Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

I did Chesterfield -> Oldham as a regular commute for over a year, it's
not _too_ bad, once you get used to it, far easier than the period where
I had to go to Bracknell and back, twice a week... or the regular trips
to Horsham.

All of these routes take at least twice as long by public transport,
thus making the travel + work impossible to fit into a single day using
anything other than a car.

And why prey tell was I doing these journeys? Well, those locations
were where the customers are, hence a large amount of the work,
meetings, etc.

These days, not everyone using a car commutes to the same location day
in, day out.

 

Or speeding. Which is policed.

A

 

Huge () gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

True. But I didn't say they existed...

 

Was I? You have deleted the context, not me.

I'm well aware of the amusing mathematics used by those who think that the
sole function of motorists is to pay taxes. The simple fact is that
motorists pay for the roads. And the railways. And the NHS. And a shitload
of other things. Linguistic hairsplitting makes precisely no difference
to that.

Oh, I have. If you build roads, people use them. So what?

Not at all. I'm still waiting for some content.

 

Ambrose Nankivell () gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

There's a big leap of logic in there... Can you spot it? Yes, it's the
assumption that most accidents involve speeding.

I look forward to your figures.

Note - that's "speeding" not "inappropriate speed" or "excessive speed",
which are not the same.

 

Whatever happened to proper arguments at the drop of a hat?

It's no use just agreeing with each other.

 

Yes. Speeding, for example.

There already is. Next?

Yes. Next?

And I think you are intentionally missing the point: realistic chance of
prosecution = strong deterrent effect. Just like drink-driving.

France has started to clamp down on traffic offences. As a result their
notoriously unsafe roads have suddenly become much safer. Who could
possibly have predicted that?

Only if you discount the possibility of motoring offences being crimes.
This is wrong: they are part of the criminal code.

Pretty much all of them, I think. Traffic offences are a criminal matter
handled by the police, Crown Prosecution Service and criminal courts.

Some people might like to pretend that they are nice, law-abiding folk who
just happen to break a few "rules" or "technicalities" but they are deluding
themselves.

Most of those "accidents" are the predictable if not inevitable result of
driver behaviour, not some kind of act of God. Describing them as accidents
is an evasion designed to preserve our cosy self-delusions about the dangers
motor traffic poses to others. That's why official reports are starting to
move away form the word "accident", because many (most?) of them aren't
genuinely accidents, in that the person responsible was knowingly engaging
in risk-taking behaviour.

Running away and leaving the victim to their fate, however, undoubtedly
does.

Ah, so you are unable to tell the difference between recording and
monitoring. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? A recurrent theme when
considering societies with widespread surveillance capabilities. The usual
conclusion is that actually monitoring those devices, other than for
information retrieval in certain specified circumstances (like solving a
crime), is simply not practicable.

Of course there are people like Mike Corley who think otherwise...

Right up until it expires, yes. And since there is no realistic prospect of
anybody ever having the time or the interest to track significant numbers of
cars on spec, the idea of "big brother" remains in the realms of paranoid
fantasy.

Ah, you require that only the most common offences should be targeted, do
you? Like speeding?

But it could cause death where otherwise the outcome would be injury. And
it certainly undermines the fabric of society.

Depends on your definition of deliberate. I tend to think that anybody
knowingly driving less carefully than they should - which is most of us most
of the time - has at least some culpability when the worst happens.

Others prefer to maintain the comfortable illusion that taking risks isn't
really dangerous, or that risky behaviour is not really risky because they
have got away with it so many times.

It's a matter of approach, I suppose.

If yobs were allowed to walk away if the signs informing them of CCTV
surveillance were the wrong size, or the cameras were hidden, there would be
public outrage.

Which covers the premeditated crimes. Most traffic offences are not
premeditated.

So CCTV cameras tar all users of a city centre with the same brush? Help me
out here.

In which case I get a new one. You are blowing a small problem out of all
proportion. It's almost as if you are looking for excuses not to use the
technology...

The deterrent effect of knowing there is a realistic chance of prosecution,
as previously stated.

Collateral benefit: if a car is stolen, its position will soon be known.
That benefits me as well.

Dangerous drivers are amongst the most dangerous criminals we have. Cars
have a very high potential to inflict lethal injuries with only very trivial
force exerted by the driver. Traffic tantrums are also a particular
problem.

One late night call and I get new plates. Next?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington
University

 

There are 60 million people in this country. They can drive a maximum of
120mph for 24 hours a day, therefore taking 120m of lane space up at any
one time. If we had 7 million km of roads in the country, and built
another road, it would be impossible to fill it up.

Why do cars fill up the road? In the case of motorways, people use the
motorway instead of going through cities, this reduces KSI's, as Motorways
are by far the safest roads. Naturally this is good.

More people may also make car journeys instead of PT journeys. Thsi
reduces the dangerous overcrowding on rush hour trains, which increased
safety and comfort for those of us that use public transport

Finally more people may make extra journeys they wouldn't make. Obviously
there's a reason for this, improoving their quality of life or increasing
the eceonomy. Both of which are good.

 

Indeed. I caught a brief glimpse of a Police van with "Road Traffic
Incident Unit" written on the back as it disappeared into the distance
on the M1 the other day. Strange, as the car I was in was already
driving at the speed limit, and it was a pretty heavily trafficked
road.

A

 

Apologies. My reading comprehension's poor today, which is why I'm
frittering time away here rather than trying to get my program
working. I thought I was replying to

Matt B wrote something like:
Which I was disputing.

OTOH I'd still guess that a majority of serious collisions involve a
speeding offence (where serious = strong enough to deploy an airbag)

A

 

Possibly. Afterall freight isn't usually time limited. Trouble is the
train lines are already full. As you point out, building new transport
corridors (trains, roads, whatever) leads to an increase in traffic.

Got any figures for ton-miles on freight train vs ton-miles on trucks?

 

They use the additional roads as an opportunity to live further from where
they work, getting a "nicer" house for the same value of driving time - and
the time which people are prepared to tolerate spending getting to and form
work seems to be increasing steadily, judging by the average commute time
figures.

So the road fills up because the road is there, and the world does not
become measurably safer because the total miles increases as the risk per
mile decreases through migrating to safer roads.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington
University

 

I suggest that you go and talk to the people who live near where the

<reads it again> oops, completely misread what you said. Read it again and
agree with it now - must've been fantastic when their house shot up in
value.

 

Well, that's how I do it if I'm stopped for more then a few seconds - left
leg can get very tired you know. I assume others do it this way. Either
way the car has stopped, and you have ignored the wanker that thinks "ooh,
a stopped car and red light, that means I'm allowed to run the old granny
over"

Lucky you, where is this magical place you've

 

Possibly. Afterall freight isn't usually time limited. Trouble is the
train lines are already full. As you point out, building new transport
corridors (trains, roads, whatever) leads to an increase in traffic.

Got any figures for ton-miles on freight train vs ton-miles on trucks?

 

Okeydoke. Couldn't recall if it was you or not.

 

Speed limits do not apply to vehicles being used on Police business.

 

Quite so.

I do feel for people who affected by planning blight, or who live near
enough to transport developments to be affected by noise, but too far
away to be compensated. But those things are the fault of the Government,
not motorists.

 

Probably because the areas near work (in the case of London) are
unaffordable unles you live in council accomodation

However population centers get spread out, reducing population densisty
and affording a better quality of life for all. Or are you saying you can
get a small house with ample walking oportunities and no needles in your
front garden, in the middle of London, for £800pcm?

 

Just zis Guy, you know?

SO it's incontrovertibly safer to drive 10 mph on motorways than
let's say 70 mph?