The ladies of BRAKE speaking nonsense again.

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When it comes to road safety and driving, I wish the ladies of BRAKE, the charity, stuck to what they know, victim support, as they have no cv in road safety or driving expertise.

With all these costly so called road safety charities, you wouldn't believe that after about 300 billion driver miles a year, there's less death, from all causes, on the road than from accidents in the home, less than from strangulation and hanging and even less than from self harm.

There is nothing dangerous about a well planned and executed overtake on a country road but to suggest that there should be no overtaking on them at all is totally ill conceived. 

What we need to do is reduce the need to overtake, thus reducing the attempts to do so. When a slower driver ignores a long queue of faster drivers - a queue only forms because all other drivers had been driving faster until obstructed- it is driving without due care for other road users and imposing a speed on all others. Police should be pulling these Aggressive Slows over and finding out why they are ignoring a tail back. We could also convert many lay-bys & spare land to passing places where drivers may pull over regularly to allow others to pass them safely.

We should also revise speed limiting. Restricting dual carriageways to 50 MPH prevents the safe and legal overtaking of slower vehicles and HGVs on roads that were built for overtaking. This inevitably pushes overtaking out onto the single carriageway roads where we need it least. Authorities never connect the accidents they have caused somewhere else by a badly placed speed limit. 

Poor speed limit layout will also induce hurried overtaking when a short length of de-restricted limit is sandwiched between long stretches of 40 MPH for example.

But let's beware. If BRAKE have their way, overtaking will soon be banned totally on single carriageways. It would be safer to ban BRAKE  I think.

Communism in bikes?

If you had to define Communism in one photo, would this do it for you? 

Now see the RACF report that looks at alternatives to car and land ownership. Here.

Now two reports that prove road policy is based on anti driver ideology.

When I blogged about Dr Rachel Aldred's report to the disadvantage of drivers, (Do read it here.) I knew that I had exposed the subjective and anti driver ideology running Westminster and roads policy. 

Now I have come across this 2011 report, commissioned by the RAC Foundation, by yet another London Doctor, whose degrees are in geography. Dr Sally Cairns  yes another academic,  who was assisted by DfT officials by the way, and is about how we have too many private cars and if we didn't, we wouldn't need so much private land to park them. 'It's inefficient land use' the report suggests. (You can read more about that here)
It has occurred to me that what has replaced Communism is actually green ideology and that can be found at all levels in our civil service, local and central. It would certainly explain the extraordinary focus on drivers and especially the private owner drivers. How more Communist can you get but to talk of car sharing, car clubs, more public transport use,  cycling and walking instead of car ownership and be jealous of land ownership and use too?   

We have already made the link with DfT officials and Rod King's 20s Plenty MBE. See the smoking gun here.  

How much more evidence is needed before we start rooting out these idealists from our government and left leaning, green, roads charities who pretend that their real interest is road safety? A few of them can be seen here 

£4k a day speed camera? It's bad policing!

In this story we hear of a Bristol speed camera that generates a massive £4000 a day and clocked 1912 offenders between February 11th and March 31st this year.
  

No one can justify the high speeds measured at this site under any circumstances- like 73MPH in a 30 zone- outside a school. 43MPH above the limit is dangerous driving and nothing less. 

I think that in saying that 'speed doesn't cause accidents' Mr Bladon is confused as it is 'speeding' that doesn't cause accidents and that is a different issue.

If there were no 'speed' then of course there would be no road accidents at all so speed is a factor in all moving accidents, including walking into a telegraph pole. 

It does concern me when a limit isn't working and that it's generating a high amount of speeders though. It's really no good police just taking the money and yet not finding out what's going wrong. If these were accidents would the police just take pictures or find out why it's happening and correct it? They can only reconcile their policy on the premise that all speeding is deliberate disobedience yet there is no basis to conclude that so many drivers are deliberate offenders.

Our studies do show that most speeding is unintentional and induced by an enticing road layout or a flawed speed limit. If the object is a successful speed limit then these high numbers are showing that the limit is failing badly; just taking pictures of it failing and prosecuting drivers clearly isn't addressing the problem there.

When cyclists deny reality, politicians should listen to others

It's absolutely frightening.

The following twitter exchanges are all cyclists denying that their speed is a factor in their accidents and injuries.

That they then call me a 'buffoon' for trying to save them from themselves is every reason for politicians to ignore the cycle lobby when it comes to their safety.

There is an increased danger to cyclists with their increase in speed and especially when passing close to stationary traffic too. 

Cyclists must learn that their speed, style and passing distance is a crucial factor in their safety. 

Driver Blog: Cycling speed does kill cyclists. http://t.co/HfvLjX2Pso

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs @Driver_Hatred >Please cite one post where 'speed' causes nothing! Can't you people even read?

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs @Driver_Hatred > Without speed we all die but too fast kills & that also applies to cyclists. Get this crucial fact right

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

.@DriverUnion @Driver_Hatred Direct quote "'speeding' causes nothing" from https://t.co/WID0mFuCtM You are a buffoon.

— Hush Legs (@HushLegs) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs Not an argument a fact. 'Speeding' causes nothing. Too fast at any speed does & that includes cyclists.

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs @DriverUnion It is not the speed that Kills but the difference in speed between motor vehicles and cycles. 1/2

— Charlie Watson (@CharlieWatsonNJ) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs @DriverUnion It therefore follows should be that every vehicle including cycles should travel at the lowest speed encountered.

— Charlie Watson (@CharlieWatsonNJ) May 11, 2015

@CharlieWatsonNJ @HushLegs Humans high up on two flimsy wheels doing more than running speed are of course taking unnatural risks.

