"Motorists have ruined England"
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
You only have to look around the world to appreciate that people only ride bikes because they can't afford a motorbike and only ride motorbikes because they can't afford a car.
The British are no different. Those choosing to use modes of transport other than the car but with the money to use a car if they wished are making these choices for other reasons.
I agree completely that building more roads is not a solution. It is merely a temporary alleviation.
Seeing as the vast majority of adult cyclists own a car (well over 80% IIRC) that's clearly bThe British are no different. Those choosing to use modes of transport other than the car but with the money to use a car if they wished are making these choices for other reasons.
I agree completely that building more roads is not a solution. It is merely a temporary alleviation.
ks.Most people who cycle to work do so precisely because they prefer it (for time, enjoyment or fitness) than taking their car.
The unfortunate reality is that because the infrastructure is so terrible for cyclists, many people who would otherwise happily cycle instead of drive have had that choice effectively removed.
ohHello said:
Seeing as the vast majority of adult cyclists own a car (well over 80% IIRC) that's clearly bks.
Most people who cycle to work do so precisely because they prefer it (for time, enjoyment or fitness) than taking their car.
The unfortunate reality is that because the infrastructure is so terrible for cyclists, many people who would otherwise happily cycle instead of drive have had that choice effectively removed.
Pretty much. I got into road cycling a fair bit in the last couple of years, but have steadily lost the love again just because unless you go out at anything other than 6am on a Sunday morning on a summers day, it's invariably a horrible experience. ks.Most people who cycle to work do so precisely because they prefer it (for time, enjoyment or fitness) than taking their car.
The unfortunate reality is that because the infrastructure is so terrible for cyclists, many people who would otherwise happily cycle instead of drive have had that choice effectively removed.
If it's not pissing it down, or freezing cold, you're duking it out on roads / junctions not designed for cyclists and motorists who don't want you there and simply have no clue how to behave around you. I don't blame them necessarily.. but neither do I want to be the guy that ends up under their wheels.
I recently moved very close to work (1.5 miles!) and it is actually quicker to ride in than to drive, plus.. why would you waste the money on the fuel? But I only do so really because there's a cycle path virtually the whole way. If that wasn't there, I'd be reluctant to ride it because of how busy the roads are - and frankly I value my life too much!
Renovation said:
DonkeyApple said:
How many actual tasks are left in the West that couldn't be done in your day to day life without an Internet connection and telephone?
All my tasks - I'm a builderYou may be able to carry a ton of materials on your back whilst cycling - I can't.
Nor am I leaving £3k of tools on a job overnight.
DonkeyApple said:
I think it's fIr to say that if people weren't able to pay in easy monthly instalments using money from Asia against future earnings but saved up to buy the car themselves they would look after them better. All easy money does is create wastage and inefficiency.
On a related note, if car residuals weren't so shocking in the UK, cars would also be better looked after. - It's not worth me obsessing over the condition of the 3-Series before I get rid because I'd never recoup any of the money I'd spend. As it stands, the next owner will probably neglect it until a major failure occurs, then scrap it. It's not even done 80k miles yet.Negative Creep said:
What about all the jobs that include dealing with sensitive personal data? That can't be done from home either
That's one that irks me a little actually. A lot of such work can be done at home by leaving out the sensitive data and/or using appropriate encryption. The easy answer is to just have people crammed under the strip lights full time so that's what almost always happens, often with those on the ground not being given a say in the matter.Not saying there aren't many such situations that do require being in a secure environment though and inevitably such facilities frequently don't have public transport links.
I would actually happily cycle to work. However I've seen a number of incidents because the road to work splits a couple of times from two lanes to one lane (narrow enough so that a cyclist riding even in the gutter would impede traffic), and in their infinite wisdom the council decided to build a dedicated cycle path going DOWN the steep(ish) hill. Where it's least needed. The other side makes do with an opening into two lanes and cars barrelling along overtaking each other doing at least 40mph with cyclists struggling up the steep hill doing 5mph alongside.
If there was a decent cycle path that went both ways I'd happily sell my daily driver and cycle to and from work. There's a sensible cycle path to the local Tesco but seeing as I drive past it every day I never really use my cycle.
If there was a decent cycle path that went both ways I'd happily sell my daily driver and cycle to and from work. There's a sensible cycle path to the local Tesco but seeing as I drive past it every day I never really use my cycle.
