The first fatal car accident

At 4mph! How it happened.

More think tank idiocy

Here we go again. According to the Telegraph something called the Sustainable Development Commission thinks that all motorways should be monitored by average speed cameras to keep people to 70mph and save the planet.

There are so many wrong-headed things about this it's hard to know where to start, but lets just look at a few. First that 52% of drivers exceed the 70mph limit. Doesn't that tell you the limit is too low? Unsurprising when it was set in the 60s and your Ford Anglia or Austin Cambridge would have struggled to go much faster.

And notice the other spectre here, "pay-as-you-go road charging". Haven't we already said in no uncertain terms and en masse that we don't want this?

Isn't it time politicians started to listen to us, the people, instead of these half-baked, half-wit think tanks?

GOM

The iceman cometh

Having learned to drive in the 1970s, when winters were winters and cars were mainly rear-wheel drive, the last few weeks haven't presented too many motoring problems to me.

Not so many of the younger generation. Witness the young chap in the Fiesta attempting to drive past the Grumpy Motorist household this morning. Okay, so it's a mild uphill slope and a bit icy, but there's no excuse for coming to a halt with masses of wheelspin. He then backed off and tried again with even more revs.

Needless to say with a little deft footwork I drove away with no drama at all. gentleness is the key.

The youth of today, eh? I blame the parents.

GOM

Sigh...

Why can't anybody drive in bad weather any more? Watching people struggling to get up the slope out of our office car park was like watching the Keystone Cops. Far too many revs and bags of wheelspin, culminating in getting out to push each other's cars. Then they look astonished when I chug past in the highly trained Korean hatchback with no drama at all.

I blame global warming.

GOM

20mph and disjointed government

Another day another piece of government idiocy. Local authorities are to be encouraged to introduce 20mph zones in all residential areas. Quite apart from the dubious safety benefits, where's the joined-up government?

We're being told that cutting emissions to save the planet is the most important thing ever. Yet, on the very day that Gordon Brown flies to Copenhagen to take part in the climate change shindig, we get a policy announcement that will raise vehicle emissions at a stroke.

Is it too much to ask for someone to think these things through? Is there any wonder we've lost faith in politicians?

GOM

Footbrake frustration

Now that the darker evenings and mornings are upon us we once again start to suffer the curse of drivers who hold the car on the footbrake in traffic. Not only is this lazy and a cause of more frequent bulb replacement, it's very annoying for the driver behind - which quite often seems to be me.

Modern high-level brake lights are very bright and right on the eye line of the following driver. Great for safety if you need to stop in a hurry, but not so good when you have to suffer them when stationary in traffic. They have a detrimental effect on your night vision if you have to look at them for more than a few seconds.

It's sheer laziness to hold the car in this way. Applying the handbrake and putting the car in neutral takes only a second. Not only will you cause less frustration you'll be safer too. If you're holding the car on the footbrake and someone hits you from behind you're likely to get shunted into the car in front as your foot slips off the pedal.

So, use the handbrake when stopped in traffic. You're making yourself safer, saving money on bulb replacements and the driver behind will tank you for it.

GOM

Save the planet - kill a road user

What is it about politicians and road pricing? Despite 1.8 million people signing a petition against it and Greater Manchester delivering a resounding no on its referendum, the idea won't go away.

The latest wheeze comes from a government think tank, The Committee on Climate Change, that wants to use road pricing to reduce our carbon emissions - reported in The Times here.

We already have a very effective road pricing scheme in the form of fuel duty - it's easy to collect, hard to avoid and it automatically adjusts for mileage and vehicle economy. So why do politicians and think tanks want to lumber us with complex, expensive technological schemes? Is it because they like the idea of tracking our journeys? Is it to justify the Gallileo satellite project? And while we're on the subject of emissions have they thought about the carbon cost of manufacturing all that technology? It's been estimated that a typical computer server has an equivalent carbon footprint to a Range Rover Sport doing 10,000 miles a year (source).

And it gets worse, because the Committee on Climate Change also wants to use speed limiting technology (Gallileo again?) to further beat us with the carbon stick. Where's the joined up thinking here? There's plenty of evidence - not least from the HGV accident statistics - that using speed limiters and making drivers travel unrealistically slowly for the road they're on leads to inattention and a rise in accidents.

Have they simply not thought this through? Or are they really saying that it's worth killing and injuring a few extra road users in order to save the planet?

GOM