Safe Speed Forums

Just been browsing the Roadblock website, which is quite the most hysterical anti-road building site I've ever seen. I'm surprised they didn't write to my council and object when I applied to turn my front garden into a drive.

Helpfully, they've listed schemes they want me to write and object to, so I think I'll write and offer my support to the schemes listed.

Why are people so pro or so anti. The A303 (in much the same way as the A27 and A1 is a hotch potch of fast dual carriage way/motorway then nightarish villages.

There are some gaps in the network that need to be finished but some schemes are just a waste of time. For example M25 widening, its really not going to help. The heathrow section is already as solid as it ever was at 4pm on a Friday.

They're living in a fantasy world, where everybody lives where they work, socialise and play.

Britain is not a few square kilometres.

They remind me of the anti-vivisection 'campaigners' I saw on TV a little while back....

[quote=Balrog]Why are people so pro or so anti.[/quote]



I agree entirely. It's the sheer 'black-and-white-ness' that scared me on this site.

Obviously an organisation that barmy wouldn't dare have a forum, so there's no degrees of opinion like good ol' Safespeed.

They're complete hysterical lunatics. I'd really like to see the basis for their arguments of the above claims. It would be interesting to see how the insanity of road building divides and fragments communities etc and how they arrive at the conclusion that road transport is the biggest contributor of greenhouse gases, (surely fossil-fuelled power plants and other such heavy industries are far worse - although I believe this is a relatively academic argument anyway).

Just sound like tree-hugging fundamentalists to me.

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Why can't we just use Common Sense?

Surely the whole reason most communities are able ot exist is because of road links with the rest of county?


I don't understand how they can claim road building destroys and fragments communities. Many new roads being built are bypasses, which do exactly the opposite!

These guys are fruitcakes and they are likely to alienate the sensible majority (haha) of people by their misleading stance.

The trouble is, they're letter writing lunatics, and as such are dangerous.

I intend to drop in every now and again and see what they want me to object to, and do the exact opposite, and I hope others will do the same.

Yep...its cos it screwed up. 30million drivers can't all be wrong!

Actualy I like to read this stuff sometimes. A bit like looking at an ant farm.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Hmm. Even if this is true, "human history" represents approximately what proportion of geological history?

That was probably a rhetorical question but here goes
Recorded human history I guess goes back approx 5,000 years, at a stretch. The Earth is ~4.7billion years old and has been geologically active ever since it was formed. So those 5,000 years represent 0.0001% of the geological history of the planet. Of course this is assuming that citizens of the bronze and iron ages kept accurate meteorlogical records, (after all Roadblock claim entire human history so they must have statistics with which to back up their claims )

However don't the BBC weather forecasts claim accurate records began about 400 years ago (even that seems generous). So that would be 0.0000085% of the Earth's history. In other words 99.9999915% is unrecorded history - for most purposes this figure could be rounded up to 100%.

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Why can't we just use Common Sense?

I haven't seen the Roadblock site yet, but I'd like to jump in with both feet anyway. I'll have a look in a bit. However, surely even the most ardent petrolhead couldn't argue that building more roads whenever the traffic gets bad is "sustainable"? After all, the M6 Toll was built to relieve, not a minor road, but a six - lane motorway. Which was built to relieve the A41, A34 and so forth. Which were built to relieve the turnpike roads. Which were built to relieve a network of lanes. You get the idea.
I've driven cars for nearly 20 years now, and trucks for seven. Since I've had my HGV licence I've driven around 2 000 miles a week. In that time I've seen the traffic problems (of which I'm a part, I know) get far worse. Whether we like this or not, we do need to acknowledge that our ongoing love affair with motorised transport is not sustainable, and building new roads is at best an ill thought out and partial solution.
That said, I might have a different opinion of Roadblock once I've looked at their site.

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the kerb.

Edited to remove double posting...sorry all.

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the kerb.

Hmmm...
All over the world you'll find the remains of settlements, towns and even whole civilisations, which were abandoned when they became inhospitable within a short period of time.
Places like Africa still have nomadic tribes who, when the rivers dry up or life otherwise becomes too arduous, simply move on to greener pastures.
Besides, what does it matter how fast or how slowly the climate changes? No matter where in the world you are, the climate will change - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse - and when it reaches a point where life becomes difficult, you either adapt or move on. People have always done this, and always will.

Edited to add: But the high level of taxation which is being imposed on us in the name of trying to 'stop' climate change is reducing our ability to adapt or move on.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

I disagree. At this present time road building is appropriate and absolutely necessary. Building new roads is important for this country's future success, at least until the introduction of hover cars.

Hmmm... indeed

That'll be the Industrial Revolution that never happened then. When most (if not all) of the western world was powered by coal - spewing flippin' huge amounts of noxious chemicals & particulates into the atmosphere.....
or how many BILLIONS of tons of methane are 'pumped' into the atmosphere (I believe it's about 3 times more effective a greenhouse gas than CO2) out of the arses of grazing cattle & sheep the planet over?

Yes, vehicles DO have an impact, but I'm convinced it's not nearly as much as the militants are making out.

What alternatives do we have?
Traffic congestion has been a problem ever since the wheel was invented - Julius Caesar famously remarked that one couldn't move in Rome for chariots and, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the streets of London - at least those away from the posh areas which weren't washed every day - were a foot or more deep in horse manure. Thousands upon thousands of children were trampled by hooves or crushed by carriage wheels.
Traffic will find its own level, and isn't a function of how many cars there are but rather of how many cars there are on the road in a particular area at one time.
Traffic will always be heaviest where the population density is highest - regardless of where in the world you are. You will find motorway traffic at a standstill every morning in places like South Africa - a large country with only six million cars, and where only around 10% of the population own cars.
Far from being the driver of traffic growth, road building has fallen a long way behind demand.

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Agreed.

And demand is very finite indeed. People in general simply won't plan to spend more than a couple of hours a day regularly travelling (unless they are being paid to do so).

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Just thought I'd raise an interesting point here.

Firstly I will say it has been a while since I checked the stats, but if memory serves, excess speed ranks around number 7 in the accident causation list, whereas poor road design is much higher at around 4.

Why then is it that the people who support speed cameras will normally be anti road building?

There is something extremely perverse in the logic, speed cameras save live so they are good, but road building which would save 100's more lives is bad.

But surely the better the roads, the further people are prepared to travel? It's generally not the length in miles that is the deciding factor as to whether a commute(for example) is viable, but the length in time. Based on my own general observations it seems that about 1 hour is the maximum commute most people will be prepared to undertake. The more roads built, the further it is possible to travel in that hour.

Of course building a new road won't have an immediate effect. In the short-term people still live in the same houses and commute to the same jobs. However in the medium term when a house move, new job or career change maybe being considered, the fact that journey times have decreased to a particular area will be a factor.

I'm not anti-road building, I'm just not keen on unfettered road building for the same reasons Rhythem Thief has rased.