Cars are ace. They also kill people.

Tom Forth, 21 July 2021.

I write a lot about what's currently called 'levelling up'. I've written about why I think that levelling up the GDP per person of the UK's large city functional economic areas is what we should be aiming for. Lots of clever people disagree.

So I regularly try to challenge myself. Other people think that levelling up quality of living, disposable income, health outcomes, educational outcomes, or happiness is a better target. Many of these things are quite highly correlated with GDP/capita, so we don't disagree much. But it's enough that I try to change my mind.

One of the ways that I do that is to make a prediction using my beliefs that I can test using data which I don't have yet. Then I get the data, and check if I'm right or wrong. If I'm wrong, I find that a good way to start changing my mind.

So I've been looking at ways we might level up without thinking about the strength of an economy at all. And just as I was thinking about that it was suggested to me by Matt Killcoyne at The Adam Smith Institute that I should look at where people own cars, and where cars kill pedestrians.

While the UK government is passing laws on how devolved and local governments should fly flags, it cannot provide a clear enough definition of its own constitution that Google can get the UK's flag right on the most-used website on Earth.

Cars are ace. They also kill people.

Levelling up by making pedestrians safer.