Sounds like yet another politically correct, self-interested, minority group trying to impose its own tunnel vision views on the vast majority of the populace.
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Sounds like yet another politically correct, self-interested, minority group trying to impose its own tunnel vision views on the vast majority of the populace.
Almost as bad as the self-interested minority of the population who are car-owners, then. The tunnel-vision of the vocal car-first lobby has imposed its views on others simply by making the streets so unsafe so for cyclists and pedestrians that the parents in the UK no longer feel it's safe to let their kids play outside or walk/cycle to school.
And when the authorities try even small steps to redress the balance by simple measures like speed bumps, the same self-intersted minority of car-owners howl about the injustice of not being able to drive as fast as they like past people's homes ... while complaining that even the 30mph limit in urban areas is too slow.
(I'd prefer not to discuss things through these negative labels, but I just wanted to point out that this name-calling game can be played by both sides of the argument).
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Why not change your screen name to "Transport 2000 mouthpiece" and be done with it, NW?
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Why not change your screen name to "Transport 2000 mouthpiece" and be done with it, NW?
I guess for much the same reasons as you haven't changed your screen name to "ABD mouthpiece" or "Safespeed mouthpiece" :)
I'm not a member of Transport 2000, don't agree with everything they do or say, and make up my own mind. But I do think they have some worthwhile things to say, and that a mention of them doesn't deserve a torrent of name-calling.
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NoWheels: According to recent statistics almost half of pedestrians killed on the roads are intoxicated. Where I live the vast majority of cyclists do not use lights at night and a frighteningly large number cycle on the wrong side of the road. I have been nearly run over several times by high speed lycra clad cyclists on pavements and had verbal abuse from them. I have had a child cycle into my car (slow moving due to nearby houses and parked cars) and I had to pay for the replacement tyre, the replacement wing mirror and the damage to the wing panel. I nearly seriously injured a cyclist who cycled in across the front of my car when the light had changed to green, and the reward for a small parp on the horn was some foul mouthed abuse.
Do the local police take any steps to warn people of the dangers of drink walking or dangerous cycling? Do they heck.
Fortunately we do not live in a Stalinist dictatorship, though the upcoming road charging sounds like a nice way to remove the riff raff from the roads so that they do not impede the progress of the rich and chauffeur driven politicians.
Rant over.
Back on thread, the A3 through Guildford can be dangerous, given the number of crashes that I see. I think one problem with a dual carriageway compared with a motorway is that side roads can be at 90 degrees, which means that traffic must slow dramatically before turning, creating a huge speed differential between the two lanes, and hence an increased danger.
Leif
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>>Do the local police take any steps to warn people of the dangers of drink walking or dangerous cycling? Do they heck.
Is it possible for a drunk cyclist to be banned from driving if they have a car licence?
Cheers, SS
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>>Do the local police take any steps to warn people of the dangers of drink walking or dangerous cycling? Do they heck. Is it possible for a drunk cyclist to be banned from driving if they have a car licence? Cheers, SS
My brother was banned from driving for drink walking ... in Sweden. Presumably in the UK a drunk cyclist could in theory be done for being drunk in charge of a vehicle?
Leif
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My brother was banned from driving for drink walking ... in Sweden. Presumably in the UK a drunk cyclist could in theory be done for being drunk in charge of a vehicle? Leif
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Yep.
About ten years ago, the Leicester Mercury had two stories on the same page : one was a man drunk in charge of a bicycle (I'm sure his brief tried to argue that as he wasn't riding it, he was okay), one a man drunk in charge of a pram (complete with infant). Both were convicted and fined.
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>>Almost as bad as the self-interested minority of the population who are car-owners, then>>
The fact that there are more than 32m vehicles on the road hardly makes car owners "a minority of the population."
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>>more than 32m vehicles on the road>>
Should read, of course, on "the roads" - not, as might be contstrued, on the A96...:-)
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Thanks for that, NoWheels.
They are absolutely right when they say "At present the A96 is noisy and dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians". It is not the sort of road I would be happy cycling along or walking along. And that is to be expected, since there is no real alternative route between Inverness & Aberdeen. In an area of comparatively low population density, no matter how good the public transport is, it is not going to significantly reduce the number of cars on the road.
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It's not the road that is dangerous it's the people who use them
If a car is stuck behind a lorry doing 40mph on a single carriage way then he may look to pass him and if the road is busy in both directions the manouvere will be more dangerous than on a quiet road. If it is upgraded to a dual carriageway the can pass in safety and theoretically the road will become safer.
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>>It's not the road that is dangerous it's the people who use them
Yup.Fully agree BH
--
Steve
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>>It's not the road that is dangerous it's the people who use them Yup.Fully agree BH -- Steve
Very true, but surely it makes sense to engineer roads to be as safe as possible, rather than take the "That's bad driving that killed him. It's just tough" attitude. One aspect of this is that you could have a crash through no fault of your own due to someone else driving badly on a so-called 'dangerous road'.
Leif
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"Self-interested minority of car owners", No Wheels? How many vehicles in the UK. How many people (not including asylum seekers and illegals)? I thought it worked out at one vehicle for every two people. Remove the tax income from vehicle owners and users and the gov would have to remove all gov sponsored social security payments, dole, pensions and hospital treatment, which would effectively kill off the car hating minority who depend on income from vehicle owners and users to support their existance.
HJ
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I couldn't have put it better myself HJ! Well said.
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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"Self-interested minority of car owners", No Wheels? How many vehicles in the UK. How many people (not including asylum seekers and illegals)? I thought it worked out at one vehicle for every two people.
2001 census: just under 59 million people. (Add on whatever you want for those missed by census).
DVLA figures for private cars: 2001 just under 24 million, 2003 just under 25 million.
(You could count commercial vehicles too, since some folk will use those as their only form of transport, but then some folks own two cars which goes some way to offsetting that. See tinyurl.com/bbxdt for the raw figures)
So that gives us 25 million cars for 59 million people: 42% car ownership. Or if we assume a million unregistered cars and a million residents who missed the census, it's 43%.
In either case, a large minority, but still a minority.
Of course, not all car-owners are self-interested. Plenty of drivers think that restraining car use is a good thing, just as plenty of those without cars might dream of getting one ASAP to screech around side-streets at 90mph in 4X4s (or whatever wild stereotype we might dream up for the most anti-social sort of driver). It's probably a very small minority of car drivers who sign up for a maximal self-interest package of say, no-speeedcamras, no roadhumps, no restraint on 4X4s, no red-light cameras, unlimted gas-guzzling etc.
But whether drivers or cyclists or pedestrians or schoolchildren are minorities or majorities, and whether they are self-intersted or not, I was just trying to make the point that attaching the "self-interested minority" tag cuts both ways. We all have to find ways of rubbing along together, and attaching pejorative labels don't get us anywhere (except, perhaps, to a satre of high blood pressure).
Remove the tax income from vehicle owners and users and the gov would have to remove all gov sponsored social security payments, dole, pensions and hospital treatment, which would effectively kill off the car hating minority who depend on income from vehicle owners and users to support their existance.
That's one argument, though I'm not persuaded that there is a particularly significant net income from those taxes, when you add in the social and environmental costs of the current scale of car use. There is a counter-argument that there is in fact a large net public subsidy to car owners.
But I don't advocate removing all cars, and would vehemently oppose any such move. I'm not a car-hater any more than I'm an alcohol-hater. In each I want selective restraint, not a ban.
It's depressing to see how some motorists responding with such vehement hostility to any suggestion that expanding car use might not be the best solution, or that there are situations where the current scale of car use causes real problems for society and that restrictions may be appropriate.
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"That's one argument, though I'm not persuaded that there is a particularly significant net income from those taxes, when you add in the social and environmental costs of the current scale of car use. There is a counter-argument that there is in fact a large net public subsidy to car owners."
What a load of extremist nonsense. Without cars the economy would collapse. Labour mobility is key to a modern economy. Remove the jobs, and you remove the tax, and increase the drain on the state.
I work in a high tech industry, and almost everyone drives to work. Public transport is a joke, unless you want to spend half the day travelling.
Leif
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So that gives us 25 million cars for 59 million people: 42% car ownership
You're clever with your language NW. Using car 'owners' you're correct but as most of those 24 million cars will be owned by families if the words car 'users' were substituted your 'minority' comment would not be valid.
But you know this right? That's why you 'cleverly' picked 'owners' - well done.
CF
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Well, as usual we've managed to turn this thread into the regular us and them, everyone against the motorist argument.
I will ask one question, has anyone read the link provided by No Wheels? For those who haven't I've copied the relevant bit below.
Now I will ask one question, where in this link, or anywhere else on the HCC website does it say they are anti road improvement in the A96 corridor?
From what I can see all they are asking is that sensible provision of facilities for cyclists, pedestrians and public transport users are included in the scheme to encourage alternative travel to the car. Surely this is what we keep talking about, an integrated transport policy.
I'm sorry but we seem to be getting a bit polarised on this subject and I'm afraid that banging in loads of statistics to justify an argument is beginning to bore me to death and will prove to be counter productive because we can make statistics virtually prove anything. Canon Fodder proves the point above that you can take the majority of statistics and make them tell you whatever you want when he takes No Wheels stats in the way he wants and his perfectly fair interpretation tells his story.
In my family of four we own two vehicles, 50% ownership, if we go on a family trip do only 50% travel by car, of course not, 100% usage. Normal day, I and wife use vehicles for work, eldest bus to college and then work, youngest walks to school, 50% car usage, 25% PT, 25% pedestrian.
Personally I would use the bus more but our council has just scrapped its subsidy for 13 routes in the town, all of which have now been ceased by the bus company as 'uneconomic'. Hardly joined up thinking while they are spending millions of pounds and have a large area of the town centre closed off while they build a new bus station for the newly defunct bus routes to use!
A96 Corridor For All Campaign
Celebrates Initial Success
Most of you will have seen the proposal to widen the A96 from Inverness eastwards hit the headlines in the local media during the last 6 months and some of you will have written to Nicol Stephen MSP, Transport Minister for Scotland, asking him to ensure that the needs of cyclists are taken into account.
The call for widening of the A96 has come from many different quarters, from long-distance lorry drivers to members of the local Chamber of Commerce, arguing that the route is no longer able to cope with today's traffic. Recently the campaign to widen the A96 has been led by the Inverness and Nairn Local Economic Forum (INE).
The A96 Corridor for All Campaign is an alliance of individuals and groups concerned about the proposals to widen the A96 from Inverness to Nairn. At present the A96 is noisy and dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians but will widening it not just encourage more road traffic, no doubt travelling at higher speeds? The Alliance are campaigning to ensure that investment in the transport infrastructure along the A96 corridor is integrated, sustainable and accessible to all people travelling in and through the area. The Alliance believe that developments must include:
* safe, attractive and well-connected routes for pedestrians,
* safe, attractive and well-connected cycle routes (including on-road facilities)
* more frequent, accessible and affordable bus and train services.
Cockle
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I've no arguments against putting on extra bus and train services if there is a need for them.
It is the "Affordable" bit that I am not comfortable with. That generally means it is uneconomic and the fares have to be subsidised by everyone else.
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Cockle said:
The Alliance believe that developments must include:
* safe, attractive and well-connected routes for pedestrians,
* safe, attractive and well-connected cycle routes (including on-road facilities)
* more frequent, accessible and affordable bus and train services.
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Much of the above makes sense, though the only way to get the last item is by increased subsidy from the public purse and I am not sure that I support that idea. Although I think that we should provide public transport for those who cannot use cars - e.g. the old and disabled - I would have thought that there were better alternatives. In South Devon the elderly can book in advance a ride on a bus whose route varies according to need, and the charge is modest. This might be better than increasing bus frequency only to have most of them near empty. There is also the question of convenience. Trains are constrained by the location of stations, and buses are not much use for long journeys. Most people where I work live more than 15 miles from work, with 30 miles being typical.
Regarding cycle routes, I have noticed that in our area the council can claim to have provided cycle routes, but IMO their chosen solution is poor and does not really encourage cycling. What they have done is mark cycle lanes on some pavements. However, if you use them, you have to cycle slowly to avoid the pedestrians, and stop at each and every junction, hence progress is slow, and you are better off on the road where junctions are controlled by lights. But on one occasion when I was cycling on the road, a car driver tried to intimidate me with his car (drove very close) and then verbally abused me for cycling on the road rather than on the badly designed cycle route.
Also on some roads the local council have taken to marking out a green cycle path at the edge of the road. Some cyclists tell me that they like this idea, but I am sure that it has significantly increased the number of cyclists who cycle on the wrong side of the road. And of course cars often park and block the so-called cycle path.
I would like proper cycle routes similar to those in Holland i.e. a part of the road is turned into a separate cycle lane, with a raised area between the cycle lane and the road proper. That way cars and pedestrians are kept separate from cyclists, and cyclists can follow the flow of the traffic rather than being subordinate to it. I won't hold my breath.
Leif
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But on one occasion when I was cycling on the road, a car driver tried to intimidate me with his car (drove very close) and then verbally abused me for cycling on the road rather than on the badly designed cycle route.
I had a similar experience cycling in Germany years ago. Empty road, cycle path beside it with a grass verge inbetween, but cycle path full of potholes etc, so I cycled on the road. Cop car came along beside me, cop in passenger seat yelled abuse and then reached out and pushed me over onto the verge.
After that, I decided that bad cycle paths were much worse than no cycle paths.
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Never thought I'd agree with anything Leif wrote on cycling but the comments above are spot on. I've been verbally abused for not using badly designed cycle lanes that lead to where I don't want to be!!
The eighteen inches of green tarmac in the gutter is a downright danger. You're left riding in the kerbside detritus and outside the visual sweep of pedestrians and vehicles alike. As a consequnce cars pass without any consideration and are far more likley to turn accross your bows to boot.Then the green tarmac is overalid by a yellow line with the friction co efficient of wet snow. Are these things subject to risk assessment?
