Drivers and their problems

David9694 wrote:

The worst day for Exeter commuter traffic (it's Wednesday)

Exeter has the nation’s second-largest travel-to-work population

Mr Knight acknowledged that different days of the week now offer distinct challenges to ensure sure buses are on time and not impacted by congestion.

He explained that keeping buses to schedule all week would require a bespoke timetable for each day, but stated that this was “impossible” operationally and is not something that the firm is considering, because passengers expect a Monday-to-Friday schedule, with different timetables at weekends.

interesting to hear a bit about the impact on buses of too many cars - another issue you have to deny if you're a car driver 

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/worst-day-exeter-commuter-traf...

Does Wednesday actually have more travel? Or is this a historical accident where traffic is worse on Wednesday which means the busses are slower so more people drive on Wednesdays and the traffic is worse so the busses are even slower so more people drive on Wednesdays?

David9694 wrote:

"Improvements in roads, local transport, and walkways need to lead, not follow, restrictions on motor vehicles"

If no one does anything nothing gets done.  Changes to behaviour rarely occur without appropriate motivation - whether that comes via a carrot, or a stick.

Wow - shouldn't be surprised but ... taxi drivers.

""It has been absolutely horrific since the scheme was introduced. We told the council we would be looking at revoking services in the scheme areas if we did not receive a response from them  ...  Our concerns were around the safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children who use our services and are not able to access them anymore." [ what? ] "...traffic is being forced onto two main roads." [ er... so it's sort of stopping rat-running then? ] "Although we welcome the new access we have been granted, our main goal is to have the scheme scrapped."

And " essential provider of public transport " [ we had this debate though ]

And the council having backed down: "some people are having with their taxi journeys and parents of young people with disabilities, for example, have said that they’re finding the extra time in the taxi stressful for their child and costly."

We can't reduce traffic because the disabled. (Or rather, because everyone else demands their share first...) It's a version  of selective concern.

Hirsute wrote:

Why I don't use the pavement

According to the twitter replies this is simply

"It's called problem solving."

"It’s called initiative something the majority of cyclists don’t have."

I think initiative would be finding an alternative legal route...

Ah, to be stood there with an oaken staff, crying out, "You shall not pass!"

Or there....

David9694 wrote:

"2000" posts in Drivers and Their Problems.

The problems drivers create for others, the problems they (and only they) experience.  It’s all in here, people made self-centred and self-pitying by cars - the waves of hope, freedom and independence crashing against the rocks of traffic jams and parking charges. 

Self-pity because despite having so much of the world, its space and resource has been dedicated to them over the past few decades, some drivers are convinced they are an underdog, a war on cars. 

Self-centred because everything and everyone else is the problem, it’s never them. The road is narrow and icy, it’s flooded, cyclists and horse riders are using it, the car park is full. 

Cars breed still more cars as cars close down and suck the life out of all the alternatives. You can’t unsee it. 

The big question then: is it just human nature or is there something about cars that hugely amplifies many of the nastier aspects of human nature whilst suppressing the nicer?

Is it that the car itself is an inherently dangerous thing, because of its power and complexity of function, making cars not truly suited to the very limited abilities of humans to control such powerful and complex technology?

What about the culture of the manufacturers and purveyors, who realise that certain nasty aspects of human nature alloyed with the powerful nature of the car, provide an opportunity to sell more via the design and portrayal of the things as "weapons of choice" for go-getting thrusters-about not allowed guns or blunt instruments of more obvious intent?

**********

Well, some leading questions there! 

But without understanding all the factors that make driving motorised vehicles such a dangerous and damaging phenomenon, how do we ever solve all the pressing problems they create?

So the shopkeepers aren't happy with the prospect of customers living directly on their doorsteps. Thats pretty forward thinking. 

"the bus company should use shorter buses " !!

Rezis wrote:

Again it wasn't the drivers...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67204993

Events like this do seem to happen surprisingly frequently: "Yes, it's thick fog (and smoke). No, I can't see more than a car length in front of me. What's that crunching sound? No matter - I'll just keep on trucking, I'm sure everything is fine!"

David9694 wrote:

A VAN blocking a path has been seized by police in Malvern - and officers also found there was no tax or insurance in place on the vehicle after performing extra checks.

The van parked in Green Lane in the Priory area of Malvern was blocking the path so no pedestrians could use it.

Hang on this can't be right.  First - surely when asked about a vehicle blocking a path they said "you need to speak to the council"?  Then - why would the police be interested in tax and insurance?  "That's the DVLA mate".

And don't the council just say they can't do anything if they can't reach the owner?  Seem to recall a recent case here where they "had to" work around a car when resurfacing.

All I know is that this wouldn't have happened in Lancashire...

Jogle wrote:

Cambridgeshire: CCTV shows BMW driver smash through road barriers Dramatic CCTV footage shows a silver BMW breaking through an illuminated barrier as the driver ignores warnings to stop. https://news.sky.com/video/cambridgeshire-cctv-shows-bmw-driver-smash-th...

"The motorist was banned from driving for four months"
That's more than you get for killing a cylist!

Half a mile is about 800m, which can be walked in well under 15minutes. #carbound

David9694 wrote:

Another "welcome to our world" to drivers from cyclists, difference here being that they seem to have made an arrest in relation to the theft of one crappy old Volvo. 

