will have the painful process of learning slowly and apinfully what we should have learned very quickly and painlessly.
Such information assessment could be transmitted by mobile phone.
