I
am not big on holidays. My parents only took me on three (Bude, Hastings and
Dymchurch) and by the time I was 45 I had racked the number up to seven. Despite being more inclined to stay at home I
have holidayed in Wales eight times in my life. The number will never reach nine.
For the same reason that I will not spend any money in Bexleyheath, I will not
go there. The constant threat of being fined takes away any pleasure there might be. (†)
Just with Khan and ULEZ, Comrade Drakeford, a Welshman so idiotic that he banned
children from buying toys from open supermarkets during the pandemic, is using false
statistics to justify his blanket speed limit stupidity.
At the weekend I asked my son who has worked in the road and vehicle safety
arena ever since his first job testing braking systems for Lucas, what was the biggest cause of road fatalities.
He instantly responded with the S word. Stupidity.
Having installed and operated the UK’s first NCAP test facility many years ago
he is not unaware of the consequences of speed and no one is likely to deny that
a 30 m.p.h. impact will be more devastating than one
at 20 but there is, he said, a lot more to accident statistics and the consequent costs than speed.
He likened it to the case of a lady of his acquaintance - and mine - who
suffered from bad blood circulation and was told by the doctors that if she did
not immediately give up smoking she would lose her legs. They were not
interested in the fact that her medical records showed that the circulation problems
went back to childhood. According to their mantra, smoking was the cause. A more intelligent doctor eventually discovered
that it wasn’t and 30 years later the lady still has four limbs one of which can hold a cigarette.
Blaming speed for road deaths is simply lazy science. If the object is to reduce
road deaths then drop the 20 down to twelve, then five and eventually zero.
Overall deaths would rise. Who would deliver the food, medication and organs for transplant?
The financial impact of speed limits versus the humanitarian considerations is a complex balancing issue. Within the past ten
years the government has commissioned investigations into the effects of raising
speed limits which have shown that there are benefits but the woke and the
ill-informed are focused only on that one S word. They are like the lazy doctors
who see smoking as the only cause of poor blood circulation.
Until someone is prepared to put their head above the parapet and come out with
the whole truth we are, just as with Covid, no petrol cars after 2030, Net Zero
and all the other fashionable causes, doomed to an ever more miserable
existence at the hands of incompetent; no stupid, politicians.
Dare I say that in Bexley we appear to have an administration with more sense than most?
The aforesaid son has resumed his tour of European vehicle manufacturers this
week pursuing his ideas for safer vehicles. Around twelve years ago he made
suggestions which were rejected by the know-nothing politicians. They later
realised they were wrong and some of those twelve year old recommendations are
beginning to see the light of day.
Another tranche of improvements are due to be introduced next year but Khan has
rejected them and is presumably too stupid to realise that manufacturers build for
the European market and not for the UK, let alone London.
My son is making a very good income out of stupid politicians who are constantly
on the wrong side of science. The big vehicle manufacturers do not hire people who
talk out of their backsides. That is Khan’s specialty.
When the accident rate goes down in the years to come it will be the result of
good engineering and not nincompoop politicians. Meanwhile we will all get
poorer because a slower economy translates directly into less money in pockets
and stupidity knows no bounds.
† For the record, in 60 years of driving I have never received any sort of motoring penalty.