Another Poll of the inexpert by the inexpert

Rias' very long report, which could be taken seriously by MPs (it was an MP asked for our view) written by an academic and may have far reaching effects on our economy and drivers is very interesting but the pointless report of an academic; not a driving or road safety expert.

A report on driving options and ageing.

 

Two points: 

1.  This is largely based on surveys of non experts by non experts. That does not make for good road safety. Driving & road safety simply cannot be based on inexpert consensus and that is what has been happening too much already. How will 45 year olds, who are not driving experts, imagine how sharp they are going to be at 65/70/80? They cannot so why survey them? 
2. Again I repeat. After three hundred billion driver miles a year, there is less death from accidents on the road, from all causes, than from accidents in the home! 50 Times less death than from newsagents selling fags. So what's the issue?

 Insurance companies have a vested interest in income from road safety and should never have any credence because of it. They are not independent or without vested interest. Please make these points to MPs. The UK driver, young and old is doing very well. Whatever this survey cost, drivers paid for it and it is just one small part of the multi billion pound industry which is not altruistic and actually deprives life saving in NHS, Emergency Services, A&E etc from badly needed funds. So this inexpert report of inexpert views costs lives indirectly.

 

 

Tolled Express Lanes. Virgin Roads?

Quoted in the Daily Mail Today and on LBC Nick Ferrari Show re privately funded tolled Express Lanes.


It is very difficult to be negative about the idea of new sections of road that will not cost the UK driver more of his money to build if it relieves existing roads but we believe that drivers are paying eight times the driver taxes needed for good roads anyway. So why should any new road need to be tolled? 


The price will need to be pitched high enough to keep ordinary drivers off it most of the time or it will get jammed up and become counter productive for its objective. So most drivers will not be able to or choose not to use any tolled sections anyway.


It concerns us that, having paid all the tax, it creates a them and us for drivers with most being excluded.


It also concerns us that any tolling could be a thin edge of the wedge for the introduction of general road pricing too.

So we have very mixed feelings about this idea.   Another Virgin enterprise maybe? 

Humber Bridge. Good news? Let's see

Good news. If local politicians can get HMG to do this and sell them the Humber Bridge Debt so they can run it, great stuff. Story here. Here is the story of the proposal

The false stats of 'Speed Kills!'

Here is why over slowing of roads kills us elsewhere and how the stats to do it are utter 6th Form Bunkum.  

Lincolnshire Echo 9/11/11

Why not free Park & Ride

Think about it. Why should drivers have to pay not to drive?

Karl Turner a legend in his own mind?

Karl Turner, a Hull MP whos Bill to jail drivers for seven years on mere hostile perception of their driving, no accidents and no injuries involved and who was forced to withdraw it for the nonsense it was, is boasting that he has now been voted by Brake as their Parliamentarian of the Month. This then shows the logic, or dishonesty, of this claimed 'road safety' charity with no expertise in the matter at all. No Mr Turner, apart from the jailing, your proposal was nothing at all like the Bill now being framed was it?  So why are you and Brake

trying to pretend it is? 


He told BBC Radio Humberside that he needs cameras and tickets to keep himself law abiding which is an astounding admission for a law maker. Most of us manage to be lawful by.................just being lawful actually MR Turner.


It is no surprise to us that an anti driver lobby would canonise an MP who wants to jail drivers, his own constituents for nothing but hostile perception, but Mr Turner, in taking no heed that most of his constituents are drivers or certainly depend on drivers, is delighted to offend them further by aligning himself with the most illogical and anti driver lobby there is it seems. Or is it that he can't resist an award. 

It is also no surprise that the award is sponsored by  Direct Line Insurance too. Their vested interest in all of this could stem from the fact that by slowing everything up there is less paying out to do and by giving people points they raise the premiums so cameras and penalising safe drivers is win win for them. More premiums for less payouts. Or have we got that wrong then?


Well drivers. Take their names. Karl Turner MP don't vote for him again and as for Direct Line? What do you think we would suggest for you? 

