'I don't mind motorways as long as I've got them to myself," said my husband, at the end of a day of road works and traffic jams and driving for miles with great wagons thundering past on either side.

We'd been to a family celebration in Birmingham, but the drive there and back was so grim we'll be going by train next time. Better for the environment anyway, and now we've both got pensioners' railcards, it's not quite so prohibitively expensive.

We broke our journey at one of those motel places - big clean room, good bathroom, large comfortable bed. But like so many of these places it was built slap in the middle of a sort of urban wasteland.

I wanted some toothpaste. I could see a supermarket not far away. So I set out to walk to it.

It was obvious that no-one expected anybody actually to use their legs around there. Dual carriageways hurtled through the landscape, lined with factories and office blocks. There were bits of pavement, in places, but they'd abruptly fizzle out in a barrier or at the side of yet another dual carriageway. The only safe way to get to the supermarket on foot was by covering twice the distance.

That's the trouble with so much of the new building around our towns and cities these days. It leaves pedestrians out of the picture completely. It assumes everyone goes everywhere by car. So of course they do, since that's better than trying to dodge through traffic to get to where you want to be. But have you ever seen a stretch of dual carriageway or a motorway that actually improves the look of the landscape or makes for a better environment? Thought not.

Yet with tedious regularity, our news bulletins are full of angry spokespeople for haulage companies, and motorists complaining about high fuel prices and speed cameras and anything else that stops them driving where they want when they want at whatever speed they fancy.

Never mind that the poor pedestrian doesn't get a look in. Never mind that they give not a thought to the needs of the environment or the global warming that is very likely causing catastrophic weather changes, like the hurricanes in the United States or even the Asian tsunami and the more recent earthquake.

Now and then someone in government makes noises about improving public transport, about reducing greenhouse gases and discouraging car use. Then the next thing they're building more motorways.

Supermarkets and factories depend on goods being shipped daily over hundreds of miles in heavy goods vehicles. Parents take their children to school by car - for fear of letting them walk in traffic. More and more of our towns and cities are given over to car parks, because people have forgotten how to walk any distance to shops or offices. Most of us like our cars.

We ourselves live a mile and a halffrom any bus, so a car is pretty much essential unless we're feeling energetic and haven't much shopping or luggage to carry. But like most drivers, we're pedestrians too and enjoy the countryside. And at the moment it looks to me as if the motorists are being allowed to take over.

So we all get fatter and the world gets more polluted. When are we going to have the wisdom to get together and urge our representatives in local and central government to do something about it and actually say no to the selfish driving lobby?

Published: 18/10/2005