Bert seizes power

We first met Bert in post 4, October last year, lamenting parking charges and traffic lights. Bert, and “Cars First!” co-religionist Lion Costume Man, have been elected to the Town Council. Despite the Morpeth Herald straining every sinew to get them there, Bert and Clarence polled fewer votes than the brace of Green candidates standing in the same ward. That there exist Greens in Morpeth will come as a shock to readers of the Herald, which may want to re-calibrate it's editorial position more accurately to reflect the concerns of the local populace. Actually, that's just me being snotty: it won't want to.

Bert works, or used to work – he may have retired recently – for FIAT as, if I remember it correctly, Technical Product Adviser. When asked what a Technical Product Adviser did he explained his role was helping people to an appreciation of what's great about FIAT cars. Marketing, then. Or Sales. Bert is car industry man.

So make a conversational overture with Bert on the subject of child safety on our streets, and Bert will likely enthuse about the integral child-seat anchor points and passenger airbags in the new FIAT Medea.

Try to move him onto the general health and well-being implications of diverse modes of personal transport and Bert will reference the two stage ventilation filters and hypo-allergenic bamboo fibre upholstery in the FIAT Herod.

Engage him on the subject of anthropogenic climate change and he'll open with the industry leading sensor controlled air-con and humidifier systems fitted as standard to ensure comfortable climate stabilty at all times for occupants of the FIAT Nero.

Quell a rising wave of queasy despair long enough to seek Bert's opinion on the decline in independent child mobility over the last forty years and Bert will agree that it's shocking, which is why the FIAT Chronos has the most generous rear-seat legroom in its class, such that the lankiest of kids can wriggle a bit – within the necessary constraints of their seat belts, naturally – on their short journeys to and from school.

Bert doesn't get it. Will he ever get it? Probably not, but you never know; there may be a Damascene moment in the pipeline for him. He may be stationary on the St George's roundabout one afternoon and, in a thunderclap of illumination, realise that a carriageway radius the width of three cars on a single-lane town centre mini-roundabout is an absurd mis-allocation of public space. He may be making good speed up the Whorral Bank one day when the succession of vehicles Prosting past him in the drag-strip lane jolt him into questioning whether three lanes here are strictly necessary for cars, whether the 'hammer it' lane might better be given over to creating a cycle track to design standard, such that the narrow pavement currently masquerading as a shared use cycling/pedestrian facility might revert to being for the exclusive use of pedestrians. One winter morning, nosing through town after fresh snowfall, speed reduced and tracking carefully in the grooves carved by preceding traffic, Bert - courtesy a frosty satori - may notice the broad skirts of pristine snow between the collective passenger side wheel rut and the pavement edge. Space that could, were traffic always calmed by, say, an enforced 20mph limit in the town, comfortably accommodate continuous and useful cycling infrastructure.

But let's not hold our breath.