Birmingham, England drops the apostrophe

An AP story I read today states that in Birmingham, England, apostrophes are no longer going to be used on street signs because they are, and I quote, "confusing and old-fashioned."

The head of the city's transport scrutiny committee (they have a committee for that?), Martin Mullaney, says, "Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate and are not needed. They confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high-school diploma) in English to find it."

Um, ok. So you're saying you're dumber than a high-school student?

If apostrophes "confuse people," isn't the answer for school systems everywhere to somehow find a way to do a better job at educating children about when and how to use an apostrophe? Didn't the schools used to do it that way?

But no, let's just throw up our hands and give up and change punctuation rules because that way, you won't need a high-school diploma to read a basic street sign in Birmingham, England, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Sigh....