If I was Secretary Of State for Transport, I'd...
Discussion
Allow overtaking on both sides on the motorway, reducing congestion.
Allow a left turn on a red light, if the road was clear.
Replace many junction traffic lights with roundabouts, saving on electricity and waiting times.
Replace the road tax with a levy on fuel, so no one could avoid it.
Make the speed limit on the motorways 90, but
Reduce the limit in built up areas to 20.
Allow the Police to ram stolen cars off the road to avoid lengthly chases, even if it resulted in the death of the "joy rider".
Make it compulsary for pubs to offer free soft drinks to designated drivers, so there might be an incentive to offer to drive on a night out.
Any other suggestions?
Allow a left turn on a red light, if the road was clear.
Replace many junction traffic lights with roundabouts, saving on electricity and waiting times.
Replace the road tax with a levy on fuel, so no one could avoid it.
Make the speed limit on the motorways 90, but
Reduce the limit in built up areas to 20.
Allow the Police to ram stolen cars off the road to avoid lengthly chases, even if it resulted in the death of the "joy rider".
Make it compulsary for pubs to offer free soft drinks to designated drivers, so there might be an incentive to offer to drive on a night out.
Any other suggestions?
If I were secretary of state for Transport, I'd...............
dye my hair to match my eyebrows or my eyebrows to match my hair........ qualify as a solicitor and therefor no sweet f
k all about Transport but claim to have all the answers anyway. fk it up even more than it was already fked up but ensure that I shaft the car anyway but fk it I'm a politician and get paid stloads and the rest I can claim on expenses so fk you anyway.
Then, if I snivel enough, or fk it up enough, I can get promoted to Chancellor of the exchequer because I know fk all about economics either but hey, what could possibly go wrong.........................
Is it really too much to ask that if you are put in charge or responsible for something, you should really have some kind of understanding of what that something is?
dye my hair to match my eyebrows or my eyebrows to match my hair........ qualify as a solicitor and therefor no sweet f
k all about Transport but claim to have all the answers anyway. fk it up even more than it was already fked up but ensure that I shaft the car anyway but fk it I'm a politician and get paid stloads and the rest I can claim on expenses so fk you anyway.Then, if I snivel enough, or f
k it up enough, I can get promoted to Chancellor of the exchequer because I know fk all about economics either but hey, what could possibly go wrong.........................Is it really too much to ask that if you are put in charge or responsible for something, you should really have some kind of understanding of what that something is?
Bing o said:
Snipers to take out MLMs and fog light wkers?
Yep, especially those vehicles carrying badges/stickers which suggest the driver really ought to know better. Black Mitsubishi pickup on the eastbound M4 near Swindon at 2-ish pm, huge PH sticker clearly visible on the rear window as you cruised along in L2 despite the enticing expanse of deserted L1 to your left, I'm thinking about you here...kers?HOGEPH said:
Allow overtaking on both sides on the motorway, reducing congestion.
I wouldn't; it'd cause more crashes.HOGEPH said:
Allow a left turn on a red light, if the road was clear.
Absolutely yes.HOGEPH said:
Replace many junction traffic lights with roundabouts, saving on electricity and waiting times.
Totally agree. Also mandate that all traffic lights must be intelligent (i.e. when approached by a single vehicle when there are no waiting vehicles, let that one through) and in quiet intersections, go to flashing amber after 10PM at night.HOGEPH said:
Replace the road tax with a levy on fuel, so no one could avoid it.
But won't someone please think of all those poor civil servants, who, without a vast fleet of vehicles to tax, would be out of a job? No? OK. Carry on. I like this.HOGEPH said:
Make the speed limit on the motorways 90
Nah. 100. De-restricted on long straight sections (like the Peterborough A1Mbahn) where the infrastructure's suitable, with a long-term goal of de-restricting the entire network.
HOGEPH said:
Reduce the limit in built up areas to 20.
Why? In suburban areas, I'd also remove speed bumps and chicanes and replace them with cameras, but only in problem areas.HOGEPH said:
Allow the Police to ram stolen cars off the road to avoid lengthly chases, even if it resulted in the death of the "joy rider".
