Safe Speed Forums

Wrong, that is baloney - but don't worry, you are good company
A columnist in the Express recently responded to the latest 'spin' on getting people out of their congestion causing cars with an extremely honest and revealing insight into why her selfishness would see her stay in her car no matter what was thrown at her. Simply put, she - like so many people today - is so wedded to her car that she would sooner sit wasting time in her own "personal space" than have to share public transport with all those other (ugh) people she is unfortunate to have to travel alongside.

Laptop that will only work for one owner? Cannot see it catching on somehow - what if an engineer needsto fix something on it?

: technology for sake of it -- without value ...




Have to admit - Durham charge works better than we thought it would. We just get congestion somewhere else instead.

Mersey Tunnels - always been a charge.

Channel Tunnel - charge for placing car on a train - bit like paying to place it on the ro-ro.

Skye Bridge? Er - they are backing down on that one a bit ...as seemto recall reading but since I do not drive around there - could not be bothered to remember the full story .....so may have wrong end of stick ...



And if wires get crossed? Lot of traffic = lot of confusion and overload for a system.

Besides - people in this country like their privacy - and that means the normal law abiders.

Of course I would like to know excactly where Mr Big is at all times - but these guys are fly enough to get around eletronic taggin already - so they will find a way to bypass this and pinch someone elses identity just the same.

Biometric keys? What is you lose the set of keys? And what about the spare set which can be stolen - along with your ID?

You would need a lot of biometric doo-dahs for hire cars - or as with this family - we drive each others' cars all the time

Not practial!



But such a clever car will surely say "Help Help! You are driving too fast Gimme a break here! Or just say "This is a 30 zone and I refuse to drive here at any other speed at all! Regardless of whether it is the safest speed or not!" "



All these gismos - people will not stand for them at all. Unwarranted intrusion etc.

And the scrotes will find a way around it - they always do!

Having said that - we have - as I said to you ages ago - had one big crack down in my patch - which netted quite a nice little return over all - joy riders, drunks caught, defectives caught, drug dealers rumbled,....

Er - all without a biometric doo-dah as well

Told you - one geared up cop ....

But nice warm car - Radio Two, Four , fave CD ..... against cold wait at bus stop, in drafty stations and ride in uncomfartable bus or train ..... and you still have to pay through the nose for it!

You're not talking about reducing congestion. You're talking about what they seem to call modal shift these days.

I find politically inspired modal shift by penalty abhorrent.

We live in a market driven economy, and the government's function is to facilitate the market. The market has chosen that the private motor car is by far the dominant transport choice, with around 80% of all passenger kilometres by private motor car.

OK, I know that's a bit oversimplified, but those are the underlying and guiding principles as I see them.

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

I foresee galloping inflation in this. To be able to use the roads to getto work - we would need to be earninga lotmor than we are at present. The cost of this will be added to the cost of maufacturing, freight, goods and services. That will lead to galloping inflation if we are not careful - a disaster for the economy.

Computers will become overloaded as as well - crash and the chaos resulting would be insane

Besides - apart from that dreadful Expressway in Runcorn (One of the German/Swiss members of this family got lost there He intended visiting Chester as "nice historic city" and then going on to Liverpool for a "Magical Mystery Tour" -only he got a magical mystery tour around Runcorn instead! ) - not too much of a chore to go the long way ...



But my Mr Big of gangstaland may decide to use a racing bike



Air travel is one thing - and bookings and passport checks are the norm when entering/leaving UK - and always have been.

Going from A to B andminding your own business whilst doing so is a basic human right - and one which even I as BiB will respect. I do not go around stopping and searching people - unless they give me reason to do so and I am on duty at the time....and uniform.

People have variety of reasons for wanting to travel to and fro in private.
Some nice innocent reasons - like the surprise birthday treat etc ...



Disabled? In traffic? Sudden stops and cut outs? and the rear end shunt? Congestions?

and could be down to simple malfunction due to volume of traffic and read outs.

