I am sending this to the Welsh Assembly, Any thoughts folks? Begins......
I write in response to your request for thoughts on how to improve road safety in Wales and, having read some of the options put forward on the WA website, I feel we are going to see more deaths on our roads if these anti-car proposals are implemented.
Having seen insulting attempts to brand car drivers as child killers, we then had the so-called ?successful trials? of speed cameras. The claimed successes were branded as ?lying with statistics? by university statisticians and, in one area, Essex, which was included in the ?successful trial? there has already been an increase in fatalities from 86 last year to 111 so far this year, as reported in the Essex Chronicle 16th November. In the original trial, three areas showed increases in fatalities of up to 18%. No mention of that, of course.
This is with the extra speed cameras, rigid enforcement of speed limits, road narrowing, roads humps and many other traffic calming measures, the same measures as appear to be suggested by the Welsh Assembly.
When politicians and others interfere with the 85th percentile speed of traffic there are always increases in accidents, as shown by studies world-wide.
I have seen it reported that there are proposals to fit speed limiters on cars. Utter madness. Are these people unaware of what happened when speed limiters were fitted to trucks? Accidents rose 26%. It would not stop a drunken lunatic driving past a busy school at 56 mph.
Are you not aware that according to Government publications, excess speed is a factor in just 7.3% of accidents? By concentrating on this, politicians are ignoring the causes of over 90% of accidents. Police tell us that the pedestrian causes 84% of pedestrian accidents. If a jaywalking law was introduced, I wonder how effective that would be in reducing accidents?
Then we have the politically inspired myth that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and we should all drive smaller cars. It has been estimated that since this policy was introduced in the USA, there have been an extra 46,000 road deaths. Larger, heavier cars are safer cars.
I have an e-mail from American climate scientist, Dr John Christy, the Alabama State climatologist, who was a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which confirms that the scenarios (computer games/models) which showed the greatest warming due to carbon dioxide were ?forced into the IPCC report at a late stage by a few governments?.
Why would they do that? I read that industry has already paid an extra £200 million in "climate levies." "Pay us more taxes, we will change the weather" Does the name 'Canute' come to mind?
It is reported today that company car drivers are to be taxed on the amount of ?pollution? their cars produce. Carbon dioxide is a vital trace gas, essential to life on earth. It?s the bubbles in beer. Pollutant? What utter rubbish. Nature puts out 200 billion tons of CO2 via the natural carbon cycle whilst fossil fuel burning returns 6 billion tons to atmosphere from whence it came.
Whilst there were 3423 fatal accidents on our roads in year 2000, there were 4025 fatal accidents in the home. Medical accidents kill in excess of 30,000 stone dead every year according to the British Medical Journal.
I mention these facts to show that our roads are already comparatively safe;
?the safest in Europe, if not the world?, according to a Government report released this year.
We are aware of the Copenhagen Declaration from the EU that says, ?All decision makers at local, regional, national and European levels are urged to play their part in changing our culture of mobility?
Professor Garel Rhys of the Transport Studies section in Cardiff University Business School has said ? Plans to tax and penalise car use are leading Britain into a former Soviet style regime."
Studies have already shown that if some proposals I have seen to ?improve road safety in Wales? are implemented, there will be no decrease in accidents. An increase is more likely and the car owner will be further oppressed for safety reason at all.
Yours faithfully,
Alwyn Davies
P.S. Honest John, This should be worthy of article from your powerful pen. Just think, you could save the UK driver from all this taxation with a few key-strokes. Were you aware that global warming is political?
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An excellent and well written letter Alwyn. Many of your comments mirror my own thoughts (road safety and carbon dioxide propaganda) entirely.
Maybe add that you are cc-ing this to the newspapers as well perhaps and request a reply?
Good luck - if you do get a response, please post here?
Dan
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Send it registered post too so they can't deny that they have received it.
And head it open letter to.....................
So they can't complain about confidentiality.
"In the original trial, three areas showed ................."
Specify the total (six was it?) - otherwise the uninformed could "guess" it was three out of many.
"pedestrian causes 84% of pedestrian accidents..............."
Might help to throw in the figures for what percentage are drunk too - why aren't pedestrians breathalysed if jaywalking and incapable? Ditto cyclists (usually unlit).
"Why would they do that?........"
An especially ironic and poignant link with Wales: didn't the replacement of miners with Nuclear Power have a special significance for global "warming" in the UK.