I wouldn't, but by the same token I wouldn't class a pursued joyrider who stacks it of his own accord as a "police accident" if there was no contact between the pursued vehicle and the pursuing police vehicle.HOGEPH said:
Make it compulsary for pubs to offer free soft drinks to designated drivers, so there might be an incentive to offer to drive on a night out.
Oh, yes. Definitely. And to extend the range of beverages to include tea and coffee. A chap can only guzzle so much J2O before his stomach rewards him with reflux and/or an ulcer.HOGEPH said:
Any other suggestions?
A general policy decision to police bad driving, rather than to attempt to codify every specific bad behaviour. Make it mandatory for any NCAP 5 star car to have a Bluetooth handsfree fitment. In my world, it wouldn't be illegal to use a mobile and drive, but your driving had better be flawless when you're doing it.A more rigorous driving test, not necessarily to be taken all at once. Dual-carriageway driving to be part of the test.
More education, with an emphasis on co-operation. We drive on crowded roads and life's better and safer when we try to rub along amiably, rather than aggressively. This means telly adverts in prime-time, which means slap bang in the middle of Corrie and X Drivel Celebrity Dancing On Ice, not on ITV4 late at night.
More action taken against drivers who shouldn't be driving. Driving whilst disqualified should carry a custodial sentence of at least three months - not to be suspended.
A roadside sobriety test as well as rather than in place of the numeric breath test. The PH BiB will confirm, but I don't think there's currently a roadside drugs test.
Rewards for good driving! It's all stick, stick, stick but I would give credit - probably in the form of insurance discounts - for those who drive consistently well and who further their driving by taking additional training.
An experience-based system to keep young, inexperienced kids out of fast cars, whereby some metric is designed so that (say) in your first year, you may drive up to 1.4L and/or 100HP (or something) - perhaps a classification system based on power-to-weight or outright performance numbers. Anyway, year 1, you can drive a category 1 car. Year two, you can drive a category two car (which I imagine would be something akin to a boggo 1.8L Mondeo). And so on. In order to get behind the wheel of a Ferrari 430, you'll need some years of driving experience. Perhaps the number of years experience required for a particular category could be reduced (although not to zero) by taking on additional training.
Edited by CommanderJameson on Saturday 17th October 22:14
Introduce a law that means revenue generated from drivers (road tax, fuel duty, speeding fines etc) to only be spent on building new roads or maintaining/upgrading existing ones. It can't be siphoned off for the NHS or patronising CO2 adverts or for giving economic aid to our international competitors, just roads. Nope, not public transport, just roads.
If any funds are left over, they must be put into a fund that directly reduces fuel duty.
That is all.
oh, and it will be legal to run over labour voters and anyone on benefits (yes, tax credits are benefits) will have to give way to anyone who is a higher rate tax payer.
If any funds are left over, they must be put into a fund that directly reduces fuel duty.
That is all.
oh, and it will be legal to run over labour voters and anyone on benefits (yes, tax credits are benefits) will have to give way to anyone who is a higher rate tax payer.
HOGEPH said:
Reduce the limit in built up areas to 20.
What if there's nobody about and the road is clear? You simply can't determine an appropriate speed by painting a number on a tin sign.Other than than, not bad - except I'd make anyone who voted Labour pay double road tax (because they beleive in a high tax regime and it helps the environment, apparently)
CommanderJameson said:
An experience-based system to keep young, inexperienced kids out of fast cars, whereby some metric is designed so that (say) in your first year, you may drive up to 1.4L and/or 100HP (or something) - perhaps a classification system based on power-to-weight or outright performance numbers. Anyway, year 1, you can drive a category 1 car. Year two, you can drive a category two car (which I imagine would be something akin to a boggo 1.8L Mondeo). And so on. In order to get behind the wheel of a Ferrari 430, you'll need some years of driving experience. Perhaps the number of years experience required for a particular category could be reduced (although not to zero) by taking on additional training.
You are a communist. Let people do what they want, not introduce new daft laws that would keep Lewis Hamilton out of a Focus ST but let a myopic octagenarian granny drive a Veyron! 
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