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davel.
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October 2, 2018 at 9:58 pm #29013
gmac101
https://twitter.com/WMPRHRT/status/1046784923208753153
And cyclists are the major problem on the roads – imagine how quiet the roads would be if the police did this on any stretch of road on a regular basis
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DaxPlusPlus
davel wrote:One name: Ernest Marples.Oversaw road proliferation, while having a stake in the companies profiteering from it. When that was called out for not being quite cricket, he transferred the stakes to his wife. Then entrenched the car slavery by bringing in Beeching to chop 1/3 of the rail network and 1/2 the train stations.
That corrupt maniac’s legacy has proved pretty irreversible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples
‘In later life, Marples was elevated to the peerage before fleeing to Monaco at very short notice to avoid prosecution for tax fraud.’
Probably tells us everything we need ot know about his moral compass through life.
Kendalred
Mark B wrote:iandusud wrote:The sad thing is when I have mentioned to cyclists that I would be happy to see fuel tax go up if the money was spent on public transport and cycling infrastructure, they mostly look very unhappy.I always get rather worried whenever anyone mentions cycling infrastructure, because so much of it is so bad and makes things worse.
The main constraint on building good quality cycling infrastructure is not cost – it’s mostly not that expensive – but space. A proper cycle track, of a decent width and not shared with either pedestrians or motor vehicles, is simply impossible to fit down a lot of roads, and could only be done by reducing space for motor vehicles on others. And while I’d support the latter, I understand why it’s a problem politically.
The problem is that, apart from inner London and maybe a few other cities, people plan their lives around the car. They buy houses and get jobs such that a car is the only sensible option. So while changes to the road layout that reduce space for cars will result in worse congestion and lots of complaints, but only a very limited amount of mode shift in the short term.
(Thinking about it, part of the problem is the change in the employment market over the last few decades. If you could reasonably expect to stay at a company for decades, it makes sense to buy a house nearby; now people tend to change employer every few years and they are likely to be in all different places, so why not just buy a house you like and accept that you’ll have to drive to all of them? Again, London is an exception because there are so many jobs there that you can reasonably expect to be able to work in central London all your life if you want to)
And further to this point, the ‘school run’ is something that is now seen as the norm – whereas when I was a school aged nipper (back in the depths of the last millenium!), we went to the nearest school. None of this ‘choice’ nonsense – you live in the catchment area, you go to this/that school. Now kids routinely go to schools that require long journeys, often passing by schools much closer to home. “Ooh, we’re over the moon, we managed to get our Tarquill into St Beckhams Academy – it’s a two hour drive, but the Ofsted was outstanding”
Mark B wrote:iandusud wrote:The sad thing is when I have mentioned to cyclists that I would be happy to see fuel tax go up if the money was spent on public transport and cycling infrastructure, they mostly look very unhappy.I always get rather worried whenever anyone mentions cycling infrastructure, because so much of it is so bad and makes things worse.
The main constraint on building good quality cycling infrastructure is not cost – it’s mostly not that expensive – but space. A proper cycle track, of a decent width and not shared with either pedestrians or motor vehicles, is simply impossible to fit down a lot of roads, and could only be done by reducing space for motor vehicles on others. And while I’d support the latter, I understand why it’s a problem politically.
The problem is that, apart from inner London and maybe a few other cities, people plan their lives around the car. They buy houses and get jobs such that a car is the only sensible option. So while changes to the road layout that reduce space for cars will result in worse congestion and lots of complaints, but only a very limited amount of mode shift in the short term.
(Thinking about it, part of the problem is the change in the employment market over the last few decades. If you could reasonably expect to stay at a company for decades, it makes sense to buy a house nearby; now people tend to change employer every few years and they are likely to be in all different places, so why not just buy a house you like and accept that you’ll have to drive to all of them? Again, London is an exception because there are so many jobs there that you can reasonably expect to be able to work in central London all your life if you want to)
One name: Ernest Marples.
Oversaw road proliferation, while having a stake in the companies profiteering from it. When that was called out for not being quite cricket, he transferred the stakes to his wife. Then entrenched the car slavery by bringing in Beeching to chop 1/3 of the rail network and 1/2 the train stations.
