Plans To Fine Drivers Yet Again

September 23, 2008

IT'S WITH a weary sigh that we read news of plans to fine drivers who

fail to turn off their engines while waiting at a level crossing or in

a traffic jam. Apparently traffic wardens in West Sussex, where a

trial will take place, will be empowered to leap from the bushes and

slap a ticket on your windscreen costing you £40, or just £20 if you

pay up straightaway without griping.

The justification for this further tax on motorists is, of course,

'global warming'. As if it would be anything else. Mind you, it comes

as no surprise to learn that this 'problem' arises in an area governed

by a council that has just appointed two Air Quality Managers, salary

unknown but probably not shy of £40,000.

Let's think about this sensibly. Anyone who has driven down a motorway

in recent months knows that there is a national obsession with saving

on fuel costs. Five mile-long convoys of vehicles trundle along at

55mph in the middle lane many of them, remarkably, driven by people

under 70 who aren't wearing a Trilby. Swerving to avoid them are the

rest of us, rolling along at a compromise 75mph. The outside lane is

only occupied by white van men and company car drivers, usually reps

in cheap shiny suits with Ginsters pasty crumbs all over their laps.

They don't pay for their petrol so they don't care.

So I think it's fair to say that most of us would take the opportunity

to save a few bob without the interference of the fine-flinging Nanny

State.

Now I have no problem with turning off my 3-litre Turbo Nutter 4x4 at

a level crossing. I know that I'm going to be there for some time and

therefore it makes sense. But how do you judge how long you'll be

delayed in a traffic jam? It could be one minute; it could be 10

minutes. Sometimes traffic crawls; sometimes it stops and starts and

then stops again. It's completely unfair to expect us to second-guess

the ticket-happy traffic warden lurking in the privets.

And what about this? The AA reckons that running an engine for a

minute produces fewer emissions than turning it off and turning it on

again, so where's the gain? Their spokesman, Paul Watters, says: "We

hope councils will not adopt a heavy-handed attitude with this. There

is a huge difference between running the engine for less than a minute

at the traffic lights and idling for a quarter of an hour."

If Mr Watters expects the Powers That Be to be in any way reasonable,

I suspect that he hasn't been out much lately.

OF COURSE, we're all getting hysterical about the imposition of stupid

law after stupid law. It's all media over-reaction, isn't it?

Well let's whizz down to Whitstable in Kent, where Daniel Cope, 13,

put up posters on walls and lampposts near his home appealing for help

when his beloved tortoiseshell cat Millie went missing.

The response was immediate. Within three days his mother, Heather,

received a visit from a 'community warden' who informed her that the

posters breached a ban on fly-posting under the Anti-Social Behaviour

Act and that she would attract an £80 fixed penalty fine unless they

were removed.

Daniel has now taken down the posters. His pet cat is still missing.

Is this the Britain you want to live in? It's certainly not a country

of which I can be proud.

WHICH BRINGS us to Lymm Services on the M6 in Cheshire. Emma Faulkner,

a cruise ship waitress, was driving home from London to Lancashire

just after midnight when she began to feel tired. Obeying the tiresome

and usually useless messages on the overhead displays, she pulled into

the services and had a kip. She awoke at 4.30am and continued her

journey safely.

Weeks later, she received a letter demanding £50 because she had

outstayed the service station's two-hour parking limit and been

photographed by an advanced number plate recognition system and

automatically fined.

A spokesman for the car park operators, Parking Eye (and isn't that a

sinister name?) says: "The signage within the motorway service station

is very clear, stating that if a motorist wishes to park for longer

than two hours there is a fee."

So that's all right then. Never mind road safety, never mind the risk

of dropping off and piling head-on into a people carrier full of

children. As long as the signage is clear, the people who run Lymm

Services can wash their hands of any kind of public responsibility

with a clear conscience.

Is this the Britain you want to live in? It's certainly not a country

of which I can be proud.

THERE APPEARS to be much outrage in the national press because Liberal

Democrat leader Nick Clegg, when quizzed on television about the value

of the State pension, said: "I think it's about thirty quid now, isn't

it?"

No, Nick, it isn't. The basic pension is now £90.70 a week for a

single person and £145.45 for a couple.

So what do we deduce from this? Either Mr Clegg thinks that a

pensioner can heat and eat on an utter pittance, or that Mr Clegg,

ex-public school, ex-Oxbridge, million-pound home-owner, and a man who

has never had a proper job, is so removed from reality that he simply

doesn't know that "about thirty quid" is what I spend on !Removed! and

booze every day, rather than what we expect the people who have served

us all our lives to live on in their final days.

Is this the Britain you want to live in? It's certainly not a country

of which I can be proud.

My thoughts,

It seems that Councils and Government are on a very sinister course of creating Poverty by any means, it also shows that they are also on course to RIP the Country off also by any means possible, and to do it they preach Global Warming or they use Safety Laws such as pulling off the road when tired to rip you off.

This is a Country though where NO ONE cares about doing ANYTHING until it is too late, by then, it is exactly that...TOO LATE, and you can't change the Laws or the Polycies the Government have made because no one complained or did anything about them in the first place.

The main problem really with this Country is EDUCATION, The Majority of this POPULATION do not understand that Parliament is a Building with TWO Houses in it.......1) The House Of Lords...........2) The House of Commons. The House of Lords basically have the last say and are able to vote on the Proposed Laws Made by MPs in the House of Commons, that House in a nut Shell, has been that way for Centurys. Now, the House Of Commons is a very different kettle of fish altogether, MPs HAVE to be voted into the House of Commons by us "The Common Public", MPs have a very simple job, THEY ARE THERE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS TO DO WHAT WE, THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION OF THIS COUNTRY TELL THEM TO DO. Of Course, this All changed when Margaret Thatcher and Conservative came to power in the 70s, they (the Conservative Party) decided that the Common man has no right to tell the MPs what they must do and so, they decided to turn this Country into a Dictatorship run by the HOUSE OF COMMONS and this has been going on and steadily become worse over the years since the 70s.

There is only one way to resolve this, and quite simply put, it means that the Majority of the Population should Stand up and be counted and TELL the MPs that this HOUSE OF COMMONS BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION AND THAT THEY DO NOT OWE ANY ALLEGIANCE TO ANY PARTY. They are there to DO WHAT WE TELL THEM TO DO and NOT THE OTHERWAY ROUND. In the 1600s a Civil War was fought in this Country so that we THE COMMON PEOPLE could RULE OURSELVES, to do this, it meant that WE must elect by Elections a representative from Wards to work for us in the HOUSE OF COMMONS, that Representative was to be known as an MP and his or her job was to Speak about what we in those WARDS wanted to take place in our own Country. It seems that in this day and age, not only has the MPs forgotton why they are in the House of Commons for, but also the Population of this Country have forgottn also.

September 23, 2008

Spotted this in Google news the other day

http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/i...olution-system/

September 23, 2008

Sorry Mr Traffic man, I have switched off my car, it is idling on the turbo timer....

Will make an interesting court case!

What about early classic cars that don;t wayways start on the button when hot imediately after turning off due to vapour lock? What about crank handle cars for that matter, is the driver to get out and recrank their car?

P.S. Don't call them !Removed!. !Removed! like'd cars, infact Hitler offered a 500,000 Reichmark grant to anyone who could build a world beating race car to show off the country's engineering ability