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Now I will ask one question, where in this link, or anywhere else on the HCC website does it say they are anti road improvement in the A96 corridor?
What appears on the website is very reasonable. What appeared in the article in the Press and Journal suggested that they were strongly opposed to road improvement in the A96 corridor.
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So that gives us 25 million cars for 59 million people: 42% car ownership. Or if we assume a million unregistered cars and a million residents who missed the census, it's 43%. In either case, a large minority, but still a minority.
On that basis, we have a minority government. Very much less than 43% of the population voted them in last time, and whoever wins this time will in all likelihood get much less than 43% of the total possible vote.
Of course, the 59 million includes quite a few people who are under 17. The commonly accepted figure is about 40 million adults (or was it taxpayers... can't remember, sorry). 25M cars for 40M people-able-to-own-cars is 62.5%... twice the number who support a typical UK government...
We could go on forever. Cockle is the only one talking sense here.
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On that basis, we have a minority government.
Quie true. Sadly, we have an electoral system designed to reduce choice and create strong govts with minority support. Not my idea of how to make representative government.
Of course, the 59 million includes quite a few people who are under 17. The commonly accepted figure is about 40 million adults (or was it taxpayers... can't remember, sorry).
Ah, I thought we'd eventually get to that point. So the mobility needs of those under 17 don't count?
If you exclude those too young to drive and too old or infirm to drive, you could probably show that quite a large majority own cars. I don't know where that gets us, though, unless you wanted to say "tough" to anyone who ain't driving a car.
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NW - stop being silly. You made a point that only a minority owned vehicles. The inference being that this made cars somehow less significant. Whilst factual true it is represented in a way which is typical of a certain sector - the statement of a truth but with the inference of something else which should be taken as a truth, but actually isn't.
The number of cars in the country against the number of people who are or could be actual or potential drivers (over 17, not too old or infirm, etc. etc) shows that by far the majority of people who could choose a car as transport actually do so.
A secondary point is whether or not that is relevant or inclusive of all transport needs.
I don't like your non-stop and blind campaigning in any case, and blatant manipulation like this doesn't make it anymore bearable.
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The number of cars in the country against the number of people who are or could be actual or potential drivers (over 17, not too old or infirm, etc. etc) shows that by far the majority of people who could choose a car as transport actually do so.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is since plenty of folks don't have that choice, it's an artificial majority ... which is why I was arguing against this game of trying to create majorities or minorities by pointing out that you can slice the figures up all sorts of different ways.
But read back: what started this of was Stuartli's claim that concerns about the new road "Sounds like yet another politically correct, self-interested, minority group trying to impose its own tunnel vision views on the vast majority of the populace."
Then take a look at cockle's quote of what the objectors actually want: a road development which also meets the needs of those who aren't using cars. Not something which bans cars or excludes them, just something which is inclusive of all.
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>>They are absolutely right when they say "At present the A96 is noisy and dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians".>>
Presumably then we can assume that creating a dual carriageway stretch (preferably with proper cycle paths or pavements that incorporate cycling and pedestrian lanes) would prove very much safer?
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>Cockle is the only one talking sense here.
Absolutely.
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Total number of vehicles registered in the UK in 2002 was 31.88 million, of which 28.4 million were private cars. The figure for private cars alone in 2001 was 27.79 million. Since then an average of more than 2 million new vehicles a year have been registered.
HJ
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At the latest count, total number of vehicles registered in the UK was 30.5 million, of which 28 million are private cars.
Where do you get the 28 million from, HJ?
The DfT records 23,899,000 private cars in 2001 and 24,985,000 in 2003. See tinyurl.com/bbxdt
The 2003 total of 31,207,000 vehicles includes over a million motorbikes, 426,000 goods vehicles, 96,000 buses etc
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In a thread a few weeks ago I posted information provided on the DVLA website which stated that there were more than 32m registered vehicles (all types) on our roads in 2003, but I can't find it again or on the DVLA site...:-(
The details were on a standard DVLA website page rather than the table which NoWheels's link provides.
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>>Are they dangerous?
Well, they aren't called duel carriageways for nothing, are they?
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Some duel carriageways can be, as they often have narrower carriageways, more and sharper bends than motorways and, worst of all, dangerous junctions. In addition, you have traffic on them that is not allowed on motorways (JCBs etc.).
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"Carriageways" - such a quaint term. So Dick Turpin-esque don't you think? :+D
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Machika I like the idea of "duel" carriageways. Most apt!
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A Freudian slip, no doubt from reading the previous post, lol. Very apt though, as you say.
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