Not that good an idea!


Better the devil you know!


MORE
so and sos like ME

I was talking about people seeking (or not seeking) alternatives. Which was the way you couched it.
Why does an exchange with you always seem to boil down to misunderstanding of interpretation and/or semantics Paul?




Yes, this is the ISO 9000 standard riposte for not using public transport isn't it? It could be a nice warm/air conditioned bus terminal with a regular clean and inexpensive service - folks would still cram the roads with their cars.



It is the governments function to ensure the country runs smoothly and that sometimes means making decisions that go against the publics' will - if you don't like it, use your vote at the polling station (if you can be bothered to go ).
Cars are great until everybody has one and the roads of the UK can only cope with so much capacity.
Building more roads cry the public....but not running near to my property of course

Okay, enough of this talk of markets. Economics A level - failed though I do seem to recall my teacher banging on about transport, particularly private transport being price inelastic. I take that to mean that you can’t rely on usage being inversely proportional to the cost, though I imagine the volume of the bitching about how much it costs is directly proportional. Besides, surely the market for road use isn’t simply a financial one. I don’t necessarily pick route A over route B because I’ll save some money in fuel. It usually comes down to time, which is often a more valuable commodity in most people’s daily lives. Next, doesn’t the concept of the market extend beyond road use? Surely the market consists of all transport options, in which case the problem is the failure of other types of transport to compete? I used to drive into London fairly frequently, which sometimes took me through the CC zone. The reason I drove? It was quicker than using public transport (though I did use the tube to get around once I was in London), not much different in cost and frankly sitting in a jam has about the same level of unpleasantness for me as being on an overcrowded train. The only way I’ve changed since the charge came in is that I go to London much less and bitch a bit louder when it’s unavoidable.

I imagine the number of incorrect options vastly outweighs the number of “right” ones.

This may be technically possible, but is it actually desirable and will it really work? Say city A has a bit of a freak day, traffic wise. Much more traffic about than normal just because more people than normal want/need to be there. So our near-real time system reacts by putting up the price of getting there, as a result of which some people probably will give it up as a bad idea and go back or go elsewhere, which may relieve the congestion some, (or at least spread it out thinner over a wider area if they decide to go to city B instead). However, many people will not. They need to be in city A today and they have already committed themselves to driving there. Even with near real time there’s a touch of barn doors and bolting horses there. Also I personally would find the unpredictability of such a system very annoying. I need to go to city A next Tuesday, but will I get charged a fiver for going there, or £10 or £15, or will I get lucky and the roads will be quiet enough that it’ll be free? (Hahahaha, yeah, like they’d have free days when it’s quiet!) Frankly city B is starting to look more appealing all the time. Okay, maybe city B charges as well, but at least it’s always the same amount so we all know where we stand.

Okay, now I admit my extreme CC zone everywhere scenario was, well, extreme. Actually re-reading it now it was a crap argument anyway. What I was driving at was what I touched on earlier when I mentioned my old economics teacher talking about people the cost of transport being less important when it comes to reducing demand. For a number of reasons we have chosen the car as our main means of transport. As a whole we continue to use the car in preference to the alternatives regardless of cost or how miserable and stressed we get from sitting in jams. Congestion charges are simply a new type of cost. The London charge means I avoid London, and in that the city has one less car to accommodate. But I’m still driving, so somewhere else has one more car to accommodate (and I’m spending my money elsewhere too). For me they’ve actually set it at just the right level – affordable but high enough to piss me off and make me stay away unless I really have to go there. Were I wealthier I might well have decided that the charge wasn’t expensive enough to bother me at all. Now here’s where the hairy lefty in me starts to get all outraged and wanting to get out the Billy Bragg CDs. The idea of restricting the poor by economic means while those who can afford it can do as they please I find pretty repellent. That may not be the goal of the congestion charge, but even as a side effect I feel it’s undesirable and should be avoided.

Doesn’t beer thinking about.

