Did you notice the unsavoury emergence of so-called ‘motoring advocates’ into the pop media after last week’s letter bombs? Their disreputable message: “what did you expect? You pushed us around for long enough. Sooner or later one of us was going to crack…” makes me feel slightly sick. I’m a motorist. I drive my kids around in a an over-sized people mover. I even laugh like a drain at Clarkson and his exploits from time to time. Maybe I should identify with these ‘advocates’ and their hermetic worldview. Don’t feel like it, though.
Driving a tonne or more of steel around too fast is a bad thing. Can’t really find it in my heart to object when police forces and local authorities skewer speeding drivers. Can’t really think of a good reason for painting speed cameras yellow and putting them on maps either. I’d like to see them concealed in trees and switched on randomly. As to avoiding the fines and keeping your license, I’ve got an idea: slow down you jerk!
BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House picked up on the motoring advocates’ intervention and ran a heartbreaking interview with a driver who blames his own speeding for the death of his five year-old boy. Click to listen to the show. For balance I feel I should link to the nutty Association of British Drivers which is a sort of catch-all protest group for old blokes in car coats.
I think people are very frustrated because which ever way they turn this government is taking money of them. Go slighly over the speeding limit get a fine, put rubbish out to early get a massive £100 fine, park 1 minute to long get another fine. Rob a shop , thats ok no fine there, give the item back and say sorry. And if u complaing about these fines you get called a greedy right wing so and so. Its sole destroying its all about screwing money out of people. Theres no common sense left in this country, its all about the government taking money of people ever which way it can, Steve why does it have to be this way? its not about safety. The best way forward is to ristrict peoples speed physically by technology, enter a 20 zone or a 40 zone then retrict the car to only reach that speed + a freshold over, but thers no money in that.
I’m sure you’re right – technology will eventually control speed quietly and inconspicuously and the whole idea of using your right foot to do it will seem old-fashioned and quaint (a bit like starting the car with a big crank handle) but, in the meantime, we have a cultural change to make: if we all slow down by, say, 10% we’ll see huge benefits in emissions, safety and the general pleasantness of our urban environments. Why is that such a bad thing?