What’s going on in Epping right now? Apparently, it is a very late campaign of the never-ending Second World War, a conflict our leaders sometimes appear to know next to nothing about. On the annual anniversary of D-Day in 2020, Ben Wallace, then the country’s Defence Secretary, responded to news some race-Marxists had defaced the Cenotaph with BLM graffiti by tweeting the following total nonsense:
Perhaps you should reflect on how to spell the word ‘Cenotaph’, Ben.
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Do councils ever consider anything except the current agenda and their own bank accounts?
Transport for London (TfL) says that every year 1,000 people are injured or killed by drivers exceeding the speed limit.
So lowering the speed limit will help how?
If they exceeded the last speed limit will they suddenly start adhering to a lower one?
Bo#$@ks will they!
And where is the evidence that not 999, not 1001, but exactly 1000 people are injured or killed by exceeding the speed limit – and which limit?
Totally agree…
That was my first question.
And how many were killed by people not exceeding the speed limit? What were those people doing at the time – were they acting safely, checking before crossing the road, not under the influence of drugs or alcohol? What about the drivers? So many possible issues that won’t be solved or changed by lowering the speed limit, unless it’s reduced to zero.
If they are exceeding the speed limit why are cameras not catching them and fining them? Where I live the silly councils cover every single street in road bumps in the hope of slowing traffic. This penalises all the good drivers that do not fly about at 50 in 30 mph zone. Why not just leave the road as it is and fine and ban the speeders?
Touché
Lowering the speed limit will mean that even more people are affected by speeding drivers since almost by definition there will be more of them, now counting all those driving at between 20 and 30.
And increases pollution because engines burn fuel most effectively at higher revs/speeds.
On the other hand – years ago driving in Central London being able to drive as fast as 20mph was rare, average speeds were around 12mph.
..and totally agree again👍
Who do councils represent? The citizens that voted them in or extremely vocal and persistent activists (normally the economically inactive or least productive)?
Yes, the absolute minority that seem to rule the other 99%!
What’s the point of asking councils to do a cost-benefit analysis of a policy they want to introduce? Obviously the report they produce will find that the benefits far outweigh the costs. Even if they had to get an external auditor to produce a report they could just ignore it when voting on reducing speed limits.
The only solution is to force councils to hold a legally binding referendum on lower speed limits, LTN’s, congestion charges etc.
In Wales, the 20mph are a nightmare. Bus routes lost as they become unviable, delivery companies delaying deliveries or having to increase costs to cover more drivers, slower traffic means more congestion and air pollution and the financial cost has been estimated in the billions. Welsh Labour really do want to drive us back into the Stone Age.
The argument that it saves lives, will ultimately mean that every vehicle will drive at 4mph behind a man carrying a red flag.
There is no justification for these measures. We’ll soon have a slow lane for the prols and a fast lane for the ‘elites’.
unless you have a speed limiting device on your cruise control you will be more likely to have an accident, as you will constantly be checking your speedometer. you will drive with due care and attention, but attention to the wrong thing.
However the councils that didn’t do a risk-benefit analysis have broken Bamji’s First Law of Planning (I call it that because no-one else has claimed it, and it keeps being broken). It is this: when planning an intervention, do not just look at what’s good, but carefully consider what could possibly go wrong.
A medical example: some years ago, when I sat on a hospital management board and reform was all the rage, especially the concept of introducing American-style financing, the managers decided that the board needed to visit a facility in the USA and see how it was done. Plans were well advanced to take then and the Board’s clinicians across the pond, all expenses paid. I pointed out that any advantage accrued by greater understanding of the proposed system would be outweighed by the extreme negative publicity that would result if news of the junket reached the local press, which would seize on the fact that the Trust was in deficit and cutting clinical services, while money was being spent on elite trips to the States. Sense was seen, and the proposal abandoned in some haste.
The first thing I did with any project was to examine the possible downside. Another example: a proposal was made to install an MRI scanner in the cottage hospital. No account had been taken of the staffing requirement, or the fact that the scanner in the main hospital only operated during the day. It was far cheaper to run the main scanner on a 20-24 hour day and pay the existing staff overtime than make a large capital investment that had no staff costs attached.
What’s nice about the Daily Sceptic is that it follows Bamji’s First Law!