I think you do need to, but just haven’t recognised the need yet. I’ve mentioned this to you before, but I can’t imagine that a technological system, or any system that fails to take all road users into account, will be successful from a road safety point of view. I’m prepared to believe that it could possibly pay for itself, though I think per mile charging will be necessary and the cost per mile will be a damn sight more than it is now. I’m even prepared to believe that it could even increase compliance with the law as far as easy to measure things like speed limits are concerned. What I do not believe it can improve is people acting like bloody idiots, whether behind the wheel or not. I firmly believe that pedestrians will still be killed in broadly similar numbers, because the underlying causes of such accidents will not have been tackled. Ditto bikers, cyclists, drivers, roaming pets (well, probably not goldfish ) livestock and wildlife. My comment about sticking RFIDs in them was tongue in cheek, as clearly it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference. It won’t change their behaviour, which is the real problem, and that applies to drivers of chipped up cars that are being tracked everywhere they go. Either change the behaviour or change the system to make it more tolerant of that behaviour.

Yeah, great Since I don’t believe it will make us any safer in reality you can understand why I don’t like the idea.

Guess we’ll just have to wait for someone to post the workarounds on the web.

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

I think reducing congestion is worthy and legitimate. I think using penalties to promote modal shift is a dirty game of social engineering.

Reducing congestion need not include modal shift by penalty. Instead it can include better planned journeys, better use of road space, more road space, alternative journeys, and so on. Modal shift is potentially brilliant when a superior alternative is offered and folk choose it.



Perhaps you're not precise enough? In this case, I think you assumed that modal shift by penalty overlapped with the idea of reducing congestion. It certainly does not need to. We can and should reduce congestion without penalties.

Congestion itself is the only penalty required.




I did say it was oversimplified. This is a discussion forum and it's just too complicated a subject to lay out in a few words. I'm happy about road building as a solution to congestion. It's just that we're doing too little, too late at the moment.

There's so much motorist's cash sloshing around in the treasury, I think we should spend some of it on roads. And I'd love to see proper compensation to anyone affected. In fact I'd make compulsory purchases at treble market value and watch the nimbys turn into PBIHs (Please Build It Here).

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

Sounds like the sort of thing you get in a police state. Next thing we will be getting transponders in identity cards just to make sure that we are not doing anything naughty.

Elecronic monitoring of the population by any means goes against our perception of freedom. I predict that there will be a huge political backlash against this kind of policing as there is against cameras.....sorry basingwerk but you are in a very small minorty, thankfully.

We vote for the government. It's our decision.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

That is almost right. For example, before the M6 bypass, time was still money, but there was (practically ) no alternative. Now, funding from monitoring and tolls means there is. The funding and the technology are hand in hand. It is the same with the Mersey tunnel. Before the tunnel, there was no alternative. After the tunnel, there is. The Severn Bridge too. The funding from the toll creates the alternative.

_________________
I stole this .sig

Well, not really. New roads may be financed privately.

_________________
I stole this .sig

Yes, I agree.

I approve of road tolls used to "enable". (enable choice, enable road building, enable better travel etc.)

I disapprove of road tolls used as a penalty.

I appreciate that sometimes the distinction might be a fine one. Where the objective is to discourage travel and thereby reduce congestion, well I think they are ALWAYS talking utter rubbish.

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

Where the congestion is so bad that there is little possibility of progress for anyone, the road is underused. It is not carrying traffic, it is a noisy and smoky parking lot. Some cities have reached that point. The road systems operate at way below possible bandwidth because of gridlock. This is sad, because if a road is carrying less than it's possible bandwidth when there is heavy demand, it is giving a poor return on investment. That is why congestion is a poor way to control demand. Essentially, the vehicles are locked in by each other. In this case, in a city where no more space is available to invest in new bandwidth, reduction is the only way apparent to me to tease the possible bandwidth out of the system. If the supply cannot be increased, economics suggests that the way to reduce demand is via cost. Of course, funds raised should not be hosed away, but can be reinvested in alternative forms that take less bandwidth. This is coherent and is the model for the London congestion charge.