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@DriverUnion @HushLegs Yet you argue that humans in a heavy metal self propelling box are not taking unnatural risks.

— Charlie Watson (@CharlieWatsonNJ) May 11, 2015

@CharlieWatsonNJ @HushLegs What has that to do with cycling speed killing cyclists? Too much reality for you?

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@HushLegs @DriverUnion It is not the speed that Kills but the difference in speed between motor vehicles and cycles. 1/2

— Charlie Watson (@CharlieWatsonNJ) May 11, 2015

@CharlieWatsonNJ @HushLegs Oh right so a cyclist hitting a stationary car door at 25 MPH isn't the factor in the injury? Do get real!

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

@DriverUnion @HushLegs You are deliberately not reading what is written. I say the difference in speed is the factor!!

— Charlie Watson (@CharlieWatsonNJ) May 11, 2015

@CharlieWatsonNJ @HushLegs So the cycling speed into a stationary object isn't a factor at all then? Do get real.

— Drivers Union. (@DriverUnion) May 11, 2015

This cycle crash speaks for itself.

Derby bus lanes and bus stops making big money.

In this Derby Telegraph story  We learn that Derby's Bus Lanes and bus stops have generated 10,000 tickets in five months.  

As you know, as with high generating speed camera sites, we either have to assume that these 10,000 were deliberately disobedient or that there is something wrong at the site.


Whatever the reason, these 10,000 are showing that the system is failing for some reason or another. Only anti drivers and profiteers will see this as a success; just as they do with speeding. 

For a start, as all bus services are now privately owned and run, I am automatically against a privileged share holder's right to make money from hived off public roads and to prosecute all other road users and drivers. Somehow there is something not right about that.


There is little excuse for anyone who ignores the clear 'No stopping except for buses sign' as above but Bus Lanes have always worried me.  Look at these two signs:  Unlike other driving signs they are not diagrammatic but need to be read, digested and then acted upon. Now to do that, attention and focus is taken from the drive. This is exactly the dilemma that we need to consider when deciding what distractions are in aid of a drive and what are not. These regulations are not about safety but about a politically motivated ideology so clearly they do not take precedence over the driving. To actually read these signs is careless driving; it's as simple as that. How often do you see bus lanes empty, even when not in force? Lines of traffic in the outside lane proving that the signs are unreadable when actually driving.

Locals get to know the rules, but I suspect that, just like speed cameras, these lanes are mostly catching out visitors and strangers. How many of these 10,000 were local? 

Is the council going to find out and analyse what's going wrong? Of course not; just as high generating speeding sites are allowed to carry on too.

Then there is the coercive 'Plead guilty for a discount' enticement.

Any good lawyer willing to try the careless driving conflict? It's long overdue that someone did so! 

The left liberal green lose the election.

It would be a great disservice to the UK if we didn't heed the message from the totally unexpected result of the 2015 Parliamentary elections. 

To come from behind, and that is where the coalition Conservative Party was prior to the election, to take an over all majority was an astounding achievement by the Conservatives. But add to that the achievement of UKIP to achieve third place in share of votes too. I have no doubts that it was, in large, UKIP's votes that wiped out the Lib Dems and held Labour votes back too. 

In many constituencies UKIP

were the second party.

 Labour are now looking again at their approach and seem to be concluding that their demise was due to being too far to the Left

 

 Likewise The Greens, although picking up vote share, could hardly claim to be breaking ground with an average of about 1200 votes per constituency, whilst its high profile leader came nowhere.

As for SNP, well why wouldn't Scots vote for an all scottish party in their own interests? It's a no brainer.

So what did really happen in England & Wales? 

The left wing, green liberal metropolitan elite got battered that's what.   

I kept telling parties to major UK's 32 million drivers in their manifestos. None did so. Perhaps had UKIP added drivers to their core focus points, who knows how much better they would've done.

Clearly the indications are that, if left wing, green, policy isn't that popular, then pro driver policy would be.  

Is there a lesson to be learned here?

Driverless?

Before we get led down the path of a driverless society, I think ordinary people should take a step back and look at matters from outside the Driverless Village.

It seems to me that everyone supporting the idea has either a vested interest or is ideologically anti driver. So on whose driving standards will these cars be programmed?

Top road drivers like police advanced class ones who are taught to make progression on the road and down marked if they fail to spot and make a good overtake or will the programmes be written to suit the anti car,  amateur, ideological and emotional ideas of BRAKE, 20’s Plenty, PACTs, RACF with no driving expertise? Why not program in the best driving standard there is?

If this is progress, surely we must define who must be on the road and then program the vehicles on that basis. Don’t tell me that they will be programmed to deal with the obsolete and totally recreational horses who would prefer to be in fields anyway, and pelotons of cyclists out for a social surely? So let’s ensure that the usual rag, bag of anti driver, ideologistic amateurs have no say in the matter at all.

The fact is that there are now only two types of road user society must have now and that is walkers and drivers, so these vehicles should be programmed for that reality. If they are not programmed to the optimum then they will be an economic disaster just like wind turbines are.

From a drivers’ perspective, these gadgets will of course be able to sense certain things and impress politicians with their tricks but will they spot the child at the corner of a building? See approaching cars around a bend from across a field? See things happening a mile ahead?

And to whose speed limit will they react? I can verify that most speed limits are poorly set by non expert drivers too, so will we ensure the most efficient cost effective speed limits before we let these things loose?

How well will they perform when 2^nd and 3^rd hand vehicles or will ordinary folk just be unable to afford to keep them on the road?

Driverless cars is a way of controlling people and their freedom to move. So much so that, for them to be viable, we would all need to live centrally and perhaps suffer a mass cull before they could cope with a population that depends on the motorcar..