Allowing drivers to drive on the hard sholder?! You cannot be f-ing serious...

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3733&edition=1&ttl=20071025134220

those of us who can drive all know how mental people can be on the motorway but this is just crazy!!!! GAH!!!

Get Lorries out of the Middle lane is what I say!!! GAH!!!!!!

what do you think?

 

The best scheme i can think of to make more room is to stop people driving so much People are damn obsessed with their cars

 

I think we should all use banana peels to slide everywhere we want instead. And once we are done with said banana peel we can compost it in one of many convienently placed composts around the country.

 

yes they shouldn't allow lorries in Middle Lane, Crouch End - it used to be a nice quiet residential street ...

 

Nope we should limit road capacity at its current level on motorways, reduce road capacity in urban areas by narrowing roads and introducing bus/cycle lanes in their place, pedestrianising all town centres and begin congestion charging and taxing the bastards off the road...

 

Driving on the hard shoulder is a ridiculous idea, wouldnt surprise me if it gets the go ahead :H

 

Actually it might mean that accidents can't be attended by the emergency services, so more car drivers will get hideously burnt to death etc. Less car drivers, job's a good-un! I'm all for it

 

To each their own

 

Exactemently

 

in theory, maybe a good idea; but there are still loads of people who can't feasibly walk everywhere due to physical health problems, or who have difficulties with public transport due to mental health problems.

 

Those who absolutely have to can still use private transport of course, they just have to pay a premium for it. Clearing the unnecessary traffic off the roads will make it much better for those (especially businesses) who need to use the roads or who are prepared to pay a high premium for the privelege. It's possible we can allow those who have disabled parking passes etc certain discounts on our punitive road taxation system

Have you been on a bus recently? Mental health problems are positively encouraged!

 

i think secretly you are all just a bunch of road fascists.

there i said it the 'f-word' :tongue:

and no i haven't been on a bus recently ... that's why i have a car. :lol:

 

oh, do want to say though i think allowing anyone to drive on the hard shoulder is really messed up. which means, they'll probably pass it through - just thought i might say something actually on topic for a change.

 

I just think we need an attitude change - like the one that's happening now with regard to smoking. There's a general acceptance now that smoking around people who don't want to inhale carcinogens is just not an acceptable thing to do.

It's a long way off, but we need to start to effect a similar change in attitudes to unnecessary car driving. It's just an incredibly selfish and harmful thing to do and we need to start vilifying car drivers as if they are responsible for killing babies

 

i don't think vilifying anyone is ever really appropriate, unless they are indeed real villains (thieves, murderers, rapists, etc).

stating that an across the board tax increase is needed to keep cars off the road, is rather narrow-minded. road tax as it is, is staggering for anyone on a low-income. those that are wealthy, will just pay it and any increase without thinking twice. these are the same people that drive cars that get 4 miles to the gallon as well. any increase in taxation will not affect those people. it will however affect those that are living on low incomes or on benefits, that can barely afford to put a tenner in the car a week in petrol.

i will agree with you, there are too many people on the road. people should be encouraged to carpool, use public transport, and such. instead of vilifying those that don't, give incentives for those that do such things. for instance, you yourself, if you bike to work everyday instead of using public transport or driving, maybe you should be given a tax break when you do your taxes each year.
for those that use public transport regularly, drop the costs of taking a bus, offer free bus passes to those on low-income (which they don't do until you're retirement age).

i don't claim to have a solution to the problem, but i think a broad standing approach that increases tax will only make it harder for people who are on low-income or benefits to have a car. it won't have any affect on people who are well off. maybe it might make some middle-class people decide to walk instead of drive as well, but again tax increases don't really help, it just makes it harder for poor people to have the 'luxury' that those that are rich are capable of having.

i know you will say that as global warming is concerned it is a 'luxury' that none of us can afford; but again as i said, who are you really trying to keep off the roads by saying that an increase in tax is going to help matters. i mean already tax is ridiculously high. have you taxed a car recently?

not all of us can afford hybrids and eco-friendly cars. we get by with what we can.
as i've said before, i personally try not to take unnecessary trips. if i know i'm going out i'll do my best to cram as many other things into that trip as possible to take care of it all in one go, avoiding having to put extra miles on the car and use extra fuel, as well fuel is a commodity as well and unlike most people at the pumps i can't afford to spend £30-40 to put fuel in my car.
and yes, it would be great to walk everywhere and such, but considering the pain i get in due to fybromyalgia it is sometimes unbearable to cross the lounge much less walk for miles to get anywhere.

so yes, i totally understand why you feel the way you do; but i think you need to learn to not be quite so narrow-minded about your approach to these matters, and think about the affects it would have on a number of different people.

(and because i forgot to mention it in my last post) the last i checked they don't give out blue-badges to people with mental health problems that have panic attacks when in enclosed places with lots of strangers.

 

The Scottish socialist party have a campaign for free public transport! It will never get anywhere because nobody votes for them except me, but its a brilliant idea.

It would most definately work too, anything that would save people money seems to work, as long as its not too much of an inconvenience. It would cost way less annually that the upkeep of trident if I remember correctly.

 

"Vilifying" was a joke, I thought that was obvious because of my comparison of drivers with baby killers, but maybe I should have made it clearer:tongue:

You make some fair points, and I didn't spell out my entire tax plan which does indeed address some of these points. It's not just across the board tax increases that we need, though I am in favour of significantly increasing the price of car transport for everyone. In addition to that we should have targeted taxation like the congestion charge extended to to every major city and road tolls for commuter routes where public transport links exist as an alternative.

In addition to this I support using the public revenue generated to invest heavily in the public transport system; you make some good points about free or discounted fares for the disabled and those with low incomes. Generally making public transport far more comfortable and efficient (it's actually not that bad to begin with in most urban areas) while increasing the impediments to unnecessary car use is something we just have to do, we have no choice in the matter and better sooner than later.

To again use the comparison with smoking, raising taxation on cigarettes is designed both to discourage people from doing it and to make those that do pay for the extra burden they put on the rest of us (increase in costs to the NHS, etc). You could just as easily say that the working classes are much more likely to be nicotine addicts, so this is just a tax on the poor. We don't want anyone doing this harmful and damaging activity unnecessarily so if it becomes a luxury for the rich, so be it. They are paying for their damaging and selfish behaviour and subsidising the rest of us who do the responsible thing.

I would be very happy to see rich people driving along on empty roads as I speed past in my air-conditioned train carriage knowing that they were paying through the nose in order to subsidise the journey I was taking.

It hardly needs saying, but of course the car is a wonderful and incredibly useful invention, it's just its over-use that needs to be targeted and discouraged. A taxation and toll structure like the one I've outlined would penalise those who take unnecessary journeys in urban areas and where public transport alternatives exist without so badly affecting those who have to use cars, for instance those who live well away from public transport links.

Like I said, as well as structural change, we need an attitude change.

 

Re-nationalise the railways and buses and privatise the roads! Public transport should not be run for profit but as a public service, and road users should be made to actually cover the costs of road building and maintenance. At the moment we massively subsidise the roads while public transport is supposed to turn a profit - we have it the wrong way round.

When I'm Chancellor you'll see, you'll see:tongue:

 

I have recently been talking to friends in this area about public transport! They said that if the public transport service was better and more regular then they would use it. And also if there was an opportunity to car share then we would. I drive. We only have one car between the 2 of us and we take it in turns to use public transport! Tomorrow morning I will be taking the bus

 

just make public transport cheaper and better. The reason we use cars is because its a waste of money to go by train. Buses arent much better...