The Museum Of Modern Thinking

Fonud earlier today:

34.5 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

At last, a council has seen sense on speed cameras, calling them a “blatant tax on the motorist” - which they are

Fatalities were falling year on year until the introduction of speed cameras, and they’ve fell markedly less after that. Speed cameras only catch people who are exceeding (usually financially-motivated) speed limits; they don’t catch drink drivers, drug drivers, people on their bloody mobile phones, uninsured drivers, untaxed drivers, drivers who are being idiots, etc…

Let’s hope this a start of something…

Not been writing much as I was involved in an almost-head-on with a French lorry on the 2nd November. I went round a bend and it was all the way over on my side of the road Pics of my poor car are below:

Picture 1

Picture 2

It’s now in the hands of the insurers, as it’s a total loss

Seriously, this is the most interesting piece of art I’ve ever seen. Well, in the last week, anyway

Peter Roberts has created a petition against the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy, and as of writing it has garnered over 275,000 signatures - roughly 75,000 of those being added since I signed it yesterday.

In a nutshell, the proposed scheme would monitor people’s cars and their journeys, and charge them per mile. An in extremis (rush hour, city centre) cost could be as much as £1.34 a mile. Even at £0.30, a round trip to visit my mother would cost me £120, more than 3 times in what I pay in petrol in total (not just tax, which is still a disgusting 75% or so of fuel cost).

The horrendous cost of travelling for pleasure or work aside, the truly insidious nature of the scheme is this: to work out how much you’ll be charged, a “black box” will be installed in your car to monitor where you’ve been (and how fast you were going, I’m sure). Are you happy with the Government, police and third-party monitoring company knowing where you’ve been, how fast, at what hours of the day?

Ah, but I forget: “If you’ve not done anything wrong, you’ve nothing to fear”; bullshit. Whatever happened to guilty until proven innocent? A right to privacy?

And just because we can be tracked by Automatic Number Plate Recognition, and our mobile phones does not imbue the government to foist yet another intrusive surveillance system on us.

So, find out more about road pricing from the Association Of British Drivers, and don’t forget to sign the petition!

So, there I was, transporting my wife and son up to the East Midlands Outlet for a last-minute bit of Christmas shopping. It was quite foggy, foggy enough to warrant having the ol’ fog lights on. Suddenly, I get flashed by the car behind me, for no good reason. The guy then moves from flashing to just driving with his full beam on, still behind me (it was a single carriageway).

After a while, I get a bit annoyed and flip him the bird, only to be shouted at by my good lady wife. A few minutes later, after this plum is still behind me with his full beam on, my good lady wife is ready to take a picture of this berk. I brake (safely) and let him overtake, and he - wait for it - flashes his fog light on and off! I KNOW MY FOG LIGHT IS ON - IT’S FOGGY!

The guy continues on his way, merrily flashing all drivers who have their fog lights on, even though it was foggy, gahhh…

Ah well, I’m sure someone else will punch his clock for him… If you get flashed by a Volvo, reg OY04 WKA, tell him I said hi

The government is finally beginning to realise that having thousands of revenue-generators speed cameras does not really educate drivers. The new suggestions (from a think-tank, of course) are:

1. lower the age at which you can start driving to 16,
2. increase the number of lessons to around about 100 before the driving test can be taken,
3. include night-time and motorway driving in the lessons.

Whilst I disagree with the number of lessons (100 x £20 = crapload of money for a 16 year old), I certainly agree with the principles. There are an obscene amount of drivers on the road who do not have a grasp of of even the basic principles of diving, e.g. indicating, lane positioning on roundabouts, hogging the middle lane, ad nauseum. Increased education can only be a good thing: lack of education is a cause of many ills in the world, but more on that in another post…

Unless, of course, the idea is to deny the use of cars to those who can’t afford it, but surely not