Drivers' group fires election salvo
Failed UK government should scrap bus lanes says ABD
As the battle for the next UK general election grinds into gear, motorists' body the Association of British Drivers (ABD) says that political parties fighting the forthcoming general election campaign ignore transport issues at their peril.
The ABD reckons that, while all parties understandably place education and health at the top of their list, the current government has been the most disappointing in areas of transport and road safety.
The pressure group says that "politicians don't seem to realise transport problems are faced most frequently by voters every day of their lives as they negotiate our crumbling streets. Successive governments have failed dismally on transport, and the current regime has excelled in transport policy incompetence.
According to the ABD, the government has:
- Reversed the previous decline in road deaths.
- Drastically cut back the road building programme leaving many villages and towns in misery due to lack of essential bypasses.
- Presided over a dismally failing programme of flooding the country with speed cameras which, despite the spin, have not reduced fatalities.
- Created money making "partnerships" of local councils, magistrates and police bureaucrats to run the cameras as money making enterprises, complete with "business plans".
- Actively encouraged polluting, frustrating congestion everywhere, with ill conceived, politically inspired "traffic calming" schemes which are often a danger to all road users.
- Failed absolutely to introduce measures to improve road user education and road engineering that would have saved many lives, while frantically spinning the statistics in their attempt to convince the public that the above measures are working.
- Increased congestion in many towns and cities by introducing little used bus lanes, and other traffic management schemes that waste road space and cause obstruction.
- Encouraged local councils to make money out of restrictive parking practices causing misery to many.
- Devoted huge amounts of energy attempting to convince the public that car use is responsible for climate change.
- Presided over further crumbling of our public transport system, while attempting to force us into buses and trains.
The ABD says that, "despite this appalling record we are so far hearing very little from the opposition parties that gives us any indication they intend to change things if elected.
"There are glimmers of hope from the Tories in that they have promised to scrap the cash hungry speed camera partnerships and to allow vehicles carrying two or more passengers to use bus lanes, but they should be doing so much more."
ABD chairman Brian Gregory said, "It is hard to believe that the Labour Party will continue this fiasco, or that the opposition parties are failing to take advantage. Transport should be pushed right up the agenda - it is vital for the prosperity and well being of the country. Without prosperity we cannot fund education, health and all the other vital services. Our crumbling transport network is destroying business and worse, costing many lives."
ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries said: "Motorists are feeling oppressed and victimised. And it's no surprise because a whole basket of failed anti-car policies live on causing no beneficial effect - only misery. Speed cameras. Empty bus lanes. So called "traffic calming" measures.
"These are not good policies that deliver benefit to the community. These are bad policies that make motorists feel mugged. There is so much that election protagonists could be promising the 33 million motorist voters."
The ABD suggests that political parties should make firm manifesto commitments to:
- Reinstate road building and improvement schemes.
- Scrap all congestion charging and tolling plans.
- Ensure speed cameras will only be placed within a few metres of blackspots where accidents have been caused by sober, otherwise legal drivers exceeding correctly set speed limits.
- Introduce a body of experts comprised of experienced traffic officers and highway engineers to oversee setting of speed limits with an aim to eventually take this task out of the hands of local politicians.
- Freeze fuel taxes and vehicle excise duty with a promise to increase year on year the percentage of the 42 billion collected from motorists spent on the road system (currently only around 6 billion is spent).
- Scrap underused bus lanes. If there is not a bus at least once every ten minutes then the lane should be open to cars.
- Return the role of traffic wardens to that of reducing congestion and danger by preventing dangerous parking, not as cash collectors for local councils.
- Reinstate traffic police divisions with a clear mandate to educate and carry out enforcement only against those causing danger, not targeting minor, safe violations of poorly set limits.
- Observe the ABD manifesto at www.abd.org.uk/manifesto.htm.
spnracing said:
The ABD find all this 'hard to believe' because they are so out of touch with today's society.
Good. Given the repellent nature of today's PC, Diana worshipping, Daily Mail reading, "What about the childr-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-n", unthinking, inumerate, emotive, "victim as expert" society, the less people have to do with it, the better. The ABD's suggestions all sound very sensible to me, which means they don't stand a cellophane snowball's chace in Hell of being implemented.
Whilst i agree in principle with much that they say i have never been able to bring myself to join their ranks as they always seem to state the case badly and emotively.
Having said that, eight years membership of the RAC is about to cease if they can't represent me more accurately - the issue is NOT speeding it's driving at inapropriate speeds!
If only they advertised - used governmental tactics on billboards, on radio and even on the TV to counter the one-sided government messages that are permitted without thinking, yet no-one seems to think that if one opinion is advertised no-one else is allowed to publicise theirs. The ABD, IAM SafeSpeed - they should all be out there doing it.
v8thunder said:
IMO the biggest problem with the ABD - and all pro-car groups for that matter - is that they seem to have trouble getting their message across to the general public who ordinarily wouldn't know of their existence.
If only they advertised - used governmental tactics on billboards, on radio and even on the TV to counter the one-sided government messages that are permitted without thinking, yet no-one seems to think that if one opinion is advertised no-one else is allowed to publicise theirs. The ABD, IAM SafeSpeed - they should all be out there doing it.
This is great in principle V8T but advertising costs shed loads of money which neither ABD or SafeSpeed have. Sadly the government have lots, all of it ours.
spnracing said:
The ABD find all this 'hard to believe' because they are so out of touch with today's society. When New Labour are returned with yet another massive majority maybe the ABD will start to listen?
Perhaps you should see the recent AOL poll, giving a very likely more accurate representation of general feeling (given that there were nearly 30,000 votes rather than the usual 1000 or so undertaken by speed camera representatives):
The question was: Do you resent speed cameras?
Yes
22851
83%
No
4749
17%
Total Votes:
27600
When will you start to listen?
spnracing said:
Does that mean that everyone who votes Labour agrees with their policies on road safety?
Of course not - but the language used in the press release is hardly going to attract labour voters to the cause.
So what sort of language is attractive to the average Labour voter?
'dismally failing', 'actively encouraged polluting',
'Failed absolutely', 'despite this appalling record' etc etc hardly set the tone for a reasonable debate.
As a more moderate motoring enthusiast, I have to put up with draconian camera policies and traffic calming measures because organisations like ABD and Safe Speed portray all of us as a bunch of tossers who want roads across the whole country and the freedom to drive as fast as we like.
Unfortunately, probably due to lack of funds, they're not high-profile enough. Neither, TBH, are we, and the majority of what the public sees passing for 'performance motoring' are laxxers driving like f
kwits round car parks and racing on urban streets, hence all the clips of 'cruisers' every time there's an anti-speeding documentary.It's just that they are of a group that features highly in the accident statistics but low in the "caught by speed camera" statistics.
Therefore, the reliance on speed control, with safety as the apparant justification, is misplaced.
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff