DABbing it here, DABbing it there

Not strictly motoring related, though it will affect car owners and so is just cause for grumpiness. The government is to switch off analogue radio and force everyone on to DAB by 2015. The FM frequencies being sold off for "ultra local" stations.

This seems to be an incredibly wasteful idea. A quick survey of the Grumpy Old Motorist's household revealed three analogue radios, plus the car stereo - all of which would need to be replaced. Multiply this across the country and you have a vast mountain of surplus kit to be expensively recycled, or worse thrown into landfill. then you've got to import replacements - which won't do the economy much good.

And why? So the treasury can raise a few bob by selling off frequencies - that will then be used for content hardly anyone will listen to.

There's a petition against the analogue switch off on the Downing Street website. I urge you to sign it.

GOM

Call of Duty 2(p)

From midnight tonight fuel duty rises by another 2p. This despite the fact that we're still in recession. The problem is that fuel duty isn't just a tax on the motorist, it's a tax on everyone. It affects the road transport that delivers goods to the shops and the public transport for people who don't want to drive.

It's also a tax that has a disproportionate effect on the less well off, since they spend a greater proportion of their income on transport.

Of course ministers with cars provided by the state and generous expenses are isolated from all this... roll on the election.

GOM

Call of duty

Remember the government cutting VAT to stimulate the economy during the recession? At the same time they increased fuel duty by 2p a litre to prevent petrol and diesel from getting cheaper. Presumably they were worried about us all rushing out to fill our baths with the stuff.

Now of course we all know that in 2010 VAT goes back up to 17.5%. Do you suppose nice Mr Darling (the man with the strangest eyebrows in politics since Denis Healey) will be knocking 2p off fuel duty to compensate the hard pressed motorist for this? I'm not holding my breath.

And this in the face of evidence that fuel tax increases are starting to have a negative effect. People don't buy as much and the treasury collects less tax.

Sometime soon governments need to realise that road users aren't a bottomless source of revenue.

GOM

Quick, quick, slow

Why do some people slow down when they see a speed camera? People who are not speeding, that is.

On my commute to work I pass a camera in a 50mph limit. It's on a dual-carriageway, clearly visible and there are plenty of lamppost repeater signs to remind you what the limit is. Yet almost everyday someone spots the camera and slows down to 40mph - sometimes by standing on the brakes at the last minute.

Why? Are they so unaware that they missed all the signs? Do they not know the road? The fact that they're there in the peak suggests they probably use it regularly. Or do they think their speedometer is so wildly inaccurate that anything approaching an indicated 50 will get them zapped with a fixed penalty? Trust me on that last one, car speedometers are generally inaccurate the other way. At an indicated 50 you'll be doing about 47. That's why you get lorry drivers - who have super-accurate tachographs - glued to your boot lid through contra-flows, because you're not going as fast as you think you are.

This slowing for the camera behaviour isn't just an irritation. It's also dangerous. If someone not paying attention to the signs slows down they could get hit by someone not paying attention to the road (see my previous post). Not only that, it's wasteful. My highly-trained Korean hatchback will do 50mph in fifth gear, barely sipping diesel. Slow to 40 and I have to drop to fourth - higher engine revs, more fuel used, more pollution.

So please, unless you're actually speeding, don't slow down for cameras.

GOM

The boy Button talks sense

Jenson Button - currently leading the F1 driver's championship - has always struck me as that fairly rare breed amongst racing drivers, a relatively normal bloke.

That's an impression reinforced by the boy Button's comments at a recent road safety event. You can read the full article on the ROSPA website, but the gist of what he's saying is that too many people are driving around not actually concentrating on what they're doing.

How true that is. How often do you see people pootling in the middle lane, or joining from a sliproad completely unaware of what's going on around them?

Driving isn't that hard a task, most people can manage it, but it does require concentration and consideration for everybody else on the road. If you can't manage that then maybe you should think about taking the bus and making the roads safer for the rest of us.

GOM