Nuxx:105795e6-2a00-4239-9871-87d75cf9a2a7@l21g2000vba.googlegroups.com

Path: num2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!num1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!number.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!postnews.google.com!l21g2000vba.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <105795e6-2a00-4239-9871-87d75cf9a2a7@l21g2000vba.googlegroups.com> From: Nuxx Bar  Newsgroups: uk.rec.cycling Subject: Re: Video of Fatal Accident Caused by Speed Camera Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:17:56 -0700 (PDT) References: <65cfa66b-5b05-48c7-a971-0747657c7763@n19g2000vba.googlegroups.com> <044db0a7-046b-45c0-a0a2-62d4ca339d2f@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com>    Lines: 117 Organization: http://groups.google.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 81.156.150.242 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1245611876 27617 127.0.0.1 (21 Jun 2009 19:17:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:17:56 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: l21g2000vba.googlegroups.com; posting-host=81.156.150.242; posting-account=7_6kYAkAAABD6HrjM0VxehwvZOKMxm4g User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729),gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Bytes: 7156 Xref: perfectly-safe.chapmancentral.co.uk uk.rec.cycling:711019

On Jun 21, 9:34=A0am, "Simon Mason"  wrote: > "Nuxx Bar"  wrote in message > > news:bc42aac1-c8cc-4046-8c51-bdd81502b0a2@21g2000vbk.googlegroups.com... > On Jun 19, 9:22 pm, Simon Mason  wrote: > > > Hell fire - The "Driver's Alliance" want you to* pay* to read their > > claptrap, at least the ABD site is a free laugh. > >Actually you can sign up for free. =A0They ask for donations, yes, but I > >don't see a problem with that since they're providing a useful service > >in campaigning on behalf of the beleaguered motorist. > >Interesting the way that you automatically assume that a pro-motoring > >organisation's website would be "a laugh" though; > > What *is* a laugh, is the Daily Express "poor beleaguered, hard pressed > motorist" line that these sites are based on. What is so bad? You pay you= r > taxes, obey the rules of the road and you can drive anywhere you want. I'= ve > just done 3500 miles across Europe which meant I had to deal with grey sp= eed > cameras, speed cops hiding behind bushes, petrol at 1-50 Euros a litres, > motorway tolls, hotel parking charges of 20 Euros a night and all sorts o= f > bad road conditions. > > It's good to get back here with cheaper petrol, good roads and no sneaky > cameras.

Our petrol tax is the most expensive in Europe bar The Netherlands, I believe. It *certainly* isn't "cheaper" most of the time. Good roads? Not as good as the likes of France: we don't have enough roads, and many councils have given up maintaining them properly. And no sneaky cameras? Nonsense (http://www.speedcam.co.uk/game.htm).

Here's a non-exhausive list of all the anti-motorist measures that we're constantly plagued by in the UK, most of which have been introduced or made worse in the last 15 years or so, and all of which Chapman just happens to support:

=95    Speed cameras (and intimidation/underhandedness/deceit towards those who are unfairly prosecuted and/or are entitled to refunds/ compensation) =95    Unnecessarily low speed limits =95    Unnecessary traffic lights =95    Badly-phased traffic lights =95    The lack of a legal defence for drivers who are prosecuted for going through red lights in order to allow emergency vehicles behind to get through =95    =93Congestion=94 taxes (or are they =93green=94 taxes?  Or is it ju= st any excuse to take money from motorists?) =95    Local and national policy to deliberately cause congestion for motorists (so that it can be =93solved=94 with =93congestion=94 taxes) =95    Lane theft (e.g. unnecessary bus/cycle lanes, pointless hatching, other spiteful removal of perfectly good roadspace) =95    Unnecessary highway obstructions (e.g. maliciously filled-in bus stops, central islands where no-one would need to cross, chicanes which actually increase accidents, pavement build-outs where there is already quite enough pavement, etc) =95    Speed humps =95    Council apathy towards repairing potholes etc (and who cares if cyclists are also put at risk?  Irritating motorists, and preferably busting their suspension etc, is the top priority) =95    Closing off the ends of roads, making roads one-way unnecessarily, etc =95    Unnecessarily long road closures after accidents =95    Unnecessarily long and deliberately uncoordinated/inefficient roadworks, in order to delay/frustrate motorists and inflict unnecessarily low speed limits on motorways/dual carriageways (even at times when there are no workmen), almost always backed up by cameras, despite it having been shown that cameras increase accidents in such cases =95    Huge =93green=94 VED and petrol duty increases =95    The =93road user hierarchy=94 (thankfully now consigned to history, now that London has a mayor who is not anti-motorist...and doesn=92t Spindrift just hate that?) =95    =93Decriminalised=94 parking enforcement (including its blatant abuse by councils and their contractors to make profit, abuse of CCTV to issue PCNs for =93contraventions=94 which often no other road user even sees let alone is affected by, the fact that there is no disincentive for councils to issue invalid tickets and hope that the victim just pays up, the fact that those who are found to have been unfairly ticketed are not automatically refunded, etc) =95    Unnecessary double and single yellow lines =95    Often unnecessary =93residents=92 parking=94 schemes where resident= s are overcharged/not given sufficient visitors=92 permits/generally inconvenienced as much as possible by the council (if there weren=92t so many unnecessary yellow lines in the first place, many parking problems would disappear for residents and commuters alike) =95    Extremely expensive parking meters and car parks =95    Many other pointless and spiteful restrictions on parking =95    Requirements for developers to provide insufficient parking spaces for new flats etc =95    The fact that clamping is still legal in England and Wales =95    Toll bridges/crossings, even when the bridge/crossing in question has long since been paid for =95    Filling in of pedestrian subways so as to deliberately bring pedestrians and traffic into conflict (thereby causing traffic to stop for no reason, and putting pedestrians in unnecessary danger...but who cares as long as the motorist scum are inconvenienced, eh?) =95    Continued refusal to consider any safety-related, environmental or congestion-solving measures which would make things easier, rather than harder, for motorists