That corrupt maniac’s legacy has proved pretty irreversible.
srchar
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:Oh and I bought a house with a garage so I wasn’t going to be parking it on the road taking up more space. This is one of the biggest problems government ignores, how much land motors on roads/streets they take up squeezing everyone else, making the roads even more hazardous and more pollution too.This is a huge problem in my neck of the woods; cars litter every available space in streets lined with housing built before it was usual to have a driveway. And it’s making a comeback – it is common on new-build housing estates to sacrifice driveways and front gardens in order to pack more houses onto the same amount of land. Such housing estates, being plonked down in the middle of nowhere, with no regard for transport infrastructure, pretty much mandate car ownership.
Mark B
iandusud wrote:The sad thing is when I have mentioned to cyclists that I would be happy to see fuel tax go up if the money was spent on public transport and cycling infrastructure, they mostly look very unhappy.I always get rather worried whenever anyone mentions cycling infrastructure, because so much of it is so bad and makes things worse.
The main constraint on building good quality cycling infrastructure is not cost – it’s mostly not that expensive – but space. A proper cycle track, of a decent width and not shared with either pedestrians or motor vehicles, is simply impossible to fit down a lot of roads, and could only be done by reducing space for motor vehicles on others. And while I’d support the latter, I understand why it’s a problem politically.
The problem is that, apart from inner London and maybe a few other cities, people plan their lives around the car. They buy houses and get jobs such that a car is the only sensible option. So while changes to the road layout that reduce space for cars will result in worse congestion and lots of complaints, but only a very limited amount of mode shift in the short term.
(Thinking about it, part of the problem is the change in the employment market over the last few decades. If you could reasonably expect to stay at a company for decades, it makes sense to buy a house nearby; now people tend to change employer every few years and they are likely to be in all different places, so why not just buy a house you like and accept that you’ll have to drive to all of them? Again, London is an exception because there are so many jobs there that you can reasonably expect to be able to work in central London all your life if you want to)
FluffyKittenofTindalos
davel wrote:What will it take for individual drivers to see: ‘YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC’And in the case of a 2 1/2 mile commute, entirely unecessary traffic. You could _walk_ that in half an hour (with the assistance of a sufficiently high-bpm playlist, anyway). If ‘traffic’ means it takes ‘nearly an hour’ why is he still driving it? People are nuts.
Yep, driving is seen as a
Yep, driving is seen as a right, not a privilege.
My local paper (the Warrington Guardian) is a Framley Examiner-esque mixed bag, and that includes its ‘mystery columnist’ (which I suspect is a grand term for somebody who would be virtually anonymous if they printed their real name next to it). Nevertheless, they do well often holding the dismal council to account.
The other week they bemoaned the ‘back to school’ surge in traffic, that meant a 10 minute commute, during rush hour, through town, was now taking nearly an hour. The distance? 2 1/2 miles, and he (I suspect ‘he’ ) is blaming ‘traffic’.
When I’m King we’ll have public information films berating people for not getting off their fat arses and killing kids – their own kids. ‘Want to set your kids up for type 2 diabetes? Lead by example and DRIVE 2.5 miles to work through a notoriously gridlocked rushhour. Throw in a stroke or heart attack by constantly grumbling about the state of the’ traffic’ while you’re doing it’.
What will it take for individual drivers to see: ‘YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC’
iandusud
I cycle regularly and I drive
I cycle regularly and I drive about 10,000 miles a year. I’m strongly in favour of hiking up the tax on fuel and spending it on public transport and cycling infrastructure. We need to reduce car usage and I would happily use my car less if there were good public transport options. As it is we have a post code lottery when it come to public transport. Using bikes and trains is one of the best transport options going, covering long distances by rail and short local journeys by bike. However that is basically a non starter in the UK. Different opperators have different policies with regard to carrying bikes. Many can’t garantee a space. Those that can might only have two spaces etc. Whatever happened to the guards van? There is no joined up thinking with regard to transport policy. Transport needs have to be seen as a national need (we all need to get from A to B wether it be on foot, bike or motorised transport) and it needs to be funded one way or another. At the moment government policy is to heavily subsidise private motoring. This needs to change. The sad thing is when I have mentioned to cyclists that I would be happy to see fuel tax go up if the money was spent on public transport and cycling infrastructure, they mostly look very unhappy.
