Safe Speed Forums

Perhaps because you're the only one who seems to be aware of it, and have yet to illustrate to us it's magnitude and disposal.

It's hard to tell what would satisfy.
I've pointed out that over a 30 year period that has seen the RPI more than double and the costs of public transport rise by 50% - in real terms - the cost of private motoring has fallen by 10%.
I've explained that the pre-dominance of the private car isn't the normative, spontaneously arising natural order of things, but a consequence of generations of political decision making favouring the car; "the americans are rich, let's copy them". I've shown that where investment is spread more equitably between different modes of transport, modal shifts in personal transport are achieved. For reference, beard, view the linked to clips on the "Cost of Motoring" thread.
I invited you to multiply the cost to the tax payer per road traffic casualty - an average of £70,000 - by the yearly number of road traffic casualties; 271,000. Please note this doesn't include the broader health bill that includes the @38,500 annual premature deaths from road traffic air pollution, or that proportion of the @45,000 deaths from CHD attributable to sedentary life choices. Nor have we touched on the costs to us all of the obesity epidemic, the rise in type 2 diabetes and other attendant health risks.
Then.. Well look, broadly, I find this sort of analysis more compelling that the anecdotal peevishness of safespeeders: http://www.igreens.org.uk/great_road_tr ... ubsidy.htm

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

Do me a favour, is there is single reference which backs up the above assertion, or is it just an assertion which you have drawn yourself from a mixture of things (in which case can you point me something which backs this conclusion up?)

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

Alright, if you can't be bothered.
Have a look at these youtube clips.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 7670&hl=en
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ibCcp0Y3O ... re=related (1st in a series of 5 clips)

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

Not them again, we've already been through those before. You're not in sales are you.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

So are we acknowledging that ?

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

No - that's an example which has worked well in a specific circumstance, no more (and remember I LIKE public transport)

That does NOT in anyway validate the assertion above.

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

The 'specific circumstance' is distinguished only by the existence of the political will.
So this does validate the assertion.

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

Codswallop. You are concluding that because something works in Sweden it automatically will work elsewhere. It is NOT just about political will, there are social factors, economic factors, geographical factors etc etc.


It MIGHT work elsewhere but that does not validate the assertion in any way whatsoever. Are you seriously suggesting a single example in one country proves something will work everywhere?

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I won't slave for beggar's pay,
likewise gold and jewels,
but I would slave to learn the way
to sink your ship of fools

What's your nickname on CC/ACF?

So you're not too keen on cars, correct? Is that the real reason you like speed cameras then, because they're a good way of persecuting motorists and punishing them for driving (never mind little things like whether they save lives)? Put it this way, I've never heard of someone who's anti-car but doesn't support speed cameras. (And before you say "They only punish speeding motorists", all motorists speed, no matter how big a dent that fact puts in your arguments: I suggest you take a look at PeterE's signature. So speed cameras do indeed punish all drivers.)

I do find it baffling that anyone could not like the car when it's given us such freedom and progress. In this case it seems that glaikie has an emotional dislike of the car, for whatever "reason", and has worked backwards in an attempt to find supporting evidence to make this dislike appear rational.

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

Sorry, am I missing something here?? How exactly does sitting on a bus or in a dial-a-ride combat obesity? If my car has a heavy enough clutch, am I allowed to keep it to maintain my fitness?

It's worse than that! He's concluding that because it works in a particular CITY...in ...

Balderdash. I'm not concluding anything of the sort. I'm concluding that where the political will exists to favour alternatives to the car alternatives to the car grow as a proportion of the personal transport cake, irrespective of your 'etc' factors. How many Copenhagens need there be for you to accept this principle? True, I oughtn't to have settled on a third of all journeys; gives you something to aim at and ignores that in the presence of a more determined and uncompromising political will you'd likely do much better.
I'm pleased to note that you've stopped quibbling about the existence of a subsidy gradient heavily in favour of private motoring.

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

Which suggests that the change is being driven as a result of a political agenda to discourage car use and therefore does not represent people's genuine preferences. With "political will" you can achieve many things, but it doesn't mean they're what people actually want, or would do in the absence of being pointed in a particular direction.


Presumably as it does not exist he has decided not to waste his breath repeating the point ad infinitum.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Not as much as walking and cycling, of course. Worth pointing out that both those active modes of transport prosper where traffic volumes and speeds are reduced. So more drivers switching to public transport would help facilitate active transport in others that would reduce the national health bill even if the individual driver were getting no more exercise himself because he's on the bus. I'm not sure how you'd begin to quantify the societal health benefits of reducing traffic sufficient to allow 90% of schoolchildren to make their own way to school as they did in 1971. 9% do now.
However, it's rare to commute by public transport without doing a bit of walking. On the days I don't cycle to work I take the bus. Walking to and from the bus stop each end is about 25-30 minutes walking per day. Not much. But were someone who currently drives from home to work to walk an extra 25-30 minutes 5 times a week, all else remaining equal, they'd lose weight. How much depends on a number of factors, of course. But 30 minutes walking at 3mph for a 12 stone individual, 5 days a week for 48 weeks of the year, would be a calorie consumption of 30240, equivalent to 8.64lbs of lard from their frame.
So yes, you were missing something.

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

You're becoming absurd now. Of course it's political. Political agendas don't last long in democracies without being attuned to the will of the people. Were you bemoaning political agendas when Thatcher was pointing us all away from public transport by giving the great car owning democracy the hardest of hard sells? What's safespeed if not a politically motivated entity in the business of pointing people towards sympathising with its 'me first' libertarianism?
This site doesn't represent 'people's general preferences'. Now that would be a daft extrapolation!

ps: just for the record, Copenhagen is in Denmark, not Sweden.

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

Ah I SEE!!!
Yes, I suppose I was if we base everything on YOUR walk to the bus, (and a few other assumptions)!

I'm indebted to you for explaining to me why I joined! And there was silly little me thinking I joined because I didn't think speed cameras were a sensible way of enforcing speed limits! Still, I suppose if you try hard enough, you can make yourself believe anything!

Your nervous sarcasm is as telling as it is feeble.
If you've got an average for the walking done by public transport users in the course of their commute, then by all means substitute that.
If it has never before occurred to you that a reduction in your driving might be beneficial - even if you're not the main beneficiary, my first point which you ignored - then you very probably are a 'me first' libertarian. Help is available.
Here're some links to articles making the connection between motoring and obesity. Any time you want to counter with some evidence, rather than serving up pique, do feel free.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... esity.html
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/ ... 32,00.html

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Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?

I realise by his/her posting style galaike has't exactly won too many friends on here. However, could I plead with all - including glaike - for a "clean sheet" start in terms of style? The two opposing vbiews here are interesting. I'd like to learn from them. However, the aggression and Pavlovian fighting of fire with fire means that the salient points are so much more difficult to find.

Back on topic - a genuine question: How much extra CO2 does a typical car push out on a 5 mile round trip compared to, say, one adult and two children walkking 2 1/2 miles briskly?