Our Monthly Echo Column 1 Tyres

5 Years Jail

We are very surprised that at a time when death on the road is at an all time low and 

We are very surprised that at a time when death on the road is at an all time low and drivers are doing so well, Kenneth Clarke, a man renowned for his policy of softer sentencing in other areas, decides to invent a new offence with draconian sentences for drivers. Why?

 

Sentences should never be based on outcome and injuries from driving, nor on the inexpert views of victims but solely on the actions and the intent of the driver. For example a car reversed dangerously into another car and causing only bent metal will not even merit the attendance of the police. Another, reversed accidentally into the same car but with someone in between, will cause horrific injuries from exactly the same scenario with a prospect of five years. Who decides between dangerous and accident is our concern?

 

The fact is that society, for economic expediency, allows large lumps of moving machinery to be operated by any Tom,Dick, and Harry among humans and such tragedies will occur.

 

This new offence is actually in response to the Bill by MP Karl Turner of Hull, for seven years jail for no accident at all, due for its second reading this month. I was in contact with MPs and ministers about it and I am glad that not only is this new Bill for two years less but also requires serious injury too; I was clearly successful against Turner's Bill.

 

However I am now asking Kenneth Clarke to consider that dangerous driving is based merely on the hostile perceptions of inexpert witnesses and this is not good enough to justify a five year term. In all other offences, carrying such terms, an expert witness is exactly that and is objective too. The same standards should apply in this.

 

I am also concerned, as I have explained, that the severity of injury is incidental and should never be a basis for imprisonment. In view of that, I am asking, when he frames the new Bill, that there must be absolute requirement to prove that it was not just by genuine driver error and a mistake; we are human, will make mistakes and don't deserve prison when we do. That principle should apply to all of us; including drivers.

 

We are encouraging all drivers to write to their MPs along those lines now and whilst the Bill is being framed.

 

The collision course.

We ask if accident investigation is worth the money and if it actually creates accidents. We think it does.

Lincolnshire Echo 27th Sep.11

A copper's rebuke.

To an 'anonymous' Village Beat Officer's tweet about how he and his community had engaged in stops and warned or spoke to 76 drivers about speed, seat belts etc. I had tweeted my comments. Bear in mind that, with only 140 characters to make a point on Twitter, comments have to be to the point.

At least this PC did, in due course, long after I knew what he was referring to, complain about my comments on Twitter. Asking him to be specific this is the following exchange. 

Keith,

Your views that you tweeted as follows……

(1) “So while you 'reminded' 76 #drivers what they already knew, real crime was happening”

(2) Except '#speeding' causes no accidents, death from accidents in the home is higher & we prefer you did something else!

I would invite you to do the hardest part of my job (informing a loved one of a death) and then ask yourself to really consider what you tweeted.  Policing involves the whole scope of unlawful activities not just the one’s that you see on an action packed TV series.  Might also be worth considering the quantity of deaths on our roads Vs “death in the home”.

When I became a police officer I affirmed, and one of those tasks was to:-

·      Preserve life and property (very applicable to my actions that I tweeted)

I welcome your views but maybe the context of them could be very sensitive to a section of people who have experienced life tragedies on our roads.

Take care, regards

Rob.................

Hi Robert,

I was a police officer for 32 years. See my profile.

Before I took out any prosecution I ensured for myself it was just and warranted. If there was something wrong about the set up, I saw it as my duty to question it. I was not just a factotum. I was the sheriff of my patch.

I invite you to read facts about 'why speeding happens' 'why coppers shouldn't trust speed limits' and other items under Road Safety, Speed Limits. Perhaps 'Coppers use Cameras but don't know why' on my site at www.youdrive.org.uk  and then ask how much you know about the limit in which you use your camera? Then ask if you didn't know these things, why encourage non-police not to understand them too but point cameras at people instead? So what do you actually know about this particular speed limit? Who set it? What was his/ her driving qualification? Do they know more about driving than police? How many accidents were happening before it was set? How many members of the public, those who use the road, supported or asked for it? And so on. As a copper, about to apply the law, these should be considered.

