"Motorists have ruined England"
Discussion
NinjaPower said:
He says 80% of the population lives in 'urban areas' and therefore has no real need for a car.
Well I'm one of the 20% who doesn't live in an 'urban area', so he can stick his ideas to price everyone off the road up his arse.
Just this evening I drove 11 miles to a friends house. A door-to-door journey that took me a mere 10 minutes in my car following some serious yet enjoyable speeding.
How the hell else does he suggest I get there?
And at one fell swoop, you've demonstrated exactly the sort of lazy, ranting, knee-jerk vitriolic response the writer was predicting!Well I'm one of the 20% who doesn't live in an 'urban area', so he can stick his ideas to price everyone off the road up his arse.
Just this evening I drove 11 miles to a friends house. A door-to-door journey that took me a mere 10 minutes in my car following some serious yet enjoyable speeding.
How the hell else does he suggest I get there?
How are we supposed to ever have a serious constructive debate about anything when people like you can't make it past the first sentence of someone's positron without going into full on, swivel eyed frothing at the mouth, ears closed ranting mode?
Would it really have been so difficult to actually read the article before you started whining? If you had, you would've doubtless got to the part where he's suggesting pricing roads according to their need to be priced to control traffic levels on them. Indeed, you could even have written to the writer asking him what price he thought should be charged for your traffic free rural idyll, and I suspect he would say nothing, as it clearly doesn't need to have congestion controlled.
London (and I would imagine most other major towns and cities) are very different. Of course there are some people who need to drive London, but once you get past the seriously disabled, delivery drivers and people who have to carry tools around with them, I've pretty much exhausted my last of people who need (rather than want) to drive.
I live 5 minutes on foot from the last station in London zone 6 (although it's actually in Surrey). This means that I can get to my office in central London in under an hour, paying £11.40 per day, I can get a bus (probably! I've never bothered to check), I can take my preferred option of cycling in (15 miles each way in around 75 minutes), or I can spend the best part of two hours clogging up the city and increasing my stress levels by driving in inches at a time!
If you introduced an alien to London, they'd immediately conclude that you'd have to be clinically insane to drive there, yet people persist in doing so, and thereby turning the place into a s
thole for themselves and everyone else. Proposing road pricing as a way to try and counteract such irrational behaviour is perfectly logical, and doesn't need to have any effect on your rural idyll, so why respond as though it does?Personally,I do think it's actually the wrong approach though.
The far simpler, infinitely cheaper to implement solution would just be to abolish car tax (especially now the removal of the need to display it removes the argument that it's a visual demonstrator of a car being insured and MOTed) and load up fuel duty instead. There's a whole host of ways that this is fairer...
1. People who do 500 miles a year in a glorious V8 are no longer unfairly penalised compared to the guy who does 20,000 in a 1.6 litre s
tbox.2. People who choose for whatever insane reason to drive into Central London at 8am on a weekday morning are free to do so, but pay for the privilege through their single digit mpg.
3. People who choose to drive outside peak times and thus ease congestion and pollution at the worst times are rewarded for doing so through improved mpg.
4. People who live in properly rural areas will suffer less, due to their always better mpg, although it would be simple enough to exempt garages more than a certain distance from the nearest bus/train route (so that it helps the real locals, but it doesn't make sense for town-dwellers to drive out to fill up) from some or all of the increase. Remember, these rural dwellers would still be benefiting from savings on the tax disc.
5. Disabled people could be issued with a discount card which would exempt them from the extra duty at point of sale for a specific vehicle registered to their card.
I used to love driving, but the levels of road traffic in the South East of England make that impossible these days. When I sold my V8 to take delivery of a company S-Max, I was planning on using some of the cash to buy an MX-5 or a Pug 106 GTi so that I could still have fun. That was 18 months ago, and I've still not bought anything, as I was hit with the sudden and dreadful realisation that the only difference between the V8 in the last few years and the S-Max, other than for the occasional track day and the exhaust note in tunnels and carparks was that I was paying much more to fuel the V8 for the privilege of sitting in endless processions of traffic clogging the roads up.
For the moment, I'm having to get the buzz I used to get from driving with singletrack mountain biking, and until something is done to massively reduce the load on England's roads, that's how it will have to remain. I really wouldn't care if they doubled fuel duty if it actually meant I could enjoy burning fuel again!!!
Good post Kermit.
I don't live in the South East but I've found I can get a bigger rush going down a hill on a road bike at 30-40 mph than I can in a car, not least because on a bike I'm not worried about losing my license. I can also go balls out on my bike and not get stuck behind Doris and Jack, out for a leisurely drive at 29 mph.
