Safe Speed Forums

[Edited by Admin Brought this sub-thread over from Here]

I went to sort out my council tax the other week, took about an hours wait for something to be sorted in 10 mins, it could have been done over the phone but after 20 mins waiting to be answered I got fed up. One women in front of me had to speak to three different people just to arrange an appointment to see another person, it seem s that one person is incapable of doing ONE job in those organisations and three people are employed to do the same simple task. Even the council tax bill that I was sorting out was made unneccessarily complicated for the sake of it. An eleven year old with basic maths could have laid it out better.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

That's complicated ?

Look about you...see how many people are losing their jobs.......
Then look at the forms they have to fill in.
Jobseekers allowance. 36 pages.
Employment support allowance. 52 pages.
Council tax benefit. 18 pages.
Housing benefit. 32 pages.

The Employment Support Allowance form is so complex that very few people have managed to fill it on their own !
(it used to be called incapacity benefit....but they changed it...now you do not get free prescriptions if you are ill.....although it depends upon which type of ems you are "awarded"....and with prescriptions at £7.20 for each item....and the doctors not now allowed to prescribe, say, 100 days medication on one prescription !!)

And I could go-on about this needless complexity for a long time. You run into it EVERY time you have to deal with any public service.
They even want to know about your sex life for council tax benefit....

All this is complexity for a reason, so that offices can be filled with people in a rampant "power" culture.
Just look at todays latest "leaks" about MP allowances.
I suppose they (leaks) are the public services warnings to their "masters" about just how much in "power" they really aren't ?

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Don't just stop at that .

May time I was made redundant .Being over sixty ,I didn't fancy trotting down to the Jokeshop( sorry Jobcentre) for them to mess me around and I know that with the amount of unemployed out there ,I'm not going to stand much of a chance-so I envisaged going on all sorts of "getting a job( at any cost)" courses .But our crafty Government have thought of this and "massage " the unemployment figures , so I was offered Pension Credit Guarantee - more money than JSA,no requirement to sign on ,and same limits on any extra earnings .
I also got a letter telling me that I would get housing benefit and council tax benefit .Wowie thought me - sanity has prevailed .But no,that didn't last long - two days later I got an envelope from our Council's benefit section ,with a book ( now I know why it came by post in a van ) .
Quick call to Benefits -"yes we need that form filled in " ---and yes it did duplicate every question I had been asked ,complete with a requirement to list bank accounts and amounts ,and to prove who we were ( passports etc).To be quite honest ,I felt like sauying I had no driving licence or passport ,but would the word of the Council's CEO ( who I do know) ,or one of our councillors be sufficient .Suspect it wouldn't .
So we have staff in an office somewhere to fill in a claim ,decide you can get this or that benefit and automatically qualify for HB and CT benefit -only if the parallel staff at your local council agree .
Why,OH why do we need a national benefits agency backed up by a local one ( and in this one's case ,it's got the record of being month behind in it's work)

Pity the gardening section has been put out to private tender - this one council section seems in need of an early prune .

Then again we've got the much vaunted benefits fraud section -who can't act "because evidence is hard to get " - I'll leave that one ,else we'll get a rant .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Ahhh, the old "pension credit" scam.
Seemingly a good idea...more money...but wait until you draw your old-age pension, then you'll find out WHY they are pushing it for the over-60's.
Yes, the benefits staffing is a criminal scandal verging upon the worst excesses and inefficiencies of the soviet-block countries mish-mashed with the inadequacies of ignorance and stupidity. Believe it or not but you have both national government and local councils doing the same jobs, at different times and places, and getting the same things wrong at both times and places. That, coupled with the fact that neither know (or care) exactly who can claim what from where, and you get the benefits system we have now. the only thing that puzzles me is that they pick on genuine claimants who have no intention or interest in benefit theft. Well, it did puzzle me....but then I discovered that the only way to get good benefits advice was to get it FROM a successful benefits crook....they know the system...which the people administering it do not !

If you think you know about benefits: Think again
Not Fun In The Sun

You will fill-in the same information on practically all the forms for all the different benefits.
This is data-trawling on a massive scale.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Just to rub a little salt in, Any folks on benefits who have it paid into their bank as from the 6th december the Halifax are going to charge £1 a day interest on an overdraft,. be it authorised and £5 a day unauthorised.
So if your overdrawn £1 for a month thats £30 charges.
If your overdrawn at the halifax best find a new bank quickly, Just a matter of time before the others copy this.
Complaints already starting on cag,
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... ounts.html

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nigel_bytes

Yep - not so long ago , my youngest lad had an invitation to an interview "under caution " at his jobcentre ,because he'd been accused of getting benifet , he'd been denied-and it turned out was caused by a mistake in the system .

Personally after that ,I'd have engaged a no win soliciter to ger a lot of cash off them

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on