My issue is that there are glaring causes of accidents that, for their own reasons, the DfT and police refuse to address or acknowledge. One is the cause of the worst type of crash there is, the over take head on. There are others,also self evident, that I have drawn to their attention too. So yes I have every reason to be annoyed about the selective activity in which you wish to raise the emotive scenario of the deceased victims as justification. 

I have identified far too much profit from the pious & vested interest of the very profitable Road Safety Industry; money which could really save lives elsewhere, to fall for pious emotionalism in it. There should be no emotionalism employed when making or when applying any law.

It is bad enough when non-expert police officers engage in this type of activity, but to indulge the local and parochial inexperts of the community to satisfy their local aspirations and perceptions is not what coppering is about; that is what local parochial councillors do to secure a few hundred votes for themselves. You don't need such votes Robert. 

I would suggest all police and Highways Officials read JJ Leeming's Road Accidents: prevent or punish? before employing their speed cameras.

So please do read through both my sites and see what more you can be doing to assist the driver and reduce road accidents as well as, at the same time, saving billions of pounds a year which could be better spent in saving far more lives in the NHS, the Emergency Services, A & E and so on. 

There are other things you personally could do, as a local resident, to ensure speed limits are appropriate and justified properly and have your say in the setting of them. If you did that, I can assure you, you would be appalled at the paucity of the reasons given. Very often, no more than at the behest of some local parochial councillor who possibly doesn't even drive. Surely police officers shouldn't be pointing cameras on that basis should they? 

Perhaps you may wish to forward this to your C.C.

But I am glad you wrote to me.

Regards

Keith Peat.
Drive East Midlands
www.driveeastmidlands.com
Drivers' Protest Union.

Jenny Walton The Humber Toll heroin

Jenny Walton. HAAT

At a time when The Valleys have just demonstrated, yet again, the stoicism and strength of the Welsh, one of their daughters, the indomitable Jenny Walton of H.A.A.T (Humber Action Against Tolls), faces a massive set-back after years of solid campaigning for the Humber Region's people. 

Having enticed, pleaded and cajoled all unitary bodies, politicians and businesses  to be united in their approach to Government for lower or even no Bridge tolls, she and they, have been effectively slapped in the face by first an unsympathetic public inquiry and now the Government's ready acquiescence to its findings. The story of despair is here  

Let's be clear. This is a Government that promised to 'end the war on the motorist'. So far, as our followers know, they are not keeping to that promise. 

We know Jenny Walton would not expect any favours for who and what she is. Only those of us privileged to know her can verify how hard the campaigning is for her and that it carries her own personal road tolls.

We know it is tough Jenny but it's what keeps you going. Don't give up. Just know this: all drivers agree with you.

Stop the war on the motorist E Petition. Sign here.

E Petition: Lifetime ban for knowingly driving uninsured then Jail for 2nd offence

We have now submitted this E petition along the lines of our BBC Statement.

People who knowingly drive uninsured are highly dangerous. If there were a psychology test for drivers, they would display the wrong mindset for driving. Irresponsible, a lack of care and consideration for the welfare of others and a willingness to break the law. So they are unfit to drive vehicles at all.

These people show that they will not care about the condition and safety of their vehicle, tyres, brakes and worse their manner of driving too.

In view of the foregoing, they should, on first conviction, be fined with a lifetime driving ban. A repeat offence would carry a long prison term.    Support the petition at: The uninsured e-petition is here.

Uninsured drivers. Call for stiffer penalties.

Karl Mc Cartney MP

Edmund King

It seems that MP Karl MacCartney's call for stiffer penalties for uninsured drivers is gathering some momentum. I was invited to appear with him and Edmund King, President of the AA on BBC Midlands Politics Show for Saturday the 17th (or is it Sunday the 18th September?)