Anonymous
srchar wrote:The fixed costs of driving need to be lowered and the variable costs increased. Currently, it costs rather a lot of money to get a car sitting outside your house; the cost of the car itself, insurance, VED, annual maintenance, parking permit etc. To use the car, the only costs are fuel and mileage-related depreciation (and hardly anyone considers the latter). Fixed costs need to be made variable, e.g. by mandating pay-per-mile (or per-day) insurance, higher fuel duty or – whisper it – demand-based road pricing. The technology exists to do it, but the political will is weak.I decided to give up driving last Oct, still unsure whether I will carry on without as it’s been bloody difficult at times, especially socially and with friends living across country just a bit too far away to cycle (and the roads are horrible in places anyway) and then do another ride the following morning as I’d stay over.
The last 10 years or so I was down to about 3,000 miles annually, some of that for my charity work, some for visiting the folks up North, a few shorter journeys with the young grandkids and the rest for specific journeys like collecting a bike, having a week in France where I’d spider out in different directions each day from a single base. VED for my ’01 Passat is now £195, insurance is about £230 and running costs aren’t that much, I spent a big amount in late 2016 but generally in the 13 years I’ve had it it’s been great.
My beef is that despite knowing that my emissions are not that far off what a EURO6 diesel is in real world use (there’s some very interesting documents regarding how far off EURO6 vehicles are and why the ULZ extension in London is a load of bollocks) I’m not only being punished once for having an ‘older’ dirty diesel when it’s not the case at all but I’m being punished twice because my 3000 miles will produce less emissions than even a modern zero rated diesel doing only about 5000 miles a year IF it is even remotely close to the bullshit manufacturer figures. Let’s not even get to the pony about petrol cars and how they are sweetness and light!
Oh and I bought a house with a garage so I wasn’t going to be parking it on the road taking up more space. This is one of the biggest problems government ignores, how much land motors on roads/streets they take up squeezing everyone else, making the roads even more hazardous and more pollution too.
Do I keep the passat and put it back on the road or not, I’d rather have an assisted pedal type thing along the lines of what Grant Sinclair designed https://bikerumor.com/2017/02/20/sinclair-iris-goes-e-trike-route-super-fast-commuter/ I’d even be happy with licencing for having a bigger motor for say 30-40mph and longer range so I could do much longer journeys, a shame there was no actual product.
A lightweight pedal assist that had a rack of some sort to carry your ‘ordinary’ would be even better.
like yourself I do like giving it the beans on occasion but as my old grandpop said to me when I first passed, it’s not the outright speed that is the problem, it’s any speed in the wrong situation that will get you and others into bother.
srchar
I’m all for mandating GPS
I’m all for mandating GPS-based speed limits in new cars. Most of them already contain the hardware to implement it; with little to no cost to the end user, I’m not sure how it can be argued against. No position logging, no phoning home to report data, just simple geo-location based restrictions on the car’s speed.
If you want to drive fast, and I have to confess that I LOVE driving fast, do it on a track, not the roads.
With the amount of technology and connectivity built into even low-end modern cars, you could even have a car do an AskMID check to validate that it is insured, query DVLA for its VED status and check that it has an MoT before will turn the engine over. This stuff isn’t hard, and doesn’t have to be intrusive either – and I’m a big privacy advocate. It would certainly have far fewer privacy implications than, say, having a Facebook account.
Daveyraveygravey wrote:Shades wrote:CXR94Di2 wrote:All the police need to do is mount a camera on the side of a road going into city/town and record people using phones, record no Insurance, vehicle tax,mot etc. Stop them a few hundred yards down the road and issue points and fines.I see loads of folk who should be caught.
