Safe Speed Forums

Are you really suggesting that a car can carry as many people as a bus!

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So "If in doubt ban something"? Are you a member of the Labour Party by any chance b-w?

Maybe I'm just more of a "glass half-full" person than you, but I'd have thought that the probationary period was intended more as an incentive to newly qualified drivers to "toe the line" a bit more during their first years as a driver.

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Whether it is glass half-full or glass half-empty makes no odds to whose round it is! Incentives and threats are but different sides of the same coin, as we all know. If you prefer constructive ambiguity to plain speaking, that's your choice, and I respect that.

But r11co and others think it is better to allow poor, immature drivers to keep their cars despite failing to make the grade, because busses are too dangerous for them! Think about it - what a crazy argument, JT! Should uninsured, un-mot’d recidivist speeders and drunks should get the same treatment? Where do you draw the line and say ‘this guy is bad news, so bus him’? And I’m not talking about Dippy’s boy here – he’s just a kid and a feel a bit sorry now I’ve heard his story.

PS - there's no way I'm in the LP. They are far to right wing for me. Lib Dems - now you're talking!

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Busses can carry more people on less road bandwidth, so can be more efficient in the same amount of space. If motorists can afford to knock down listed building and build superhighways to accommodate themselves (like Peterborough (!) has), good on them, as long as they pay up front, or can afford the tolls. If they can’t, we’ll need busses.



That will be less of a problem if congestion continues to choke off car use, and people choose public transport.



Busses run where people want or have to use them



A Malthusian argument, which is interesting. You say the economy is limited, and you fear we will ‘run out of economy’ if we use busses. Some economists interpret the economy as a cycle of spending. In that model, a shift will bring a panoply of different economic circumstances, some good.



Yes, I nearly got clunked by a giant bus mirror when I was riding my bike. Lot’s of people in Montreal has been brained in that way! I’m like you – busses have advantages as well as disadvantages, and I can never imagine them replacing cars entirely. But there is NO WAY ON EARTH that I can agree with r11co’s point that banned motorists should be allows to driver because busses are too dangerous.

PS Believe it or not, but trams/busses and underground trains are best. You really should visit Munich (if you havn't already done so). Brits are never much cop at anything which requires co-operation, that's why things are broken here. Try Montreal - not as good, but OK for north America! You don't need a car to live there. But let's not give up hope. Just because we are British doesn't mean we have to ALWAYS put up with crap.

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In the bus vs car debate, there seems to be one question going unasked so far... do the bus supporters really believe that if the bus were not to run, every passenger would individually perform the same journey by car instead? What about those passengers who don't own a car and can't afford to buy/run one? What about the passengers who, in the absence of a bus, would walk/cycle/use the train? What about the passengers who, in the absence of a bus, would modify their travel plans and simply not do the journey in the first place? And what about the car-owning passengers who are travelling together and so could share a car instead of them each driving seperately?

Whilst it's highly probable that taking one bus off the road would result in an increase in vehicles on that road, I don't think it's accurate (or fair) to suggest that the increase would be equivalent to the number of cars required to individually transport EVERY passenger on the bus in question.

That's not what I said, and you know it!



Don't know why I waste my breath.
Next time, kindly try reading and digesting what someone has gone to a lot of trouble to write, before making comments that demonstrate that you've missed the point by a million miles - yet again.



Oh yeah? And how are you going to ensure that buses are full to capacity, terminus to terminus, both ways? Are you going to hire thousands of people to go into the city centre just to fill up all the morning buses on their outward journeys? And if buses are full from terminus to terminus then nobody else can get on - so we can dispense with all the bus stops in between.
Or have you got any brighter ideas of how buses can be made to run to capacity?



That wasn't the point. (yet again) I was talking about buses tending to be in places where pedestrians are - more so than cars.



Putting words in my mouth, yet again I see.
The economy is not limited, and I didn't even imply that it was.
Read my lips - transport is an overhead, ie it doesn't create wealth, it consumes wealth. Those in the business of creating wealth then have to create more wealth in order to pay for it.
At the moment the taxpayer is paying for buses, leaving them less money for other things - and I know how much you love paying tax.