It is my belief that to knowingly and deliberately drive uninsured is far worse than being a natural and accidental poor driver.


You will all know that I am against the punishment of perfectly safe drivers and indeed am against imprisonment for driving full stop. No-one sets out to have an accident, unless they are suicidal that is and bad drivers are usually naturally bad; in fact most bad drivers think they are pretty good in my experience. So driving without insurance without any care or consideration for others, to my mind, is one of the very worst of driving offences. The idea that a young person can be maimed for life, needing constant care until they die, or that so much damage can be caused by someone who doesn't care a jot about compensation and reparation to their victims appalls me. That punishments have been so low makes matters even worse. The Motor Insurance Bureau pays out something but that then is added to all of our premiums so we all finish up paying more.


The mind set.
But it is the mind set of someone who is prepared to drive a chunk of heavy hardware among other humans without 3rd party cover that is the most worrying aspect for me. That sort of person will not worry about bald tyres, MOT, servicing, maintaining vehicles or worse, their manner of driving either. To be reckless in any part of driving means they will be reckless throughout. That mind set is one where, if there were a psychological element to the driving test, they would fail it. In other words they should never be allowed to drive on public roads ever. With that in mind, I told the viewers that on first conviction there should be a large fine and a lifetime, yes a lifetime driving ban. I believe this would deter most from doing it. For those stupid enough to do it again, a long jail sentence would  then be entirely appropriate.


Well look out for it on Saturday/Sunday.  


What do you think?

Letter that says it all about camera partnerships.

Flick to the letter page 1st letter (Page 27)  This answer is self explanatory

 I write as an ex cop and have dealt with the accidents, prosecuted them, supplied the stats and indeed held a class 1 police advanced driving qualification and police motor cyclist having served my time as a motor engineer first. I think my CV would entitle me to comment on matters of road safety.

I do not know the qualification however of your correspondent Katherine Barrett, of the Road Safety Partnership, in these matters but I take it, unlike me, she is salaried; whereas I offer my time and expertise to road safety without vested interest or any income from it.

Her response to Brian MacDowal of the ABD was astounding and in many respects highlights the failures of these people.

For a start she uses a term 'excessive speed' which is not an offence under the RTA 1991. What does she mean? If she means 'speeding' why use a four syllable term, which is not a legal state, for a two syllable one, 'speeding' which is? Why indeed do we allow officials to use non-legal terms to confuse the issue at all?

'Speeding' that is the act of exceeding an arbitrary and unscientific number on a pole, set by non experts, cannot cause anything at all; any more than not to exceed it, will not cause anything. The fact is that most accidents are below the speed limits anyway.

Cameras, just like our Speedos but with a camera attached, cannot see accident causes, like too fast, drunk, careless, dangerous, making a phone call, lighting a cigarette at all just like our Speedo can't. They only see 'speeding' which, as I have explained, doesn't cause anything. If this were not bad enough, by going back to basics, who says the limits are correct and appropriate anyway? Who sets them? What is their expertise? Well I can assist with that too. I voluntarily go out and examine speed limit orders and am appalled at the lack of justification or reasons submitted and often they are simply at the behest and aspiration of some local councillor who is no expert either. And on this basis we are prosecuting thousand upon thousands of perfectly safe drivers? And all this is for profit. Not just to keep partnerships, like Katherine's, going but the camera firms, the maintenance people and the installers. If this is all about saving lives, then why should there be any profit or gain for anyone? I don't charge for my advice and work in this.

But her whole case is based on a common sixth form logic which is astounding in it's naivety. 'Make everything slower and the injuries will be less'. Oh really? Well on that logic, let's stop road transport totally and achieve road casualty Nirvana at a stroke! But then, apart from the trait, that she is worrying about impact effect after an accident rather than stopping the accidents from happening to start with, here is the big failing with the Road Safety Industry; their tunnel vision. 