What happened to good old fashioned random police checks? I got pulled over in the US for being slightly over the speed limit; I wasn’t going to complain with 2 armed Georgia cops walking towards me. Scrutinised my Brit licence and told me my speeding points had expired (which was correct) and that I needed to get my licence updated. I’d have passed out if a UK cop had gone to that level of detail. Mind you, I did some time in Zimbabwe; you grin like a Cheshire cat when a bloke with an AK47 peers through your window!
Good old UK; don’t upset the motorists.
What happened to good old fashioned random checks? I think they went out the window when the government realised replacing coppers in cars with speed camers saved them loads of money on wages and petrol and buying cars, and brought in loads of money on fines. Because speed cameras save lives, right?
Average speed cameras are better and hopefully not too far down the line when all motors have speed limiters set in them so they cannot go above the prescribed speed (even if we don’t agree with that limit) it’ll be even better. Not saying that static boxes are/were a good idea, just that trying to reduce speed of motorists in certain areas without having to rely on plod being there all the time is a good thing.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:So ban driving then? or double or triple fuel tax and see what great things happen. Stuff like RTAs, health problems and policing are not directly noticeable in people’s pockets. £20 on petrol this week is £20 not on something else in the retail sector. I’m not looking at long term health and neither are most of the population who may be living week to week, not decades down the line. It’s like smoking, people chose to do it regardless of how much you tell them it’s bad.Except it’s not just a driver’s long term health that’s involved. That’s why it’s called an externality, and why your argument here is flawed (though not completely wrong in terms of politics as opposed to economics or morality)
Smoking imposes concequences on the smoker, not on everyone else. And, anyway, they more than pay for their increased health-care costs in tax.
Edit – I mean your analogy with smoking would work better if cars were designed so as to be airtight with all the emissions directed into the interior of the vehicle.
Kapelmuur
OldRidgeback wrote:Shades wrote:CXR94Di2 wrote:All the police need to do is mount a camera on the side of a road going into city/town and record people using phones, record no Insurance, vehicle tax,mot etc. Stop them a few hundred yards down the road and issue points and fines.I see loads of folk who should be caught.
What happened to good old fashioned random police checks? I got pulled over in the US for being slightly over the speed limit; I wasn’t going to complain with 2 armed Georgia cops walking towards me. Scrutinised my Brit licence and told me my speeding points had expired (which was correct) and that I needed to get my licence updated. I’d have passed out if a UK cop had gone to that level of detail. Mind you, I did some time in Zimbabwe; you grin like a Cheshire cat when a bloke with an AK47 peers through your window!
Good old UK; don’t upset the motorists.
I worked in Nigeria for a few years in the bad old days of the military government. Back then police spot checks were generally a way for the police to amke extra money.
Were you there when it was an offence to smoke while driving? A colleague of mine was caught and refused to pay the ‘dash’.
He spent a very uncomfortable 24 hours in the lock-up.
srchar
The fixed costs of driving
The fixed costs of driving need to be lowered and the variable costs increased. Currently, it costs rather a lot of money to get a car sitting outside your house; the cost of the car itself, insurance, VED, annual maintenance, parking permit etc. To use the car, the only costs are fuel and mileage-related depreciation (and hardly anyone considers the latter). Fixed costs need to be made variable, e.g. by mandating pay-per-mile (or per-day) insurance, higher fuel duty or – whisper it – demand-based road pricing. The technology exists to do it, but the political will is weak.
OldRidgeback
Shades wrote:CXR94Di2 wrote:All the police need to do is mount a camera on the side of a road going into city/town and record people using phones, record no Insurance, vehicle tax,mot etc. Stop them a few hundred yards down the road and issue points and fines.I see loads of folk who should be caught.
What happened to good old fashioned random police checks? I got pulled over in the US for being slightly over the speed limit; I wasn’t going to complain with 2 armed Georgia cops walking towards me. Scrutinised my Brit licence and told me my speeding points had expired (which was correct) and that I needed to get my licence updated. I’d have passed out if a UK cop had gone to that level of detail. Mind you, I did some time in Zimbabwe; you grin like a Cheshire cat when a bloke with an AK47 peers through your window!
Good old UK; don’t upset the motorists.
I worked in Nigeria for a few years in the bad old days of the military government. Back then police spot checks were generally a way for the police to amke extra money.
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