Classifying Tactile Paving Crimes Using D&D Alignment (emf2026)

Tactile paving (those bobbly bits of pavements you find around crossings) has been with us since the 90s and is now ubiquitous, but it's not working as well as it should for the blind and partially sighted people who need it. Its use is controlled by a government guidance document but this is not legally binding and it does not cover lots of features that are now common on our streets. This leads to widespread instances of tactile paving 'crimes', where the paving either doesn't do the job it is supposed to or doesn't follow the guidance, or both. We're going to explore this issue by using the Alignment system from Dungeons & Dragons to classify these different crimes based on their position on the Good/Evil and Lawful/Chaotic axes. We will review photos of tactile paving collected from across the UK (to spot crimes) as well as videos of blind and partially sighted people using it (to understand the jobs it's supposed to do). Hopefully thinking about the problem in this way might help build consensus to one day write some better guidance. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2026/245-classifying-tactile-paving-crimes-using-d-d-alignment