I don't live in the South East but I've found I can get a bigger rush going down a hill on a road bike at 30-40 mph than I can in a car, not least because on a bike I'm not worried about losing my license. I can also go balls out on my bike and not get stuck behind Doris and Jack, out for a leisurely drive at 29 mph.
DonkeyApple said:
We all see the massive reduction in rush hour volumes during school holidays. This implies that the school run is a significant contributor to congestion. The question being could this be managed in a different manner? Staggered terms, staggered times etc? Shooting fat kids?
Let them know that the half mile between house and school is not, in fact, filled with strangers offering free candy 
.(Half-joking - you're right, the school run does make a BIG difference, and a lot are doing so over distances where even a bicycle seems overkill. I think you're on a hiding to nothing if you expect a parent to make a perceived sacrifice regarding their kid's safety, but schools - with funding - could do more to reassure parents that a kid can get their arse to school safely.)
DonkeyApple said:
We all see the massive reduction in rush hour volumes during school holidays. This implies that the school run is a significant contributor to congestion. The question being could this be managed in a different manner? Staggered terms, staggered times etc? Shooting fat kids?
No, it implies that many commuters take their holidays while the schools are off. For obvious reasons.paranoid airbag said:
DonkeyApple said:
We all see the massive reduction in rush hour volumes during school holidays. This implies that the school run is a significant contributor to congestion. The question being could this be managed in a different manner? Staggered terms, staggered times etc? Shooting fat kids?
Let them know that the half mile between house and school is not, in fact, filled with strangers offering free candy .(Half-joking - you're right, the school run does make a BIG difference, and a lot are doing so over distances where even a bicycle seems overkill. I think you're on a hiding to nothing if you expect a parent to make a perceived sacrifice regarding their kid's safety, but schools - with funding - could do more to reassure parents that a kid can get their arse to school safely.)
I don't think making the fat kids of dumb parents walk is worthwhile. It's a bit of a Daily Mail 'hate' solution. It's whether the structure of schooling can be adjusted to make better use of less congested times etc.
Dr Jekyll said:
DonkeyApple said:
We all see the massive reduction in rush hour volumes during school holidays. This implies that the school run is a significant contributor to congestion. The question being could this be managed in a different manner? Staggered terms, staggered times etc? Shooting fat kids?
No, it implies that many commuters take their holidays while the schools are off. For obvious reasons.Many commuters can also travel earlier when they are not having to take kids to school.
DonkeyApple said:
Ergo, the school run is a massive contributor to congestion!!!
Many commuters can also travel earlier when they are not having to take kids to school.
That would make some roads more congestion in the holidays not less.Many commuters can also travel earlier when they are not having to take kids to school.
Commuters who are dragging their brats round Disneyland aren't commuting, therefore not contributing to congestion. That's my point.
Dr Jekyll said:
DonkeyApple said:
Ergo, the school run is a massive contributor to congestion!!!
Many commuters can also travel earlier when they are not having to take kids to school.
That would make some roads more congestion in the holidays not less.Many commuters can also travel earlier when they are not having to take kids to school.
Commuters who are dragging their brats round Disneyland aren't commuting, therefore not contributing to congestion. That's my point.
Dr Jekyll said:
DonkeyApple said:
We all see the massive reduction in rush hour volumes during school holidays. This implies that the school run is a significant contributor to congestion. The question being could this be managed in a different manner? Staggered terms, staggered times etc? Shooting fat kids?
No, it implies that many commuters take their holidays while the schools are off. For obvious reasons.You talk about peaks and troughs etc but the route cause of the issue is that too many of us use our cars too often, frequently when we don't need too. The country is grinding to a halt while we worship at the alter of personal convenience and the god given right to drive whenever we want.
Bullett said:
Too many of us are using our cars at the same time.
That's why road charging at peak times won't work (except to raise more revenue) as no one sane chooses to travel at a peak time. They travel at that time because they have to.
That's true, there are certain times of the day that will always be heavy for traffic, such as those leaving work at 5pm or parents picking children up at 3-4pm. I live in a relatively small part of the country, and even here you will find it difficult to get home from the middle of town at any time between 3 and 5pm.That's why road charging at peak times won't work (except to raise more revenue) as no one sane chooses to travel at a peak time. They travel at that time because they have to.
I don't think motorists ruined England, there's still life in the old girl yet!
Bullett said:
Too many of us are using our cars at the same time.
That's why road charging at peak times won't work (except to raise more revenue) as no one sane chooses to travel at a peak time. They travel at that time because they have to.
