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Have things improved for the motorised masses since Labour's ascent to power in 1997? Were things really any better in the 80's and 90's and where do you think we would be had the Conservatives remained in power? Do you think that the spread of gatso's, reduced road building programmes, intrusive traffic calming, prohibitive 'green' taxes, inefficient bus lanes, suffocating legislation (from the E.U. side of things) are all inevitable parts of modern life? Moreover, has public transit actually improved in line with the government's general discouragement of personal transport?
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Where to begin?
Cars have got cheaper in real terms I think, even before the recession. Pretty much everything else is negative from the narrow point of view of a motorist.
The most noticeable thing to me is the perceived drop in driving standards. Maybe it's the other side of the nanny state thing - if anything bad happens it's not my fault, the corollary to which is I can do what I like as long as I slow down. Consideration and courtesy are still to be observed but are now minority pastimes. Not sure whether we can completely blame the gubbermint for that.
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It all feels pretty much the same to me. If you listed the key labour and tory policies in in class neutral language I think you'd need to be pretty seasoned political observer to identify which was which.
Speed cameras, cuts to the road programme, green taxes (the tories gave us the fuel duty escalator) and EU legislation are all common ground. While I accept a role for central transport, environment and planning guidance bus lanes and traffic calming are matters for local government. And where, for example through SCPs local gov has a role in cameras I'd say the conservative councils are as enthusiastic as labour.
Public transport in London, Manchester and the other big cities is pretty good really. The tube is badly overcrowded but much cleaner than the Paris metro and generally with more modern trains. The real test for PT, particulalry the Railways is in the next five years as the recession cuts the rising usuage in which the operators declining subsidies (and increasing payemets to government) are predicated.
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11 years ago I had a Cavalier diesel, that did over 100 mph, around 45mpg, was roomy and comfortable, had electric gizmos, cost around 15 grand new, and there was a speed camera in charlton village
Now i have a VAG group diesel, does over 100mph, around 45mpg, roomy and comfortable, electric gizmos and cost around 15 grand, there is still the same camera in charlton village
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11 years ago I had a Cavalier diesel that did over 100 mph around 45mpg was roomy and comfortable had electric gizmos cost around 15 grand new and there was a speed camera in charlton village
This Charlton village - anything to do with Charlton and the Wheelies?
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"This Charlton village - anything to do with Charlton and the Wheelies?"
It was Chorlton and the Wheelies. And the name Chortlon came from the location of the production offices - Chorlton cum Hardy (M21 postcode). It was Cosgrove Hall (www.chf.co.uk/contact ).
I know this as I leaved in Chorlton as a student for a year.. In fact a housemate had some mail delivered addressed to him as "Mr X, xxx Road, Chortlon and the Wheelies" :-)
Really trivia is Chortlon on Medlock basically does not exist anymore - it's where The Victoria University of Manchester was built.
Edited by rtj70 on 16/11/2008 at 21:23
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I stand corrected. I was more a Hammy the Hamster man myself.
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Nothing to do with political influence but the biggest change in my motoring life has been the availability of cheap reliable sat nav. I know it might be regarded as an indulgence by those who mainly only use regular routes but for me, it has been a godsend. I have to find my way to new destinations every day. In large cities here and abroad it just takes so much stress out of the process. I can remember poring over maps trying to memorise routes prior to journeys, inevitably forgetting a turning, getting lost and trying to drive while reading a map or A-Z. Used for their intended purpose and with appropriate care and circumspection, these must be about the most useful thing to have been developed in recent years. For certain types of users anyway.
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and universal mobile phones for better or worse.
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Apart from whole armies more of drivers totally incapable of any form of car control, very little in most forms.
It could be me getting older, but i get very little pleasure from driving now, unless very early or very late when the roads are relatively clear, and then only on known routes where i will know where the static cameras are, and where the likelyhood of the Northamptonshire, but there are no doubt others, camera van night shift is slim.
Before the self righteous get finger to keyboard, i don't mean blasting through towns, i'm talking about using the open road and my old car in the way it was designed.
Vehicles have got very complicated, so now unless you can renew frequently, you must choose carefully, no different than before then, but it can be an expensive gamble to get the wrong choice.
There are improvements though, t'internet has made buying parts, tyres etc a better value option, if only through gained knowledge, but possibly at the cost of the small independants which we here often mourn the loss of.
11 years ago i had my old landcruiser, now our main use vehicle is the hilux, so for us very little has changed....yet.
I doubt if there would have been much difference had the other lot stayed in, they're all wooing different groups, and most politicians would sell their granny for a dozen votes.
This will be an interesting thread in another 11 years when road pricing may have made us virtual prisoners in our own localls.
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Apart from whole armies more of drivers totally incapable of any form of car control very little in most forms. It could be me getting older but i get very little pleasure from driving now unless very early or very late when the roads are relatively clear and then only on known routes where i will know where the static cameras are and where the likelyhood of the Northamptonshire but there are no doubt others camera van night shift is slim. Before the self righteous get finger to keyboard i don't mean blasting through towns i'm talking about using the open road and my old car in the way it was designed.
I cant help thinking all the carp fitted to modern vehicles doesnt help there... the car does a lot of the 'thinking' for the driver - im not sure thats really a good thing, as when the systems fail, or when the driver uses a vehicle without the systems all hell breaks loose...
... but a decent driver could probably get out the trouble by themselves!
as someone suggested on another post, maybe what we need is a spike in the centre of the steering wheel!
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HJ lists the essentials, the nitty gritty. They boil down to higher costs, less fun and motorists feeling hunted and anxious in more and more places and situations. The point about complexity, often raised here in one way or another (DMFs, DPFs, common-rail misfuelling, etc.), is the most interesting to technophiles. Roll on the new, clever and evolved forms of simplicity, if they are allowed to come into being!
Even among car owners, even among members of this very forum, there is already a substantial undercurrent of moral disapproval of the privately-owned automobile per se. This will continue to develop. Eventually we will be seen by extreme anti-car ideologues as morally equivalent to ivory poachers or child molesters.
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