Hi all,
I've just read an article in todays Daily Express. The headline being 'Why politicians want us to own cars but not to drive them'. Makes sense i suppose.
It starts: With speed cameras, parking fines, congestion charge and taxes, there seems to be no limit to the Government's ingenuity when it comes to making the motorist pay. But still the roads get worse and public transport is a disgrace. Very true, i say.
It ends with: If motorists must pay ever more taxes, charges and fines, then give us more and better buses, trains and trams. Surely that's a fair exchange ? Maybe.
But for me to travel to work i have to use my car. I leave home at 6.30am and it's 25 miles each way. There are no buses ( there's a subsidised bus scheme but the agency that has taken over my place of work is about to scrap it, there is no train service and to get to work using public transport would take hours. So, my car is essential for me to get to work. I could go back on the dole but that wouldn't make the unemployment figures look good, would it ?
I car share with my brother as we work in the same place, so it costs me £15 a fortnight in diesel to get to and from work. He pays a bit less as he's got a Polo 1.4Tdi, so gets 60 odd to a gallon. Not bad 'eh ?
So should i use my car, or do what the government want and end up on the dole for being late every day ?
Rgds,
Ash.
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The upshot is that you would probably put on some training scheme to mask the unemployment figures (really standing at around 4million the worst of any western industrial nation).So the whitehall boffins will say we have cut traffic without effecting the unemployment figures.On mainland europe travel by public transport is buy no means perfect but 4000% better than the uk and a fraction of the cost.I think UK ltd probably has the best engineers and workers in general that you could find and the the worst management in tghe world .
Quote from my friends wife an ex nurs when asked why did you leave the profession the reply was when the non medical management team had more people than the maddical side and the main topic on the monthly agenda was could they have better cars which would naturally be paid for buy guess who?.
The hospital in Question is not a million mile from port glasgow
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Andy,
Couldn't agree with you more on all points. One of my favourite themes is that the gradually descending unemployment figures is a myth perpetuated by Government propaganda.
Being retired myself I can't help but notice the number of employable age people who are walking around town and city.
I just don't understand how the economy works and can only imagine it is is on a knife edge with the majority being employed in the service sector.
My idea of a strong economy is a nation that maufactures the majority of its needs and can feed itself. We fit none of this criteria and it appears to be getting worse. Living in a rural community little farming now takes place and it would only take a prolonged ferry strike for us to starve.
Hardly a motoring subject but is far more worrying and important than speed cameras and the like.
Alvin
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One of the problems we have with car use is that we've built an economy around it. People commute 25 miles without thinking, when thirty years ago most people could have gone to work by bicycle. We've built shopping centres that are really only accessible by car, and we build housing estates out in the countryside miles from railway stations and major centres where there are shops. These were all our choice as a nation, but they were a big mistake. Not only do we have congested roads, but non drivers (the old, the un(der)employed, the young) are forced to live in places that have been left to rot by those with money. Now we have to do something about it - largely because the cost of congestion is crippling - and it's going to be much more expensive and difficult to put public transport in place than it would have been if we'd thought it through in the first place.
Elsewhere in Europe they own more cars but drive less. But then in many cases they planned ahead. We, by comparison, had Thatcher and "deregulation". Doh!
Chris
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