Safe Speed Forums

The latest DfT madness is here:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 29709.hcsp

I have read much of the material and it's very obvious that they have not thought this thing through. For example:

1) If a charge based on congested roads will persuade drivers to choose another route or travel at another time, then so will the delay they incur. Time is money after all. I wrote about this for the London Congestion charge:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/congestioncharging.html

2) It would be a regressive tax - i.e. one that charges the poor a greater proportion of their available cash. And the rich could go anywhere, anytime.

3) The massive costs of implementation and operation would be little more than a vast money bonfire.

There's much more of course: Civil liberties, beating the system (fraud), consequences of technical breakdowns, bad effect on folk who could not change their travel arrangements (peak time commuters).

But once again the DfT leaps with absolutely no clue about what they are doing.

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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

Although I say it myself,

http://speedlimit.dreamwater.org/roadprice.html

provides a good review of the issues involved.

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"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

Also the less well-off are less likely to be in jobs with "flexi-time" where you can move your work day to less congested hours. It's a similar argument to people in low paid jobs who have to drive into central London for whatever reason.

Gareth

To be honest, very few employees are in jobs where realistically they can move their start and finish times by more than an hour or so (unless it's a case of starting three hours earlier and finishing three hours later).

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"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

Umm no.

Flexi time is considered a perk and I think you will find the lowest paid workers are more likely to be on fixed hours.

Despite which, flexi usually only allows you to start an hour either side of 9am and finish an hour either side of 5pm which still means travelling during peak hours. The slight advantage it does give is an extra day off every month or so.

Depending on their start times, shift workers could benefit greatly though.

Personally I am more worried about the big brother aspect. How long before they start using it for speed enforcement?

My mate's an engineer and he regularly has to travel into the congestion zone. His company pay the £5 for him, but they do not cover it when he forgets to pay it and they fine him.

So now he does his best to refuse to go into the congestion zone.

If you re-read what Gareth wrote, you'll see he agrees with you



That sounds pretty much like how the flexi system I'm on works, but even just having that 2 hour leeway can make a big difference to my daily trek to and from work, particularly since most of the businesses around here seem not to operate flexi for most/all of their staff - there is a definite spike in traffic volume come 5pm. So whilst I might still travelling in what could be described as a peak period, I can avoid the actual peaks in congestion.



That too

Chris

This is not a prediction

You may call me cynical, but this has absolutely nothing to do with reducing congestion and everything to do with this morally bankrupt government trousering even more of OUR hard earned cash.
The next thing we will see, once they've driven the poor peasants off the roads, will be special lanes down all the major roads, "reserved for the politburo". Remember the "M4 Bus lane" used by two jags.
Also, once they have removed the poor peasants off the road, there will be food rationing, because the peasant truck drivers won't be able to afford to go to work.
Remember, of course, this incompetant governments record on the installation of computers, most of which have gone so much over budget, it is unreal, and most of them don't work properly, those that got installed anyway.
Now, they will have to put more satellites up to monitor and run the system, also, remember those 80,000 civil servants the chief trouserer is going to sack, well they have no need to worry, because they will all be senior managers in the system and still have to take on even more civil servants to do the job.
Am I really being cynical or just being a realist.

Now, this IS a prediction.

Westland Helicopters to close with the loss of thousands of jobs.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I heard recently a proposal to create special lanes (down south) for people who are car sharing!

If you do this, you'll end up with yet another lane (on top of your standard bus lanes) which sits empty, while everyone sits on their own, in their car in the last lane. This'll just make the traffic jams longer!!!

I thought the idea was to cut congestion, not create it!

DevilsAdvocate, the plan is to try this out on the M3 from the M25 interchange out west a junction or two. From what I hear that've yet to decide how to do it. Using lane 3 is one option, and if that happens expect to see M4 style congestion in L1 and L2 and nearly bugger all in L3. Believe it or not another option being toyed with is to use the hard shoulder as the 'carpool' lane or whatever you want to call it. The potential problems are pretty self evident, yet it is apparently being considered seriously. To my mind it's the daftest proposal, so I expect it'll be the one we end up with.

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

Assuming we're stuck with bus lanes, why not just allow cars with 2+ occupants to use them as well? Instant "multi-occupancy" lanes at no extra cost. Never catch on...

EDS will do it and will probably run on M$ software so not only will it cost 20x original budget, take up 5 X as many servers it will spend most of its time with the blue screen of death showing...assuming it doesn't get hit by some email worm or whatever this week's windoze security hole is anyway within minutes of it going online anyway....

Have they thought of the havoc that could be wreaked if the database that keeps all this stuff is compromised? It would be trivial to inject ficticious journeys.

Besides just tell the MPs they have to have them and they will go off the idea as the data about them hanging around red light districts and their mistress' house would be out in the public domain in minutes

You're bit generous there, minutes? I would have thought seconds, sure as hell, someone will break in and be watching our glorious leaders.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

No, because bus lanes are open during the vast time of the day for people to use them to ease the flow of traffic (like a 7am-10am bus lane), but they just avoid them cause they can't read.

Except for the bus lanes which are in force 24 hours a day, or the ones that operate over a much wider range of hours, possibly with multiple separate periods during the day, than your 3 hour example, or the bus lanes where the signs are so badly placed and/or maintained that you don't stand a gnat's whisker in hell chance of seeing them and being able to read the dates and times listed on them, before you've gone by... And given the lightning speed at which you'll receive a fine if you so much as put one tread block over the white line into the bus lane, most drivers seem to now be conditioned into treating ALL bus lanes as 24 hour ones in order to make sure they don't get fined. It's like braking when you see a scamera, even if you *know* your speed is legal - it's the fear of being penalised for being even the tiniest bit wrong, you do everything you can to be certain the system has no justification for tagging you. If that means crawling past a scamera at 20MPH, or giving all bus lanes a wide berth, then so be it - that's the effect the system has on us as drivers. Great, isn't it...

Yeah, I can see what you're getting at. I'm the sort of person that says "if it says I can do it, then I will," regardless of if everyone else is, or isn't.

Obviously I'll stay out of a bus lane until I see a sign saying I can go in it rather than going in until seeing that I can't.

But yes, I'm now subconsciously throttled myself to 30mph on camera-ridden roads and 40mph on camera-ridden dual carriageways. But what's the point? I only put my foot down again once I'm past them.

Once again it seems those who need the car the most is forgotten... like myself, who due to health requires a vehicle to go anywhere and i've already had to get rid of a car in favour of a bike due to the cost of petrol, insurance, etc... if i have to start paying per mile or whatever they propose i guess we'll have to spend most of our time stuck indoors.

But oh well, guess we're only a small number the goverment keeps forgetting!!!