The immediate effect of stopping road traffic would be an economic collapse and thousands dying very rapidly thereafter. So even slowing UK's traffic costs about £3 billion per annum for every 1 MPH, yes just 1 MPH too low annually. (About £30 billion a year). How many lives could we save with that kind of money in a better NHS, better emergency services, better A&E Katherine? In fact why, do we need 43 camera partnerships like hers up and down the land all spouting the same mantra? Let's disband some of those for a start.

Road Safety is not costless but we are never given the other side of the balance sheet are we? For all its piety, it is not altruistic and consumes £billions a year and it's easy to prove that most of that money stops not one single accident.  

The fact is that by focussing on the wrong causes, by profiteering, we are actually contributing to road death. By taking money from the economy, taking people's licences, their jobs, for no good reason, we contribute to hardship and economic death too.

Someone must start looking from outside the Road Safety Industry's box and exposing their self promoting tunnel vision that actually costs lives.

It seems that The ABD are doing it already but we must get more of the 30 million drivers to unite in that aim too.

Regards

Phone courses? More evidence that they are not serious about safety!

Greville Burgess. Photo By Lincs Echo.

I have been asked to comment about a new scheme to be run by the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership for a choice of a course or prosecution for phone use while driving. This is our considered response:

'I do see a difference from the 'speeding' courses and the phone courses.

Without a doubt using a phone whilst driving and indeed concentrating on business and other issues whilst driving is exceedingly dangerous,  does cause accidents and is deliberate. Whereas simply driving above an arbitrary and unscientific number on a pole does not cause anything, most who do it are driving perfectly safely, and are often exceeding the limits inadvertently because of the road layout itself.

So where on the one hand the courses are entirely fraudulent at least, with phone use, a course will be able to instruct truthfully and correctly.

Having said that, I ask what is the legal grounds in both cases to ignore a disclosed offence on payment of a course? Either an offence is disclosed or it is not. In my view there was little point in the justified raising of the phone call issue for a separate offence to be created then start wheeling and dealing with it if road safety and saving lives is the true objective.

This is just another example of the Road Safety Industry less interested in what actually kills providing they can sell courses.'  


(Published in full17/8/11 See story here Web version here.)

Regards

Keith Peat.

Stop War on Drivers E-Petition.

We have set up a Government E-Petition to Stop War on Drivers. If you don't think it's a 'war' then read this press release first:  Cameron's War on Drivers then sign the E-Petition here

Driffield 20 MPH idiocy from non experts.

Councillor Paul Rounding.

Broadcaster David Burns

I was invited to comment on David Burns' BBC Humberside Radio Show about the call for more 20 MPH zones in the Driffield area and listened to the rationale, being advanced by an ex mayor of Driffield, one councillor Paul Rounding. 


It is absolutely unbelievable how, as we keep observing, that, when it comes to any other dangerous activity, we defer to experts but when it comes to road safety, driving, prosecution and hampering of drivers, any Tom, Dick and Harry is given so much authority. This is such a case.


Basically the councillor's only rationale is that: 'We have got these 20 MPH's everywhere else so let's join them up'. Oh right; on that basis the whole world will be one joined up 20 MPH zone and then we will start on 15 MPH ones will we? He had no figures but relied on the simplistic sixth form logic: 'Make everything slower and all will be much nicer'. But it costs a fortune to slow road transport. About £3 billion pounds a year for every 1 MPH too slow. Surely, as a socialist, he would prefer to have that sort of money, about £30,billion a year in the NHS really saving lives or in social services? No he revealed his real dislike for drivers by talking of an aim to 'pick the motorist off' as he put it. Well Driffield, here is a politician who hasn't realised that all of his voters are drivers or depend on drivers when he is thinking of overslowing you and indeed wanting you prosecuted too.


Councillor: If you want to know why and how your policy will cause more accidents please do look at Dangerous 20s Kill Kids. When you have done that you will then have a much better idea of the subject. 

Another charity likes safe drivers prosecuted.