_________________
I stole this .sig

May be not. we don't have to use them.
I use the M6 every week. Never use the toll....never will
I pay for my roads already through tax. I will not give another penny to pay for them again through tolls. If it is not economic for private companies to fund roads they wont.

As I have alread said....it's our choice.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

May be not. we don't have to use them.
I use the M6 every week. Never use the toll....never will
I pay for my roads already through tax. I will not give another penny to pay for them again through tolls. If it is not economic for private companies to fund roads they wont.

58% of the adult population have cars, thats a lot of voters.

As I have alread said....it's our choice.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

I believe that to be an entirely false picture. You're suggesting "gridlock" while the DfT publish average speeds for London traffic in the range of 12mph (It's in TSGB if anyone wants to check - I haven't.)

Also in TSGB (Oh hell - I'll go and find it now.... <fumble>... here:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/d ... 025217.pdf table 4.14)

We can see that average traffic speeds in Central London are reduced by only about 20% since the 1960s.

Grid lock? No way.
Self regulation? Absolutely.

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

in the last 12 months motorway traffic has increase by just 1%. Car ownership has now reached equilibrium point.

With a declining population and increase in average age of the population now is the time to invest in the roads to see a real benefit in conjestion reduction.

_________________
Speed camera policy Kills

Do you want a “free” system? It seems to me that in a resource constrained system, cost is a good way to limit demand, especially as it applies to the main users, rather than society in general. This is especially true when the resource in question has detrimental effects on people who do not wish to be involved by it. Interventions are best made before gridlock, and self regulation, as you put it, was not happening at any stage over the period of these statistics, hence the array of interventions that have been made by planners in London to increase bandwidth as best they can. Given the legacy nature of the system in London, this can only be done to a point. The figures when plotted suggest a less gradual slow down in recent years, despite the efforts of planners. This suggests a network close to its threshold, where delay might be expected to grow non-linearly. Local conditions in London vary enormously, but most drivers would agree that, at least before the charge, it was generally very heavy going indeed.

_________________
I stole this .sig

I don't want a "free system", but I do want one that's optimised according to "genuine" real world parameters. That's the thing about enabling rather than obstructing again.

Changes in London over the last 10 or 15 years have been very much designed to obstruct and reduce private car use. I suspect that bus lanes and so on are the real reason for the reduction in traffic throughput.

The narrow range of the change in traffic speed over 3 decades suggests to me that we are self regulating on a steep curve. Massive increases (nationally) in traffic volumes haven't applied to London because of the time penalties of congestion.

As far as the sucess of the congestion charge goes I carried out a straw poll of ten taxi drivers and 8 thought the congestion charge had made no difference. they should know, and they should be in favour of it - after all they don't have to pay and there should be more folk seeking taxis.

(I wish I'd kept notes because I'm now having trouble remembering all that was said. - there might be some notes in this forum somewhere.)

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

Yes, motoring is far cheaper than it was. That is why I find if hard to sympathise with fuel tax protesters. I put it all down to the 'whinging brits' phenomenon, where everybody portrays themselves as the biggest victim of cruel taxation. Anyway, the facts are that the new drivers have outstripped road supply, so now our roads are congested. You are entitled to want to increase general taxation to fund new roads. I don't want to do that, because I limit my use of the roads, so I want road users themselves to pay for it, or, failing that, I want to limit demand via costs so that at least we can maximise the throughput of the roads we have.

Incidentally, despite all this new car ownership, over the last decade, child and adult pedestrian casualties (KSI) have fallen by 40%, and car driver/passenger casualties by 25%. This is from the same report that SafeSpeed relies upon for his statistics on traffic speeds in Central London. Could it be that (gasp) interventions and controls work, despite the surge in ownership?

_________________
I stole this .sig