This sounds much too reasonable to be acted upon, but at least someone's making the right kind of noises!
www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/item.htm?id=4388
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Blimey... I've never been a political animal but that arguement is right up my street...wonder if anyone is willing to run with it?
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Its pretty much what I have been saying for a long time, i.e:
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=57789&...e
Gets my vote!
Edited by cheddar on 15/02/2008 at 22:06
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Perhaps these ideas could be revisited?
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=54...9
I feel a blog coming on, hmmm ..............
Edited by cheddar on 15/02/2008 at 22:15
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Thank you N_C for finding that article!
This year I celebrate my fiftieth anniversary of car ownership. During those years I have watched the steady decline of driving abilities on this country's roads. Half-a-century ago there was a strange but real sense of teamwork amongst drivers; co-operation not competition. There was one speed limit, 30 in built-up areas. For the rest of the road it was your call; true driver responsibility.
The rot started in the mid-60s. I still remember, when I was living in New York, with my Mini, driving from Heathrow into London and wondering what had changed. The teamwork had gone. There was now a sense of regimentation among the drivers. The year was 1966, the year that socialism began its deadly rule. That is not a political statement, it comes from the psychology of the inheritors of the dark satanic mills; "Do as you're told, the overlooker's watching you."
Now, forty years on, we are "told what to do" with an almost manic zeal by every little pen-pusher that can dream up a new regulation and use it to wrap round the neck of the luckless driver.
What am I saying? Let drivers drive! Teach them properly to read the road.Get rid of any form of technology that takes decisions away from the driver. Get rid of the forest of irrelevant rubbish that litters the roadsides and give drivers the freedom to drive well with pride.
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I agree eProf, again as I have said before an enforcement regime deters people from taking individual responsibility for their actions where as training and empowerment has the opposite effect.
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Sorry chaps, the conservative way forward would be to gain some possible votes.
I wont hold my breath waiting for any of this to happen,should they win the next election.
Can't possibly have anyone thinking for themselves, unless what they're told to think of course.
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Having lived in Spain since 1990 and driven cars here most of that time (past eight years sales repping in an area larger than Scotland) I can only add my comments of driving here. In short, it's bad but getting better. There is an underlying anarchistic spirit, akin to Portuguese drivers symbolically shaking off all vestiges of a dictatorial regime - 30 years on! - the moment they start the engine. The Spanish driver traditionally thinks only of himself, stops where he pleases, parks where he stops, throws caution to the wind and thumbs his nose at authority. He won't pay a parking fine until his home is about to be repossessed and no overtaking signs, stop signs and red lights are only for cissies, and only a cissy refuses that last one, two or three for the road.
On the plus side, the horn is rarely used as a rebuke and flashing lights is more of a safety measure ("I'm here!") which it should be in the UK. Consequently, the "after you" flash is not so common and a thankyou rarer still.
HOWEVER! in the last few years we've seen road deaths drop as points-on-the-licence have come into force. Too soon to point to a definite long term trend but year on year figures do show a drop and there is an increasing public awareness of road safety and younger, newer drivers seem to have picked up the message about drinking and driving. Cars have become safer but faster and the motorway network is unrecognisable from 10 years ago (EU subsidues paid largely by the UK - thanks guys!) Statistics tell their own story but in a country whose car ownership has increased 30 times in as many years and doubled just in the past 10, things aren't going to improve in a week.
High level brake lights increased following distances almost overnight. Unlike the UK, warning triangles and hi-vis vests are obligatory and are already saving lives. Even spare bulb kits (and until not so long ago a spare fan belt and second pair of glasses) are compulsory. A driver has to carry licence, insurance, log book, MoT at all times; Road tax is levied locally and is based on BHP rather than CO2. Scores of dot matrix signs on motorways convey useful information and radio stations are "getting there" with patchy RDS coverage.
Referring to the "solidarity" issue raised in an earlier thread: a motorist here (unlike in Spain) is legally obliged to stop and assist someone in trouble and ferry an injured party to the nearest first aid post or at least stay with them and phone for help. Spain has the highest rate of organ donors in the world (70% in a recent article I read, although the Basque Country tops 90%) - ironically, organ shortages are now increasing owing to the drop in fatal accidents.
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Hi there EProf...
I've been a lefty in my day and always voted that side. But on motoring I can only mostly agree with you.
Trouble is, there's been all this social change. And the privately owned automobile has been part of the engine for that change, and mutated in the process. From our point of view, shot itself in the offside front tyre.
Ah well.
A friend forwarded me a Wall Street Journal piece the other day on how big powerful fast cars and the right to enjoy them had finally reached the end of the road from the viewpoint of the powers that be. I didn't have the heart to read it, although I still have it. I'll forward it to you if you like, and my own pessimistic essay on the automobile now somewhat out of date. But they'll only depress you.
Why have bell boy and Altea Ego gone so quiet? I miss them.
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I would guess that last week might have been half term in the green and pleasent part of Surrey in which sits hacienda AE.
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