Yet another charity, CRIMESTOPPERS, supports the prosecution of perfectly safe drivers with a £1000 reward to help catch Speed Camera Arsonists. See: Linconshire Echo story 

Whilst we do not support any crime or condone arson, which is one of the most serious of crimes, we have to ask why yet another charity, CRIMESTOPPERS, is keen to use our money to support the prosecution of perfectly safe drivers with their £1000 reward for speed camera arsonists?

Surely we, who pay for these charities, would rather our money were spent on other types of criminal activity and are not overly concerned about speed cameras. After all, the speed camera suppliers at £40,000 a piece and those that maintain them, as well as the well remunerated chaps in the Road Safety Partnership, should be able to stump up £1000 between them if they are that concerned. Why do we need a charity to do it?


Here's our response:

Echo 26th July 11

Stop this crazy Bill

Karl Turner MP. 

Read another ex police officer's view of emotion and the law. 

Seven years jail for some-one's inexpert and angry idea of you?

Karl Turner, who has only been an MP for Hull since 2010 replacing John Prescott, has already managed to get his name in lights with a Bill to imprison drivers for seven years on the mere perceptions of inexpert and hostile witnesses. 

His Bill, which is for 2nd reading on the 9th September 2010,

Says:17 May 2011 : Column 192

Dangerous Driving (Maximum Sentence)

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

5.39 pm

Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab): I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to increase the maximum sentence for a conviction of dangerous driving from two years to seven years; and for connected purposes. 

Note: Dangerous' previously Reckless Sec2 RTA 1988. Reckless has been replaced in 1991 by dangerous. It is certain that, unlike reckless, lots of drivers can be dangerous without any effort at all and are simply poor drivers; whereas reckless did at least imply some deliberation. 

In his address to Parliament, and elsewhere, he continually cites serious injury cases for emotion but no politician should use the, knee jerk, scare tactics of the sisters of BRAKE when seeking to destroy lives and families and have people locked up for long periods. 

Complaints have already been submitted to the Speaker and other MPs about Mr Turner's tactic. His Bill doesn't require injury at all or even an accident to qualify. Just the mere perception of others, no matter what their expertise, is enough to make a case of Sec 2.

We are appalled about this and urge all drivers to write to their MPs to warn them of this very dangerous Bill.

In the meantime does this MP think that UKs 30 Million drivers just do it for fun? That they are the enemies of the State?

Do read more of this MP at: MP blows his top & Karl Turner wants you jailed

We are totally as one with the other driver groups.

Write to your MP,s. Warn them of his tactic and that the Bill requires no accidents just impression of dangerous. It's very easy. Use Write to Them and it's all done for you. Write to your MP here.

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The baying mob and Court of Public Opinion

Here again this ex cop gets his priority right too.


Yet another terrible accident where there was no speeding involved either.


It was an accident.  


(Click image to enlarge.)


But, in view of this case and the following one,  why is there a Lincoln driver now in jail because a girl ran in front of his car when he wasn't speeding or breaking the law at all? See: This story here.

Why was this woman charged?

This woman wasn't speeding but merely had a terrible accident which killed her friend. She pleaded guilty. But of course she would since death by careless carries seven years. But why was she charged is the question? She shouldn't  have been expected to make any plea.

Where have we come to when the police do not even understand the word ACCIDENT?
Click to enlarge.

Lincolnshire's Ex-cess-ive Speed again.

Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership spoil their Operation Octane initiative for motorcyclists by using the extra syllables of a non legal term 'excessive speed' that has been slammed in a road safety report. It doesn't exist in law and is always used to confuse 'speeding' with dangerous driving says the report: The Three legal States of Speed.

• Is this initiative to focus on the motorcyclists who ride too fast or dangerously?

• What does the Partnership mean by 'excessive speed'? Usually the authorities just mean in excess of the speed limit by use of this confusing term when everyone else thinks they mean 'too fast'.

• Do they mean 'speeding', including those who just quite safely stray by 'error' over the limit as most of their 'speeders' do? If so they should say so.

DEM asks that officials stick to the appropriate and only legal and official states that apply. 'Speeding', dangerous or careless. They point out that these also contain less syllables so to choose a confusing non-legal, four syllable term, ex-cess-ive speed, seems almost deliberate.

Is Operation Octane about the 'too fast' (dangerous) riders or perfectly safe accidental 'speeders' again?

Lincolnshire Keep their cameras and?????

So Lincolnshire keep their cameras, income and expensive Driver Awareness Courses for perfectly safe drivers and their point is???

Perpetual motion at last?

The idea that electric cars are a panacea for conservation of energy and the environment is wishful thinking.

Any physicist will confirm that you cannot get something from nothing.

If electric cars are able to produce more, or even the same energy output unloaded that is put into them, then mankind would have at last achieved perpetual motion it seems to us.

These cars will need to be powered from either, oil, gas, coal or nuclear power stations. I think the Green movement must believe that renewables can achieve this sort of energy when it is becoming increasingly evident that it is pretty useless and needs massive subsidy to be pretty useless too.

Assuming then that we have not achieved perpetual motion, then we must accept that these cars, loaded, will lose much energy from friction and wind resistance and indeed the need to slow them more rapidly than to accelerate. Added to this is the effect of hill climbing where even more power is needed but is simply not returned, on descent, because energy is used to overcome gravity so that we are not too fast in descent; thus cannot use the energy consumed in the ascent.

So how does the cost of their manufacture, in terms of energy used, design and disposal, compare with current vehicles and how do they affect the environment when the energy source is considered?

Transport Policy By The People paper

PRESS RELEASE FROM DaFT

PUTTING TRANSPORT POLICY IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE

Embargoed until 00.01 on 1st April

Transport Secretary Richard 'Hamster' Hammond [shome mishtake surely] has announced another step forward in ending Whitehall's war on the motorist and towards putting transport policy in the hands of the people.

There will be a new reality TV show, "The Ex Factor" in which the public can vote for the policy that appeals the most.

It is named after 'Ex Mayor of London" Ken Livingstone, who will propose that any driver not slowing down and stopping to allow kids to play around in the street will face a penalty. The campaign, called 'Kick Racing Out Of Football" is the brainwave of the Mayor who introduced such innovations as The Mayor's Taxi Lane in London.

Also featuring will be 'Ex Transport Minister" Lord Prescott and Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson will suggest that it should be made legal for drivers to shoot parking wardens. Prescott will suggest that it should be made legal for parking wardens, and in fact anybody else, to shoot Jeremy Clarkson.

Lady Pauline Prescott nearly became Prescott's "Ex-wife" after the noble Lord had entertained a charming civil servant in a road safety exercise where they took turns to act out the roles of crash test dummies and inflatable airbags. She will suggest that it should be made legal to shoot Lord Prescott, and will make the case for electrical hairdryer points outside parking spaces.

The final guest, Great Uncle Bulgaria Womble, will advocate a new form of eco-driving for Britain's crumbling roads. Potholes will be allowed to fester until at least 2 feet wide by 6 feet deep, at which point the Wombles will fill them with vandalised speed cameras, landfilled rubbish, etc.

The will save the UK an estimated £9.6 billion from the ten year road maintenance budget, local authorities millions in landfill charges, and drivers an arm and a leg in fines.

Drivers will be invited to race over the surface and compact the waste into the ground. There will be a new DaFT advertising campaign - 'Speed Fills'.

Members of the public will be able to vote for their favourite suggestion on a new hotline where charges will rise by 1p + inflation each second for every second on lhe line. All proceeds will go towards another reality show series where properties on the route of High Speed Rail 2 will be given a free makeover.

ENDS (unlike the war on the motorist)

DaFT - the Department for Advocating Flat-earth Transport

Great Monster House, More Sham Street, London SP1N 4PC.

Cameras kept. Fatals up 100%

This crash increased the road death in Lincolnshire to 8 this year compared with 4 over the same period last year. http://bit.ly/ewpn8F

Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership have been resolute in keeping speed cameras and promoting their coercive Speed Awareness Courses for money.

