Saplings Supersede Speed Braking Bumps

No, this is not a story about the now contrite Casanova clubman 'down boy' Tiger Woods but a new highways scheme in Norfolk

If this is what comes to mind when trees, cars and road safety are uttered, think again. £70,000 trial plans are afoot to use the speed reducing properties of the tunnelling effect of roadside trees on the approach to 30 mile an hour village boundaries. The trees are to replace more urban traffic calming measures that have scarred city streets, such as speed bumps, maintaining the rural essence of Norfolk. Single track major routes that criss cross the county, passing through sleepy villages and joined by national speed limit roads, are a reality without motorways and few dual carriageways. Another unfortunate death when a car hit a JCB in an early morning collision on Monday, it is unclear if speed was an issue. The A148 is a major west east link, from King's Lynn to Fakenham and beyond, yet the map illustrates its rural nature.

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Whether reducing the maximum speed limit to 50 would help is unsure. Any reduction is likely to be unpopular in counties where large distances are travelled with no motorway alternative. A balancing act between speed and safety, no doubt the debate will continue.

Trees

"I was walking in the park, admiring the old trees. Some of them were crooked. Some of them had scars, and lots and lots of wrinkles." 
"Why do we think that trees are so beautiful showing their age and what they went through & not the same with people? I just wondered." Yoko Ono Tweets 2009.

Like all the most interesting faces, trees are beautiful because they have a lived in, asymmetrical, natural appeal that any fake plastic tree can't satisfy. I am lucky enough to peruse this lovely example from my kitchen window on a daily basis.

© J Reed

Radiohead wrote a very beautiful anti surgery/natural beauty song called 'Fake Plastic Trees'. Three years previous, the anti establishment Rage Against The Machine released 'Killing in the Name' protesting, in a forceful and profane way, 'I Won't Do What You Tell Me'. With the power of instantaneous people power programs an independent social uprising overcame the marketing phenomena that is Simon Cowell, whose company is called SyCo, to beat X Factor Joe McElderry's rehash of Miley Cyrus's 'The Climb' to the Christmas No.1. The band has donated their profits to homeless charity Shelter. Usually I wouldn't care about the chart topper at Christmas but, like trees, I don't like my music squeaky clean, uniform and just a little bit fake.