Leslie Hore-Belisha's very British zebra
Zebra crossings are endangered, but not as endangered as the poor pedestrian. The AA estimates that 1,000 zebra crossings have been abolished, while Britain has sunk to the third most dangerous nation for pedestrians, behind Italy and Spain. Their attitude to driving speaks for itself.
The zebra crossing promotes civility. A driver seeing a belisha beacon and striped road markings ahead drives more carefully.
A pedestrian red or amber light provides, by contrast, just one more frustration. And there is something British in the best sense about the zebra crossing. The belisha beacon came in first in the 1930s, the brainchild of the Liberal politician Leslie Hore-Belisha; the stripes followed in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain.
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