Renovation said:
DonkeyApple said:
How many actual tasks are left in the West that couldn't be done in your day to day life without an Internet connection and telephone?
All my tasks - I'm a builderYou may be able to carry a ton of materials on your back whilst cycling - I can't.
Nor am I leaving £3k of tools on a job overnight.
B: commercial vehicles aren't the issue.
ohHello said:
DonkeyApple said:
You only have to look around the world to appreciate that people only ride bikes because they can't afford a motorbike and only ride motorbikes because they can't afford a car.
The British are no different. Those choosing to use modes of transport other than the car but with the money to use a car if they wished are making these choices for other reasons.
I agree completely that building more roads is not a solution. It is merely a temporary alleviation.
Seeing as the vast majority of adult cyclists own a car (well over 80% IIRC) that's clearly bThe British are no different. Those choosing to use modes of transport other than the car but with the money to use a car if they wished are making these choices for other reasons.
I agree completely that building more roads is not a solution. It is merely a temporary alleviation.
ks.Most people who cycle to work do so precisely because they prefer it (for time, enjoyment or fitness) than taking their car.
The unfortunate reality is that because the infrastructure is so terrible for cyclists, many people who would otherwise happily cycle instead of drive have had that choice effectively removed.
Go and sell your car and only ever use your bike to prove me wrong.
7mike said:
For anyone who can be bothered (obviously not the journalist in question) this offers an interesting view point.
http://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/03/26/from-horse-power...
Great article! Very interesting to see the problems of old were even worse than now. I had a chuckle at this part:http://horsetalk.co.nz/2012/03/26/from-horse-power...
"Manure makes fine fertilizer, and an active manure trade existed in the 19th-century city. However, as the century wore on the surge in the number of horses caused the bottom to fall out of this market"
ps
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
Negative Creep said:
Renovation said:
DonkeyApple said:
How many actual tasks are left in the West that couldn't be done in your day to day life without an Internet connection and telephone?
All my tasks - I'm a builderYou may be able to carry a ton of materials on your back whilst cycling - I can't.
Nor am I leaving £3k of tools on a job overnight.
k-ink said:
Great article! Very interesting to see the problems of old were even worse than now. I had a chuckle at this part:
"Manure makes ?ne fertilizer, and an active manure trade existed in the 19th-century city. However, as the century wore on the surge in the number of horses caused the bottom to fall out of this market"
ps
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
It is an idea, but they've rather beaten you to it, by taking deliveries at night already..."Manure makes ?ne fertilizer, and an active manure trade existed in the 19th-century city. However, as the century wore on the surge in the number of horses caused the bottom to fall out of this market"
ps
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
Clivey said:
DonkeyApple said:
I think it's fIr to say that if people weren't able to pay in easy monthly instalments using money from Asia against future earnings but saved up to buy the car themselves they would look after them better. All easy money does is create wastage and inefficiency.
On a related note, if car residuals weren't so shocking in the UK, cars would also be better looked after. - It's not worth me obsessing over the condition of the 3-Series before I get rid because I'd never recoup any of the money I'd spend. As it stands, the next owner will probably neglect it until a major failure occurs, then scrap it. It's not even done 80k miles yet.tomjol said:
k-ink said:
Great article! Very interesting to see the problems of old were even worse than now. I had a chuckle at this part:
"Manure makes ?ne fertilizer, and an active manure trade existed in the 19th-century city. However, as the century wore on the surge in the number of horses caused the bottom to fall out of this market"
ps
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
It is an idea, but they've rather beaten you to it, by taking deliveries at night already..."Manure makes ?ne fertilizer, and an active manure trade existed in the 19th-century city. However, as the century wore on the surge in the number of horses caused the bottom to fall out of this market"
ps
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
I assumed that what he meant was, for example, the 12 hour industry such as retail stock deliveries, would it be efficient to have staff on retail premisis to take night time stock deliveries?
DonkeyApple said:
To an extent as the firs delivering at night tend to be part of the 24 hour network (of course!;)).
I assumed that what he meant was, for example, the 12 hour industry such as retail stock deliveries, would it be efficient to have staff on retail premisis to take night time stock deliveries?
