Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Transport

I've been thinking a lot about transport over the last 24 hours.

This might be loosly related to the fact that my car is in for repair and I've had to rely on lifts from the wife, buses and my own two feet. Then there is the absolutely absurd plan announced by government advisors today.

It's been raining a lot in Plymouth today and as per usual the amount of traffic on the road has doubled. This is no doubt because of a combination of factors :

1. Those that normally cycle to work would prefer to get their alive.
2. Those that normally walk their children to school don't want them to get wet.
3. A lot of others people who would normally walk or take the bus say "Oooh, not rain!" and get in a car.
4. Numpties drive even worse in the wet.

I can't see an awful lot of legislation that would help with points 1 & 4 (apart from the ethnic clensing of numpty drivers but that wouldn't be in my first manifesto) but I can do something about the middle two.

As Billy Connolly often says (and my brother in a bad Billy Connolly impression):

"There's no such thing as the wrong weather, only the wrong clothes"

There have been some amazing advances in waterproof technology over the last decade and textiles such as Gore-Tex will not only keep you completely dry but they're breathable as well.

However Gore-Tex is also incredibly expensive. (Unless you bought a DPM coat off an army surplus website like I did)

In order to encourage people to walk to work/school etc. in rainy weather I would therefore make waterproof clothing VAT exempt.
No doubt this would lead to a trend of designer waterproofs but I don't care. The issue is to get people walking in all unhazerdous weather. Umbrellas would not be VAT exempt as quite frankly they're a f**king menace!

As far as the plans for 20mph speed limits in all urban areas go, I have my reservations. I certainly wouldn't want this to be a blanket policy (Which it more than likely would be) and it screams of policy dictating reality rather than vice-versa.

The article above acknowledges that road deaths have more than halved since the 1960s so where is the justification for this?

Motorists already think that existing traffic policy exists to generate revenue and this comes across in the same way.

When I was a young child (1980s) there were adverts on all the time telling me how to cross the road safely and more importantly what happens when you don't. We even had police officers visiting our schools to reinforce the same message. I would bring that back. I would make it a policy to ensure that young children are sufficiently fearful of busy roads. They need to be scared of the road and aware of the danger it poses to them.
Even if a car is doing 20mph, if the child walks out on it without looking and the driver has no time at all to react then the child is a gonner.

I would consider introducing 20mph speed limits to roads where there are parked cars but this could only happen if it was introduced in tandem with double red lines on urban trunk roads (i.e. no parking at any time). A blanket 20mph speed limit in all urban areas would be a disaster.

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