I've spent some time in Munich, and I agree with you. However, they still have traffic congestion - despite having better roads as well.
In Frankfurt, I watched a gang of road workers move in one morning after the morning rush had ended, dig a 20' by 20' by 10' hole in the road to do some repairs to a sewer or something, finish, fill the hole in and resurface the road before the evening rush started. If that was here, the road would have been closed for about three months or so.
I've not been to Montreal, but I've been to several other countries which have a comparatively tiny number of cars for their population, and which nonetheless suffer from chronic traffic congestion.

I know, I know. There is a Malthusian trade-off here. Cars and/or busses (and everything else) will tend to increase to the limit of the resources, whatever you do. That is the crux of the matter - if there is room on the roads, and people to fill it, you will have congestion up to and beyond the point that is tolerable. It's basically the "flies on a cow pat" problem, where the cars are flies. Even so, you still need to get somewhere, so busses carry more people than cars can, and that means it is an option.



By allowing bandwidth to throttle car usage, while reserving free space for busses! No, I know you don't like that one. But otherwise, busses, which can carry more people, would be delayed in the logjams of selfish car drivers!



But the point is that it is a good thing! I am very glad that busses tend NOT to be in places where pedestrians are NOT. That is inevitable, but does not detract one iota from the desirability of busses. Surely you can see the interplay here without me spelling it out? OK, I’ll spell it out. It is because busses serve the general public that pedestrians get hurt by busses. There, I’ve spelled it out for you why these figures by the ABD are so facile and pointless. Those guys are chumps for passing that off as real.



The pursuit of wealth is an overhead - it doesn't create exhilaration, it consumes exhilaration! Just look around you the next time you are in a jam. See those people stuck in those cars and ask yourself 'is this wealth'?



Ah, the search a perpetual motion machine! You need to create wealth to pay for it!



Yes, there are still a few stubborn fools who use their cars. But they are a dwindling band in the city itself.



Montreal (which has 4 million people and covers area as large as London) is on an Island in the mighty Saint Lawrence River. The river (which is miles across in parts) causes huge transport problems, and Montreal has on average 8 feet of snow each winter. And the centre of the city is an extinct volcanic mountain! Despite all this, traffic runs smoothly much of the time. Even Calgary, which was a field in the prairies when my grandmother was a girl, and is now a city of a million people, has a good, modern e-train system.

Munich has an underground system with dozens of stations, an S-Bahn system that is totally connected to it and goes out 25 miles from the city centre on several lines, and integrates bus and tram system and two fully circular ring roads.

Nothing in the country can compare with those places. I put it down to the basic shortness of vision and communication problems that the British people suffer from. It’s sad, really, that we are a nation of self-obsessed blunderers. Looking on the bright side, at least we have the BBC and Guardian!

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What does Malthusian mean?

http://www.dictionary.net/malthusian

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

I think self obsessed is a bit strong, but lack of vision, forward planning, call it what you will... yeah, that's fair. That applies as much to road construction as it does to public transport though. But another part of the problem is a pig headed refusal on the part of TPTB to face relaity. Millions of people need to get around, and they want to get around in the way that suits them best. Changing human nature is very hard, but coping with it is probably easier and cheaper in the long run.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Spot on. Yet we have TPTB that we deserve. We participate in a culture of self-seeking, celebrity obsessed, thumb-in-bum, mind-in-neutral wannabees, while simultaneously extolling the virtues of mammon worship and grumbling about it's effects! Talk about hypocrisy. Tune in, turn on and drop out is my advice, and let the begutted underclass hoards jostle amongst themselves for the rapidly diminishing returns. As long as they don’t do it near me. That is my insular but coherent response.

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BW, have it your way - I' m tired of arguing the toss

Don't go! I have something funny to cheer you up. I was down at the yard today, getting rid of my old Ford Sierra, which is beyond salvation now and leaves great clouds of smoke behind it.

Anyway, I took the tax disc off, hoping for a refund, and lo and behold, it was out of date since August!

So I’m simultaneously happy (that I got off without paying) and sad (because I can’t get my refund) and sad (because I might be in trouble if they make a fuss down in Swansea) and happy (because they haven’t bothered me yet). So much to consider with this heinous crime of mine that I’ll have to go to the pub tonight to drown my sorrows!

HANW

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BW, have you ever considered "taking the pledge"?

"I pledge to keep my f***ing car taxed!"

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Eh? Point out where I said that, BW.


Repeating your own falsehoods as well?!

I'm dying to hear your explanation as to how you attribute the above-stated belief to me...

To backtrack, I said that "the probation period gets new drivers who are not mature enough onto the bus, where at least we are safe from them", and I interpreted your response of "Hmmm...." as disagreement with that, especially when you gave me a link to bogus/incomplete information about bus safety from the ABD saying buses and coaches killed 13 times as many pedestrians per mile travelled in 2003 than vans , that did not account for passengers carried per mile travelled, not the obvious requirements for busses to interact with pedestrians as part of the transport process!

So, I think it's clear enough what your point is! Are you now saying that you agree with me that that banned, immature or dangerous motorists should NOT be allowed to keep their license, despite this ABD propaganda? If so, I’m happy we are on the same side and I’ll let the matter drop.

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With respect to the "bus safety" thing, the "fatalities per miles travelled" is a bit of a red herring. The point being made by the ABD was primarily from the perspective of the pedestrian, to whom it matters not one iota whether the vehicle that strikes him is carrying one passenger or 50.

In a typical busy urban street, the road will be filled to capacity with vehicles. If a thoughtless or careless pedestrian should stumble into the road then it would seem that their chances of survival are substantially increased by falling in front of a car rather than a bus. This rather stands to reason, as the odds are that the car will be able to stop quicker, and will be better designed to avoid injury should the worst happen.

So if we are to "manage" things in order to force more people onto buses then the practical effect in a busy urban environment (ie the most critical situation) is that any pedestrian who ends up in the road has higher odds of being struck by a bus than they did before, and therefore higher odds of being killed.

I'm not disputing that there may be a social issue with regards to bus usage, but that's a separate issue. Indeed, the point is that if policies to encourage bus usage are to be followed, then it needs to be recognised that any advantage this has also is likely to have a "trade off" in increased pedestrian fatalities.

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Hmmm.

I don’t think the iota is an SI unit, but the ABD is well known for presenting the perspective of the driver, not the pedestrian. To pedestrians, it matters that the vehicles that provide transport services to them are as safe as possible, while not being grid locked by car drivers, the majority of whom who are just passing through the neighbourhood on pointless journeys.



Given the shear number of cars, their chances of falling in front of a car are high, while their chances of falling in front of a bus are small. Given that more people are on the bus in the first place, they do less harm overall, and they serve the people in the busy urban environments, rather than just commuters who are just making use of that space because it is convenient for them to inconvenience others.



If we use more busses, it would be possible to transport more people with the same risk. If we also divert more cars away from the busy urban environments, the figures look even more rosy.

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Not sure whether the pointlessness of journeys is really a valid part of the road safety debate! But even if it is, I'd say the truth is the exact opposite of what you state. When I go by car I get in and drive directly to where I wish to go - save for diversions caused by one way systems etc - yet when I go by bus I typically go on a tour of parts of the town I didn't even know existed, before ending up about half a mile from where I actually want to be, where I have to then complete the journey on foot [at risk of being mown down by the bus ].

No, you're changing the subject again! The point is that if more people used the bus, then a higher percentage of the traffic passing a particular spot would be buses, and therefore the risk to a pedestrian is increased. And in fact, if the pro-bus policy were to be so effective as to eradicate the congestion from this urban scene, what would you have then? Sparse bus traffic travelling at higher speed! Politicallly more correct, no doubt, but unlikely to yield an improvement in pedestrian safety.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!