It's not a 12 hour industry I assumed that what he meant was, for example, the 12 hour industry such as retail stock deliveries, would it be efficient to have staff on retail premisis to take night time stock deliveries?
so yes it can be efficient for some.Admittedly, it could be expanded.
DonkeyApple said:
SteveSteveson said:
Unfortunately people are social animals. Most people dislike working from home, and teams just don't work when they are not in an office together. As much as people would like it most business, even wholly office based work, can't be done by people working from home full time. That is assuming you have space to work from home, which thanks to the tiny size of UK houses most people don't have the space to set up a home office.
Agree but I wasn't suggesting working from home. The solution that business would gravitate to if employees couldn't afford to commute would be to break down the business into localised operations. The obvious split being departmental. Edited by SteveSteveson on Tuesday 2nd September 16:52
As we've seen in London, as space is so expensive, various departments are moved to regional centres where space is cheaper and there is still a great pool of labour available, if not superior.
At the same time, the GoreTex case study shows that a large business run as separate remote operations is actually more efficient/productive than shoehorning the whole business into one space.
This also has the added benefit of boosting regions and regenerating social cohesion. Dormitory towns are not socially beneficial. For the same reason that you state that we like working in groups for social benefit so we also like living and socialising in community groups.
Increased artificial wealth has allowed people to commute further so has allowed business to agglomerate. Dissipating business to create more even regional spreads and reduce commute distances is hugely beneficial to society.
The private car is currently the best wide spectrum form of transport that has been devised to date. When someone invents something which is `actually' better. the population will switch to it in droves. Currently no such `better' form of wide spectrum transport (or means of avoiding travel) exist.
I remain genuinely amazed at what I read on PH at times. On this thread there appears to be a complete refusal to recognise the existence of Benelux and their transport infrastructure, and that the pages of comments on this thread stating that what happens on a daily basis in Benelux is impossible to do.
And now this one, a first for me:
All these trucks are all going places and all were/are delivering and collecting at night. There is a whole other taskforce out there all operating while we're fast asleep.
And then of course each moring millions of cars would take to the roads all at the same time and the roads grind to a halt at about 8 am- with all the culprits blaming the hgvs.
Kink, I can't think what m'ways you are using at night but they are absolutely NOT representative of the nation's m'ways - and why or how you have come to the conclusuin that factories and supermarkets are not taking deliveries at night I just don't know - but let me tell you you've got it 100% wrong!
And now this one, a first for me:
k-ink said:
I tend to use the motorways at night when they are empty these days. No I do not work night shifts, I just plan my long journeys this way. Shame the delivery companies do not follow suit. To my mind it is madness the roads are jammed in the day yet hardly used at night. There is a vast unused saving right there. No reason why factories, supermarkets etc cannot have deliveries at night. Those places are 24/7 anyway. Imagine how free flowing the motorways would be with no lorries in the day. That is just one idea. There are dozens more which do not take a genius to come up with.
I don't know how you can travel the m'ways at night andd fail to see that there are as many hgvs using the m'ways at night as there is by day. I did night trunking for about three years, starting just before the credit crunch, and I was genuinely shocked at the numbers of hgvs at night, sometimes lanes 1 and 2 were just full, and all of it flowing nicely at 50 odd mph apart from road works and ludicrous speed limits imposed therein.All these trucks are all going places and all were/are delivering and collecting at night. There is a whole other taskforce out there all operating while we're fast asleep.
And then of course each moring millions of cars would take to the roads all at the same time and the roads grind to a halt at about 8 am- with all the culprits blaming the hgvs.
Kink, I can't think what m'ways you are using at night but they are absolutely NOT representative of the nation's m'ways - and why or how you have come to the conclusuin that factories and supermarkets are not taking deliveries at night I just don't know - but let me tell you you've got it 100% wrong!
Pan Pan said:
DonkeyApple said:
SteveSteveson said:
Unfortunately people are social animals. Most people dislike working from home, and teams just don't work when they are not in an office together. As much as people would like it most business, even wholly office based work, can't be done by people working from home full time. That is assuming you have space to work from home, which thanks to the tiny size of UK houses most people don't have the space to set up a home office.
Agree but I wasn't suggesting working from home. The solution that business would gravitate to if employees couldn't afford to commute would be to break down the business into localised operations. The obvious split being departmental. Edited by SteveSteveson on Tuesday 2nd September 16:52
As we've seen in London, as space is so expensive, various departments are moved to regional centres where space is cheaper and there is still a great pool of labour available, if not superior.