Police constable Kate Schofield, of the Dorset Rural Crime Team, said: “This has been a particularly distressing and inconvenient time for the victim, who has lost the use of their day-to-day vehicle.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/23862687.police-appeal-volvo-stol...

They should arrest the owner for having such a turdmobile

"boar" 🤪🤪🤪

Residents vote for parking chaos and are shocked (shocked I tell you) to find parking chaos.

The video didn't look that bad, there were spaces. Random ice cream van...

David9694 wrote:

not sure what this randomness is:

Those awful motorway bridge ridges that could damage my car are grinding my gears

Some aren't as bad as others but the worst offenders must cause some damage to vehicles 

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/those-awful-motorway-bridge-...

Are they talking about the expansion joints? I'm sure Highways England could remove them, but I think it would lead to more expensive problems than wearing out shock absorbers

chrisonatrike wrote:

Drivers contesting penalty charges win every time for over a year due to "staff shortage" in Greenwich:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67066744

I like the "I admit that I was doing the thing I shouldn't have but I'm entirely not blaming myself because technicalities" stance of the writer.

So many people are interpreting this as "all parking/driving fines issued by council are bogus" - it's quite sad, the way that people are developing such poor attitudes.

andystow wrote:

Does Wednesday actually have more travel? Or is this a historical accident where traffic is worse on Wednesday which means the busses are slower so more people drive on Wednesdays and the traffic is worse so the busses are even slower so more people drive on Wednesdays?

At that rate, they'd soon reach a Commuter Event Horizon where nobody moves anywhere and everyone just lives in their car, stuck stationarily on the road.

Not just the live blog.

Most news.

This page has latest comments on the bottom.

Missing on buyers guide.

But of course you might not see this comment...

I avoid the lake at all costs since I was one of the morons who did £800 worth of damage to my previous BMW.... needed new lights which aren't just a new bulb as in the good old days. The only car I thought suitable was the Land Rover. The rest just risked it and got lucky!

Cugel wrote:

The big question then: is it just human nature or is there something about cars that hugely amplifies many of the nastier aspects of human nature whilst suppressing the nicer?

Modern cars are, I think, seen as an extension of people's houses.  I think they turn people into the annoying dog which sits by its gate and barks at everyone who goes past, just to remind them not to even think about going into its territory.

giff77 wrote:

So the shopkeepers aren't happy with the prospect of customers living directly on their doorsteps. Thats pretty forward thinking. 

It's something to do with Bacon Tax Sunak's new anti-15-minute cities  - customers have to live more than 15 minutes away.

Hirsute wrote:

"the bus company should use shorter buses " !!

Well they don't need such big buses. Whenever I pass them while I am driving on my own in my MPV, they only have a couple of passengers on them. It's such a waste of space and fuel!

Yup.  You can add to "sudden unexpected events" things like "in winter sometimes the roads are weirdly slippy".

Then the perrenials of "sometimes lots of water falls out of the sky and this impairs vision and makes the car handle funny", "some mornings and evenings the sun appears right on the horizon in front of you, depending on which way you're heading" plus "at night it can get dark and hard to see!"

All that is irrelevant however because "I had to drive".

chrisonatrike wrote:

David9694 wrote:

A VAN blocking a path has been seized by police in Malvern - and officers also found there was no tax or insurance in place on the vehicle after performing extra checks.

The van parked in Green Lane in the Priory area of Malvern was blocking the path so no pedestrians could use it.

Hang on this can't be right.  First - surely when asked about a vehicle blocking a path they said "you need to speak to the council"?  Then - why would the police be interested in tax and insurance?  "That's the DVLA mate".

And don't the council just say they can't do anything if they can't reach the owner?  Seem to recall a recent case here where they "had to" work around a car when resurfacing.

All I know is that this wouldn't have happened in Lancashire...

Perhaps the chief constable lives on green lane in the priory area of malvern...?

polainm wrote:

Half a mile is about 800m, which can be walked in well under 15minutes. #carbound

In some locales, folk become so habituated to sitting, in car or idiotbox sofa (or even the chair in front of their PC) that walking any distance at all becomes a real trial of their extremely enfeebled and perhaps also bleb-like bodies.

One can have sympathy with those who find themselves forced into this condition by ill health or being badly pranged by a car, but for huge numbers of such it was a lifestye "choice" (although they had been hypnotised by adverts at the time). Even as they wheeze and strain when getting out of their chair or sofa, they prefer its "comfort and convenience" to having to get fit enough to walk about, even from sofa to car, without inducing "a bad turn".

It's inconvenient having to ask a teenager to fetch your junksnak & grog bottle from the fridge, though.

Of course, their lifestyle choice with the consequent reliance on car seems to have severely restricted or demeaned the lifestyle choices of others, who must learn car-dodging skills if they are not to be murdered or maimed by a bleb-feeble "driving" a car who has terrible reaction times and an inability to look away from their hypno-gizmo.

What's required is A Nanny of uncompromising intentions to improve the lives of bleb-feebles, whether they want them improved or not. First - confiscate the car.

But no one should listen to me as I am a-one o' them would-be thieves of personages' freedumbs to bugger up everything, including the lives of not just themselves but everyone else; and every thing else. A pink-livered bluddy socialist snowflake or summick, me! I should be run over.