And my favourite road safety improvement - teach kids NOT to play in their "Home Zone" and how far away a car has to be to stand a chance of stopping before it hits them, even at pedestrian friendly 20!
Excellent letter BTW, is it ok to reproduce it?
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Thanks for the tip. It was eight areas.
Cleveland; Essex; Lincs; Northants; Notts; Thames Valley; Strathclyde and South Wales.
Cleveland deaths rose by 18%; Notts rose by 13% and Thames Valley increased by 15%.
Use as much as you wish
Cheers
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Driving along A1 & A46 into Lincoln last weekend saw the road signs that give the number of fatalities on that county's roads.
2000 figure for fatalities is 70
2001 figure on the signs is 77, don't know when it was last updated.
Serious injuries have decreased though, so that's good news.
Or have more people died this year who would otherwise have survived last year ?
Nearly became one of the statistics myself through a lack of forethought on my part but that's another matter.
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Have you seen this:
Global Warming: How It All Began by Richard Courtney
www.microtech.com.au/daly/history.htm
Allegedly.
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An interesting footnote to history, especially when you consider that Thatcher also set in motion what she called the "great car economy". Motorists persecuted for half a century anyone?
Chris
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Who in the Welsh Assembly are you addressing it to?
Just one to the Speaker, or whatever he is there, will get buried.
If you can stand the postage i would suggest it goes to their Speaker, all members of the WA and all Westminster MP' representing Welsh constituencies.
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The letter is going to Susan Essex, the Welsh Assembly Environment Minister who has asked for any thoughts on road safety to be communicated to her by 30th November.
You can see the proposals here.
www.wales.gov.uk/subitransport/content/consultatio...m
BBC Ceefax reported that the Assembly might suggest speed limiters on cars!!!!!!!
Wales first, England next?
Will Honest John take up this cudgel on behalf of oppressed drivers everywhere?
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What percentage of adult pedestrian fatalities at night are drunk? - 77% (ABD)
Haven't found the, I think, AA's figures, but I think it was 46% of all pedestrian fatalities are drunk.
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It was the RAC, not AA!
Half of pedestrians killed by cars have been drinking, says report
www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_381811.html
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Talking of the RAC, I finally found this online after reading it ages ago in print:
The Royal Automobile Club is still pro-motorist, isn't it? asks Mike Rutherford
motoring.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?view=...l
Makes you wonder who else is working where.
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Reg
Was the AA that you refer to the Automobile Association or the Alcoholics Anonymous?
Either would seem to fit the bill !
;-)
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Alwyn
Good stuff!
Might be worth copying your local MP, Bozo Byers and possibly even T Bleah.
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Waste of time copying it to Byers, I reckon his career can be measured in minutes.
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The Essex figure for 2001 was 113 as of last week. Looks like 120 for the year.
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You have all missed the trick!
Find the e-mail address of your MP (very easy, just ask his office!), Swap it with all of us and then let it go! If we do it right, every MP in th UK could get several hundred e-mails, plus every government department we could find. That might give a few politicians a scare, just think how big this can be made!
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A good letter - but I strongly suggest putting it down for a day or three and then picking it up again and reading it afresh.
Whilst the content is 100%, it could be viewed as being immediately taking a position. The 2nd paragraph starts with the phrase "insulting" - which is an immediate attack on the reader and may lead them to view that a letter which starts in this way can only degrade further.......
Only use strong phrases like this when you really need them & sparingly.
Who do you take the most notice of? Someone who swears all the time, or someone who only does so when he wants notice taken.
I've tried this technique - it works.
Just my opinion - & good luck!
PS - don't forget to spall check - an error makes the reader switch off - its ok on the 'net - but not a serious letter.
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Thanks, Yes I spotted a few typos.
The word "Insulting" ? Well, I thought I would use the language of the Politically Correct brigade, even though I don't subcribe to it.
Thanks again
Alwyn
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Hi,
Perhaps you could say "I/we find it insulting", rather than to say it is insulting.
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Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee
Press Notice No. 15 of Session 2001-02, dated 19 November 2001
NEW INQUIRY ? ROAD TRAFFIC SPEED
The Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee has decided to undertake an inquiry into the nature and effects of illegal and inappropriate road traffic speed in the UK.
The Committee will wish to consider:
The role of illegal and inappropriate speed in respect of:.............................
See: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/tlgrpnt15.htm
Other Press Releases: www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/tlgrpnot.htm
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suggest you copy this to parliament
www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/tlgrpnt15.htm
The Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee has decided to undertake an inquiry into the nature and effects of illegal and inappropriate road traffic speed in the UK.
