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http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/PA_NEWA10167291123676055A000?source=PA%20Feed



So much for environmentaly friendly transport.

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Speed camera policy Kills

That story will soon be spun to replace public transport with cars as the main feature-as per fu**ing usual

Regards



Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

I wonder if this will get reported on Tw*tsport2000 web site. For some strange reason the London public transport bombings never got a mention at all. Obviously not important enough.Campaigning against Clarkson getting a honorary degree is far more important for the traveling public.
..

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Speed camera policy Kills

Funnily enough watched Palin using an integrated transport system in Africa on his Sahara voyage last night-INCLUDING 4X4's Suppose they really have no choice (LIKE MANY OF US) to utilise the the most freely available and logical choice of transport as cycling 300 miles in 50 degrees c doesn't sound tempting. Mr. Palin get your house in order over at T2000

Regards


Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

As if by magic...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1774

And let's look at the heading:

Pollution from cars linked to child cancer


And now lets look at some of the paragraphs from the story:


Professor George Knox said youngsters were at higher risk of cancer if they lived near emissions hotspots, such as transport depots.

Transport depots....meaning public transport depots bacuse cars don't have depots-mayber the M25 counts



Say no more.

The researcher suggested that 1,3-butadiene and carbon monoxide - both produced by vehicle exhausts and particularly diesel engines - were among the biggest culprits.

Mainly bus and taxi engines which are free from the high technology efficient smalldiesel engines in most cars.

He said that when combined with living close to an emissions source, such as a bus or coach station, a child had a 12 times higher risk of dying from cancer than other youngsters.


I am going to complain to these Bastards about misleading headlines.....!


Regards


Andrew

_________________
It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

I sent this comment about the story although I still wish to complain.

The headline is misleading by saying 'cars' cause these problems when in fact many of the urban asthma and cancers are caused by pollution from large diesel engines i.e. buses and taxis. This pollution problem came home to me last year when I had to visit my Doctor with suspected asthma due to walking through the public transport hub every day and being inundated with clouds of diesel fumes from buses and taxis, needless to say the health problem disappeared when I stopped walking through the transport hub. The engines in these forms of transport are, at best, old designs and very inefficient because they are not subject to the high technology and low emissions that car manufacturers are subject to in their vehicles. It also seems ridiculous that there are so many buses and taxis running around all day with hardly anyone on them, why aren't they only utilised at rush hour when needed. please stop being emotive and trying to drive everyone out their cars by falsifying stories.


Regards

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

Thats not strictly true, commercial vehicles are indeed subjected to Euro 3 legislation and Euro 4 is coming in to effect on January 2006. Check out this table, you will see that the emmisions from commercial vehicles has dropped dramatically.

http://www.haguidetofreight.co.uk/General/id94.htm

Particularly take the particulates figure for pre-Euro Artic' HGV's and Euro 4 HGV's. It's also pretty good for buses.

The problem with buses in particular is that the their cost new, plus the extensive bodybuilding costs meant replacing what should be life expired vehicles was probhibative. However, the speed of replacement has improved now so much that really old vehicles are very rare, especially in cities where you are more likely to get hubs.

What's the alternative though? Make public tranport a skeleton service? Reducing some services maybe appropriate, but isn't the answer to try and get people using it? I posted a short while back about how poor public transport is, and I fully stand by that. Its inefficient, poorly integrated and very expensive. In no other business would you get such waste of resources. There are thousands of empty seats on public tranport - we should be selling them off at 10p a pop, or a £1 for inter-urban journies. Clearly by being here I am certainly in no way anti-car. I firmly believe that people should have the choice, but there should be incentives to use public tranport like cheap fares since during the day they are virtually empty.

However, to label cars as the main cause like the article did is simply wrong, but it's not just public transport that it mentions - transport hubs would include road freight operations. However they are at least more effeiciant then public transport.

This sort of thing make me mad.

It could have read

"Polution from trains"
"Polution from Busses"

Obviously not PC enough...



BTW the polution refered to is Diesel. Less than 50% of cars use diesel.
Where as 100% of busses and 100% of non-electric trains use Diesel.



Bus, coach.....did not mention cars in fact apart from the title of the Daily Mail article cars are not specificaly mentioned in the report....Bad reporting

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Speed camera policy Kills

I posted a comment on those lines to the site around midday, but for some reason the readers comments pages is still suggesting that no comments have been made... it would appear that only comments on the right theme are accepted.

This is more true in Big cities but go into any other medium to large town and you will find many of the bus companies use old buses to save costs of buying new. My particular town had a few companies and some of the buses they used were appaling to say the least. You get the impression that serviceability was the last thing on their mind.

Regards


Andrew

_________________
It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

It's certainly true that cities are doing better then towns, but I live in an medium size town of 80 000 and most of the buses are no more then 6 year old, with most around 3 to 4. Give it a few more years when the big cities are again replacing stock and you will see a cascading of buses down to the towns, which will by then be Euro 3 vehicles.

London are still using 50 year old Routemasters. Could take a while then.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I posted on another thread about this in that they have been refurbished with new(modern) Iveco engines which are Euro 3 compliant. Shame they are all being withdrawn but for 'heritage' routes.