Outside London, you might be right. In London, however, there's either a huge proportion of the population to be considered clinically insane, or sane people do choose to travel at peak times! I pass thousands of cars on my ride to work, and my route (and theirs) runs directly above the Northern Line. There's absolutely no reason for the vast majority of them to drive, yet they still do.That's why road charging at peak times won't work (except to raise more revenue) as no one sane chooses to travel at a peak time. They travel at that time because they have to.
Devil2575 said:
You talk about peaks and troughs etc but the route cause of the issue is that too many of us use our cars too often, frequently when we don't need too. The country is grinding to a halt while we worship at the alter of personal convenience and the god given right to drive whenever we want.
The country is not grinding to a halt, that's absurd. People travel by car when it's the least worst option, just as they travel by tube and train when that's the least worst option. Tubes are often overcrowded, not because people use them too often or when they don't need to, but because they are often a rational option despite the crowds.What you mean of course is that you are delayed by congestion and regard this as a threat to civilisation.
So the other people using the roads should bugger off and go by train. Of course this causes them more delay than going by car (that's why they used the car in the first place) but for them to avoid this delay means they are worshipping at the altar of personal convenience and (their) convenience is bad.
Of course it's out of the question for you to use trains and suffer the delay, because delay to you means the country is grinding to a halt, whereas delays to anyone else are an irrelevant inconvenience.
0000 said:
Devil2575 said:
You talk about peaks and troughs etc but the route cause of the issue is that too many of us use our cars too often, frequently when we don't need too.
Do you?Dr Jekyll said:
Devil2575 said:
You talk about peaks and troughs etc but the route cause of the issue is that too many of us use our cars too often, frequently when we don't need too. The country is grinding to a halt while we worship at the alter of personal convenience and the god given right to drive whenever we want.
The country is not grinding to a halt, that's absurd. People travel by car when it's the least worst option, just as they travel by tube and train when that's the least worst option. Tubes are often overcrowded, not because people use them too often or when they don't need to, but because they are often a rational option despite the crowds.What you mean of course is that you are delayed by congestion and regard this as a threat to civilisation.
So the other people using the roads should bugger off and go by train. Of course this causes them more delay than going by car (that's why they used the car in the first place) but for them to avoid this delay means they are worshipping at the altar of personal convenience and (their) convenience is bad.
Of course it's out of the question for you to use trains and suffer the delay, because delay to you means the country is grinding to a halt, whereas delays to anyone else are an irrelevant inconvenience.
I'm rarely inconvenienced by congestion, at least not as a driver because I only do about 300 miles a month and where possible drive at times when traffic isn't bad. I avoid heavy traffic and queues like the plague. Not only do they waste time they also waste fuel.
I am however inconvenienced by traffic as a pedestrian, when I walk my kids to school for example. SUVs litter the roads, the drivers of which are all trying to squeeze into the car park of the local convenience store and pub. Crossing the entrance is a nightmare as drivers are trying to turn in through a short gap in traffic coming the other way. Really great when you have a 5 and a 3 year old in tow. I wouldn't care but the catchment for the school isn't that big in terms of distance and if you don't live in catchment you don't tend to get in. But I'm sure they all need to drive
In the summer we took the kids out but generally avoided weekends because the traffic is crazy. When we do go places we tend to park a bit further out and walk in to avoid the traffic but the cars just make things unpleasant. You can't cross roads, the entrance to the cars parks close to the beach, which you have to cross to get to the beach, are awful. A queue of cars snaking round a car park that is obviously full. The queue extends into the road which causes issues for passing traffic as well. All because people haven't realised that they aren't going to be able to park there. On hot sunny weekends it pretty much turns nice places to visit into no go areas. Cars and the volume of traffic ruin places like this.
Sitting in cars in traffic is a waste of your life.
Edited by Devil2575 on Sunday 7th September 21:12
Dammit said:
I think the thing to do, as suggested up-thread, is to raise the price of petrol to £10/litre and derv to £20/litre.
Or grant an allowance with the VED disc based in a set of criteria. All fuel under the allowance is normal price, above the allowance it's a huge premium. The upside being that you don't punish normal people using cars prudently but set at the right levels it will lead to many of the short journeys being done via a different means, many non essential journeys not done etc.
However, using the fuel taxation system is still too blunt a tool for this purpose. After all, the chap driving at midnight isn't part of the issue but could be penalised.
You could use the Galileo satellite when it comes on stream to tax users per mile dependent on time of travel and road used. That would be extremely efficient but I do think that anyone advocating fitting Govt tracking devices to cars should be shot in the face immediately.
The best all round solution is to work to shift employment away from high employment zones to low ones. This not only resolves core congestion issues but also social inequality issues and cost of living hurdles.
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