The Committee will wish to consider:
The role of illegal and inappropriate speed in respect of:
causing crashes, and the severity of accidents; reducing the quality of life in urban areas;
and the consequences of illegal and inappropriate speed for urban design.
The availability and reliability of research on
the consequences of, and reasons for, illegal and inappropriate speed, and in particular, the reasons for the very high pedestrian casualty rate;
The extent to which the problems associated with speed should be tackled by:
better enforcement; road re-design and traffic calming; road re-classification; physical measures to separate pedestrians and cars (e.g. barriers); technology (e.g. through Intelligent Speed Adaptation and car designs which promote pedestrian protection); education to improve drivers? and motor cyclists? behaviour and pedestrian and cyclist awareness; changes to speed limits; and what specific policies should be implemented.
The extent to which relevant bodies are taking the right actions
Whether local authorities, DTLR, the Highways Agency, the police and Home Office are providing a co-ordinated approach to speed management, and what they should do Whether the sentences imposed by magistrates and judges on those convicted of speeding offences have in all cases been appropriate and what other approaches ought to be considered Whether motor manufacturers, the national press, TV programmes about motoring and advertisers have shown an appropriate attitude to speed, and how they should change
The role of speed management strategies
Witnesses are invited to submit memoranda to the Committee before Tuesday January 8. Memoranda should consist of up to six A4 pages on computer disk in either ASCII, Word or Word Perfect 8 with a single additional hard copy. Witnesses without access to a computer are respectfully requested to take particular care that submissions are legible. Witnesses who wish their memoranda to be treated in confidence should contact the Committee Clerk in advance.
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< >
Considered writing it in Welsh?
That'll impress the nationalists ...
Speaking of which, weren't they the blokes who pulled down and burned all the roadsigns back in the 60s and 70s?
Now, if they could be persuaded to help out with all those speed limit signs ...
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A few more points to note........
Agree with your letter and comments entirely but also agree with teh response that you should read it again in a few days before sending, it could read a little better.
Fossil fuels ? I was under the impression that only existing trees etc that were cut down to provide fuel return CO2 back to whence it came. Burning fossil fuels that have been created and stored up for millions of years will increase global CO2 if it's all suddenly released ( on a geological timescale ), surely that's inevitable. Take care that all your facts are 100% watertight.
An interesting point for you........
I am involved in leak testing fuel systems for modern cars to meet forthcoming emmissions regulations originally set up by the CARB ( California Air Research Bureau ). We test individual tanks, filler pipes, fuel rails with helium using a mass spectrometer system to a degree of leak tightness of the order that if your car tyre leaked at this rate would take 10 years to go flat. This is now a 100% production line test method. The principle is to minimise hydrocarbon leakage - thought to be a global warmer. Compare this with the OFGAS spec for gas meters ( hydrocarbon of course ) which allows leakage up to 100 times greater. I have spoken to OFGAS in thepast - not interested. Nail the bloody cars though, eh !
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Hi Pete,
I was talking of the CO2 taken by plants millions of years ago as mentioned below.
When you burn oil or gas, they heat the surroundings. Energy is transferred from the chemicals to the surroundings. The original source of this energy is the Sun. Plants use the Sun's energy to produce sugars and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water, during photosynthesis. This energy is stored in the chemicals the plant produces. Animals eat the plants and so the energy is transferred to their bodies. In the conditions on Earth millions of years ago, plants and animals decayed, and the organic chemicals their bodies were made of became the source of fossil fuels we now use.
Scientists believe that when all these animals and plants died and sank to the bottom of the ancient seas and lagoons, they were covered by layers of sediment. This process happened before they had time to decay in the air. Anaerobic bacteria are thought to have acted on them to start the process of changing the into crude oil or gas. Perhaps there were some chemical reactions between the decaying organisms and the salts in the mud and water surrounding them. We know that there is a difference in the chemicals in oil from different parts of the world. There seems to have been a difference in the way that oil was formed or in the plants and animals from which it was formed.
As the remains of these living things decayed, they were covered by more and more sediment as seas advanced and retreated and rivers washed mud and sand into the sea. All this happened as a very slow process taking millions of years. Eventually, the rotting material began to change into the hydrocarbons which make up oil and gas, mixed with the grains of sand and silt. As the layers on top of the organic chemicals increased, so did the pressure and temperature which helped to speed up the process.
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