At the same time, the GoreTex case study shows that a large business run as separate remote operations is actually more efficient/productive than shoehorning the whole business into one space.
This also has the added benefit of boosting regions and regenerating social cohesion. Dormitory towns are not socially beneficial. For the same reason that you state that we like working in groups for social benefit so we also like living and socialising in community groups.
Increased artificial wealth has allowed people to commute further so has allowed business to agglomerate. Dissipating business to create more even regional spreads and reduce commute distances is hugely beneficial to society.
The private car is currently the best wide spectrum form of transport that has been devised to date. When someone invents something which is `actually' better. the population will switch to it in droves. Currently no such `better' form of wide spectrum transport (or means of avoiding travel) exist.
'I never mentioned working from home'. There.
Give me a shout if you need me to say 'I never mentioned working from home' again.
But for reference, the service sector is the largest sector in the UK. Removing the centric nature of industry is the solution and something you even raise as an issue in your post.
Gaz. said:
DonkeyApple said:
But poor residuals are surely a symptom of easy credit?
Dating plates and a British culture of must have the newest thing. Easy credit in America, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Japan etc yet it is only here that has significant depreciation. Look at the amount of JDM cars going BACK to Japan, German marques being sold to Europe and the far east, Corvettes going back to the states. My Supra went to Germany and my Porsche went to Australia because they are worth three times more overseas and Johnny Foreigner wanted a bargain.It's not just cars, look at all of those knob heads who CAMPED to buy an iPhone5 and sold off their iphone 4 on ebay for buttons.
Everyone 'must have the newest thing'. It is the mass human mechanism that is the reason why any society must have usury controls and regulation. It is also why every politician ever has always known that if you relax or remove these controls you almost instantly create spending inflation and generate more tax take. It also has the added upside that hooking your electorate into debt fuelled asset ownership allows you to control them far more easily.
DonkeyApple said:
Pan Pan said:
DonkeyApple said:
SteveSteveson said:
Unfortunately people are social animals. Most people dislike working from home, and teams just don't work when they are not in an office together. As much as people would like it most business, even wholly office based work, can't be done by people working from home full time. That is assuming you have space to work from home, which thanks to the tiny size of UK houses most people don't have the space to set up a home office.
Agree but I wasn't suggesting working from home. The solution that business would gravitate to if employees couldn't afford to commute would be to break down the business into localised operations. The obvious split being departmental. Edited by SteveSteveson on Tuesday 2nd September 16:52
As we've seen in London, as space is so expensive, various departments are moved to regional centres where space is cheaper and there is still a great pool of labour available, if not superior.
At the same time, the GoreTex case study shows that a large business run as separate remote operations is actually more efficient/productive than shoehorning the whole business into one space.
This also has the added benefit of boosting regions and regenerating social cohesion. Dormitory towns are not socially beneficial. For the same reason that you state that we like working in groups for social benefit so we also like living and socialising in community groups.
Increased artificial wealth has allowed people to commute further so has allowed business to agglomerate. Dissipating business to create more even regional spreads and reduce commute distances is hugely beneficial to society.
The private car is currently the best wide spectrum form of transport that has been devised to date. When someone invents something which is `actually' better. the population will switch to it in droves. Currently no such `better' form of wide spectrum transport (or means of avoiding travel) exist.
'I never mentioned working from home'. There.
Give me a shout if you need me to say 'I never mentioned working from home' again.
But for reference, the service sector is the largest sector in the UK. Removing the centric nature of industry is the solution and something you even raise as an issue in your post.
Pan Pan said:
Computers and the internet don't actually make anything, for that you need real people, real materials, doing real physical work, to produce real items and goods...somewhere.
That's a personal view rather than a factual one. But it doesn't belay the simple fact that the service sector is the dominant sector in the UK. It is also London centric. And hence the glorious congestion of the SE. Look in any traffic jam in the UK, those people are traveling from a dormitory town to a remote office complex or from the dormitory town to the remote shopping complex. Very few of them are off to do manual labour in statistical terms. The people in manufacturing are too small a group to be the cause of the issue and not can such work be broken down and regionalised any more than it is already (just look at how a car is assembled and all the parts coming in from smaller, regional entities). If anything it proves the point rather.
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