Traffic Calming - A Stealth Tax
Discussion
I think I'm in danger of starting a rant that'll set Ted off. It occurred to me the other day that "Traffic Calming Measures" are actually a well designed stealth tax. The political spin doctors and the safety Nazis get Joe Public to sign up to, ask their local councils for, or even demand traffic calming measures where they live on the supposition that it will slow down speeding drivers.
This works for the government as they can say that they are responding to public demands for increased safety measures. But the real benefit to the government is that we have to slow down, sit in traffic queues and accelerate away, possibly several times, to get through the calmed area. When is a car at it's least economical ? When it's moving off from stationary and driving slowly of course. And what does traffic calming do ? It forces you to increase fuel consumption. And what does increased fuel consumption mean ? More money to the Treasury via our high fuel taxes of course ! Oh yes, and increased pollution in urban areas too which will probably kill more people in the long term than were saved from being knocked down !
If we complain about the knock-on effects of traffic calming, then our political leaders can come back and say, "Well, you asked for us to implement it !!". Perhaps we'll have to get the Greens to study it and comment on how much extra pollution it causes, but what credence do they have ? They're the ones who wanted the increased pollution that comes as a result of fitting catalytic convertors !
This works for the government as they can say that they are responding to public demands for increased safety measures. But the real benefit to the government is that we have to slow down, sit in traffic queues and accelerate away, possibly several times, to get through the calmed area. When is a car at it's least economical ? When it's moving off from stationary and driving slowly of course. And what does traffic calming do ? It forces you to increase fuel consumption. And what does increased fuel consumption mean ? More money to the Treasury via our high fuel taxes of course ! Oh yes, and increased pollution in urban areas too which will probably kill more people in the long term than were saved from being knocked down !
If we complain about the knock-on effects of traffic calming, then our political leaders can come back and say, "Well, you asked for us to implement it !!". Perhaps we'll have to get the Greens to study it and comment on how much extra pollution it causes, but what credence do they have ? They're the ones who wanted the increased pollution that comes as a result of fitting catalytic convertors !
I expect that central government gets local government to set aside a large portion of the transport budget for "road safety" (or whatever the trendily spun name of the week is) schemes. This money then gets spent on unnecessary localised schemes instead of maintaining the existing road network properly. Hence we get rutted and bumpy roads with poor visibility due to overgrowth of vegetation that cause more deaths than the safety schemes supposedly save.
Gassing Station | Corvettes | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff