Safe Speed Forums

Have you looked? On Wed next week I have to go from Brum to Brighton and back. I can claim £52 fuel allowance or pay £51 return on the train. AA Routeplanner says 6 and half hours of driving, National Rail says train 7 hours.

In my opinion rail is therefore good, I know it's reliable, it's inexpensive, it's going there anyway so my weight isn't going to increase the pollution by anywhere as much as travelling alone in my car, and it's very convenient - centre to centre, no pissing about trying to park, I can book a window seat with a table so that I can plug in my laptop and work. I can read my book, unwind, buy some food, drink wine, have a kip, etc, etc. Why anyone would want to drive for six hours instead baffles me. Their loss - and leaves more seats for me.

On the 4x4 debate, I'm always amused by 4x4 owners and their justifications. On holiday I had one bloke telling me how 'practical' his recently purchased L200 thingy with a big cab was. How amusing it was watching him trying to get his camping stuff, surf boards and family into it. Kids wedged in with bags on their laps, surf boards pointing skywards at about 20 deg off tdc. Then it rained and all of his stuff in the back got soaked.

A friend recently purchased a Touareg with the purpose of making the annual trip to the Three Valleys in the alps more comfortable than his Passatt estate for his family of 4. The day we all set off, the other families in Galaxys, he was knocking on our doors asking if we could take luggage for him!! Next year he's booking flights! Practical, my @rse. It's all about image - and the image they give out is hillarious.

And National Rail Enquiries also says a standard open return from Birmingham to Brighton is £144. Not everyone can book well in advance.

You also have to factor in the time and expense of getting from your house to the station, and from the station to your destination.


And if someone wants to buy a car that (in your view) makes them look like an arse, why should anyone want to stop them?

_________________
"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

Ummm yes.

To my regular workplaces, it will take me (according to transport direct):

West Brom to Grays Inn Road - 4hrs by PT or 2.30 by bike
West Brom to Manchester - 3.22 or 1.57 by bike
West Brom to Cardiff - 4.33 or 2.29 by bike.

In my experience, the train is NOT reliable. Trains to and from London are quite often cancelled.

Plus, my bike leaves from my front door (garage) and I can park for free at my end destination.

I don't have to waste 30 - 40 minutes just getting to my starting train station or similar from the end station to my destination.

I don't have to put up with offensive smelly people with blaring iPods.

I don't have to put up with the smells of whatever food they're eating.

_________________
Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I have PT to get to work and this is the journey:

Home to Work by PT/per day
5 min walk to Bus stop
15 min wait for bus (on average)
20 min bus journey
2 min walk to train platform
15 min wait for train (on average)
30 min train journey (Swindon-Reading)
3 min walk to office
Total Journey time 90 mins
Cost £19.20

Home to Work by Car/per day
60 mins (on average) park in underground carpark
Total Journey time 60mins
Cost £11.80 (not including depreciation, blah, blah)

I wont go into the return journey as the buses only run every half hour now in the evening, when most people are trying to get back home.
Why use PT?? I tried it and its crap, no guaranteed seat, delays, cancellations, cost...at least on the M4 if theres an accident I have a radio to listen to, I can put the roof down if its a hot day ....

The closest bus stop to my place of work is 2 miles away.

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'm not saying use trains for all journeys. I certainly don't. What I do is simply check the options, and where it makes sense financially and practically I go by train. I prefer it. I find them more reliable than roads. I've been caught too many times in the past when some useless drivers crash and block the motorway for hours. I've been stuck on motorways for far more hours than I have on trains. That said, I've still driven 30,000 miles in the last 18 months. I must do more to reduce this as it's a waste of my life.

Peter - I can get that ticket at £52 the day before. I pop to the local rail station on my bike - but that takes less time than driving to fill the car with fuel. You would hope that people should know what they are doing the next day.

Scamper - Why not leave home 7 minutes before the bus is due? Then you would only have to wait 2 minutes.

And I know that I probably look an @rse in my Galaxy. But it does everything I need it to. Carries a family of four with supreme ease, takes whatever we want to take, great tow vehicle. It's probably crap off road but it copes with campsite grass OK. I'm not pretending it's something it isn't.

They have at seat radios on the trains, and there's a buffet car. From time to time they even bring a refreshment trolley to your seat. Tea, coffee, beer, wine, sandwiches, chocolate, etc. And you can go for a piss.

But that's exactly the point for many legitimate 4x4 owners. A colleage of mine has just traded a Vectra for a Shogun. Not because he pretends to drag buildings around, but because last winter he lost 6 days pay (working as a contractor that's a big deal) as his Vectra sat in the driveway with one wheel going round and round.

The Shogun will be used principally in town, but he lives 0.5 miles off the main road which although not far, is enough to preclude going anywhere in snow with a 2wd car.

The Shogun wont ever go off road either, but it does everything he needs - in particular - it'll get him to work in snow where his family car let him down.

_________________

can't remember what a shogun looks like but if it's like most 4x4s sold these days that have road tuned suspension and wide, low profile tyres he still won't be going anywhere.

It's a bit more agricultural than most exec 4x4s to be fair. I've driven them in the snow in my last job. Not as good as a Landrover, but better than a BMW

_________________

So's herpes!

The shogun is deffinately in the 'proper 4x4' category rather than the 'chelsea tractor' category.

Big tyres or not, 4 driven wheels and dif-lock makes a hell of a difference in slippery conditions. OK 4 x 0 is still 0, but there 4x4 with dif-lock gives you 4 times the chance of being able to utilise the meager amount of traction that might be there.

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

The X-Drive system that BMW use now can direct all the drive to one wheel if required by using a combination of the ABS system and active centre diff. This actually makes it better off-road than you might think but the lowish ground clearance and daft tyres don't help.

For a "big truck" it is amazingly agile on the road.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Call me old hat, but I prefer not to rely on electronic gizmos when offroading

_________________
Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'd be interested to know where a car like the Honda CRV fits in the anti 4x4 brigade?

My wife drives one and it has been superb. We live half a mile up a farm track, she's a GP so needs reliable 'go nearly anywhere' transport and although not a true 4x4, coped better with the snow and ice that we had last winter than quite a few 'real' 4x4s that are in our village.

It's fast when needed handles and stops really well, polutes less than most small saloons, is safer for passengers and pedestrians than most vehicles on the road and can carry 5 of us with enough camping gear for a week with room to spare.

The diesel version returns about 46mpg!

Personally, I can't fault it, but it's classed as a SUV and could therefore be subject to any additional taxation that may arise due to the anti 4x4 brigade.

But that isn't a 4x4-specific problem, nor is it one that all 4x4's suffer from. There *are* some supremely practical, 100% workhorse, 4x4's out there (the Shogun as mentioned is one-good few years ago now on a family holiday in Brunei, the whole clan-4 adults & 4 kids-plus luggage for a long weekend fitted quite comfortably into a Shogun, and it tackled the unpaved dirt/sand roads through the rainforest with ease), just as there are some supremely impractical "look at me" vehicles in other categories.

If it's somehow "wrong" to drive a 4x4 purely for the image, why aren't drivers of, say, Ferraris or TVRs subjected to similar levels of hatred? Or what about bikers who opt for roadgoing versions of racing machines instead of nice conservative bikes that will still get you from A to B? What about anyone who opts for any version of a vehicle beyond the base spec? Alloy wheels, multi-tone paint, colour-coordinated bumpers and mirrors, multi-speaker audio systems... dear oh dear, how ostentatious and image-conscious is all of that! Where does practical end and frivolous begin? And does it really matter anyway?

_________________
Chris

I'm guessing his 15 minute average wait includes numerous occasions when the bus turns up later than scheduled, but where this late running isn't sufficiently predictable as to make it possible to always leave home a few minutes later - you can pretty much guarantee that the one day you end up leaving home later than usual and hoping the bus is also running late will be the one day you turn the corner just in time to see the bus pulling away from the stop bang on time...

_________________
Chris

I remember when I used to get the buses in Burm at about 06:00, you had to get there ~10min early, because there would be chance it would be early!! and did not wait for time to ctach up.

You have to get to the train station/bus stop early, whats to say your watch is slow, or fast? And the same for the clock on the bus, it may be faster than your watch, or slow.

_________________
Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

I suspect Ru88ell lives in a Utopian dream world (or Japan) where PT does run on time and allowances dont have to be made.

I also agree with some of the earlier postings - Who has the right to dictate to me (or you) what car you should drive?

Why not ban any vehicle that does not conform to the "greenies" specification? oh yeah, because you would have to ban 90% of all models of cars manufactured today!! leaving you with what choice?

Is there someone out there who can tell me what that car should be?

And of course the greenies refuse to define which cars are acceptable and which are not, because that would expose their crusade against "4x4s" for the ignorant, bigoted, hate-filled nonsense it really is.

_________________
"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

whereas the anti-public-transport rants and tirades in this thread are educated, even, open and practical common sense?

Surely everyone can see that public transport has it's place, just as personal transport does? And that we would ALL be better off if they were managed together rather than in opposition to each other.

_________________
COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.