So please excuse us for announcing this statistic. Lincolnshire keep cameras and death goes up 100%.

A crash without 'speeding' flummoxes police.

This says it all. 'No-one knows how this accident happened'? Oh dear oh dear. 'If they weren't "speeding we are totally flummoxed" 

To which I wrote the following:

No sooner do I pen one letter in response to the 'speeding' issue do I read an astounding account of evidence submitted about a fatal crash that, because neither driver was 'speeding', no-one, not even the crash investigator, can give a reason for it.

The crash investigator even uses the term 'excessive speed' which I deplore because no such state exists in the Road Traffic Act. There is either 'speeding' or driving too fast which is reckless driving at any speed, often below the speed limit; as in this case it seems.

'Excessive speed' should never be used by officials because it muddies the water between 'speeding' that causes no accidents, like in this accident, and driving too fast which does.

If a driver loses control of his vehicle it is because of excessive speed whether 15 MPH or 40 MPH. Don't the Collision Investigation Units even understand that much?

I quote the following extract from my earlier post which was written before I had read this story:

'........not one accident is or can be caused by 'speeding'. By driving too fast, which is reckless driving at any speed, often below the limits too, does but not 'speeding'. No camera can see 'too fast'. They can only see driving above an arbitrary and unscientific number on a pole..............'

So the cause of the accident, if reported correctly by the Echo, could only be driving too fast for the bend, or the conditions PC Brown; no matter what the speed limit was.

And this tragic crash is why it is more important for drivers to drive to the road and conditions than to a speedo and for cameras. I am confident that PC Brown would not disagree with drivers driving to the conditions at all times.

Political menace......the push bike.

The RACF has commissioned a report which it claims is vital to road safety policy and that is to account for the 'antagonism that can seriously jeopardise road safety'. The report focuses on the attitudes of cyclists and drivers toward each other. See Item here  

Isn't it easy how something so apparently benign and constructive can actually be part of an already established attitude and policy? So let's look a bit deeper into their proposal to understand what is really behind it.

The reader can be forgiven for associating the RACF with the RAC.

They are two separate organisations. The RACF is not a pro-motoring group and in fact supports the prosecution of perfectly safe drivers by virtue of totally unscientific and arbitrary speed limits. Added to which they are not road safety or driving experts either. We can therefore be forgiven for asking what exactly is their CV to be making any statements on a life and death issue anyway?

But aren't they being totally fair and un-biased between driver and cyclists in their reports? Not exactly no! In fact they are all to the advantage of the cyclist by talking as though there were a level playing field. 

And thus how smoothly we are all lead to think of all road users as equal when in fact that is not the case at all. So let's look again at this:

What is cycling? Well to put it crudely, it is to put oneself into the path of rather heavy fast moving machinery and plant; usually operated by any Tom Dick and Harry. Would any sane and right minded person wish to do that?

But B.J. isn't the only politician who wants to show off his cycle clips credentials is he?

And then there is Councillor Jane (the cycle clips) Urqhart of Nottingham tram fame.

 
So where are all these people so wrong?

 
Why are politicians falling over themselves to show off their cycling credentials when to do it is so nuts, that to place oneself in so much danger, would be an offence under some elf'n safety rule if it were anything else wouldn't it?

The RACF has really commissioned an anti car anti driver report and that is because there is no level playing field. Cycling is done by a tiny minority RACF. Whereas everyone depends on the 30 million drivers of this country and the economy would collapse without them, no-one would miss cyclists at all.

The push bike is a political menace simply because any politician who rides one is in a minority and as I have demonstrated, has to be mad.

Cycling, used to pretend to all of us that it can be an alternative to the car, is not only a lie but a menace to the 30million drivers that need the politicians to support them.

So when the media start promoting this RACF anti car propaganda, they will in fact be promoting madness!

Right. I have a buckled wheel to repair.