The 'review of LTN' thing. In my field many 'professionals' and trade organisations have given up on any attempt at impartiality or objectivity, and have got in to the habit of deriding opposition to LTN's as 'conspiracy theorists' and 'misinformation', egging each other on and basically creating their own echo chamber in a sort of pseudo FBPE model. It has been interesting to watch the horror unfold in some circles that the government might actually be listening to the people.
Though there is a definite nutcase wing to the anti LTN movement.
Just as there is a definite nutcase wing to the pro LTN movement.
There's nutcases attracted to most movements.
The key is to learn how to filter out the nutcases and pay attention to those with legitimate arguments.
Just as you can lower traffic by filtering out commuters who don't need to be on that road by giving them a newer, alternative route, leaving the old road available for those who actually need it.
Except its not flawed, it does work. Extra lanes does fix it. 🤦♂️
The fact that anti-car zealots like you always jump to Los Angeles as a contradiction, while disregarding the huge population growth in LA is staggering. Its like people who think the only systems that exist on the planet is the NHS or American healthcare.
LA is not the alternative. The population of LA Metro Area has gone from 4 million to 13 million, in the same time as Greater London has gone from 8 million to 9 million.
For towns without a 300% population growth yes absolutely extra lanes handle the traffic. If you have 300% population growth, then no shit Sherlock that you need extra transport capabilities.
Extra lanes, where these are possible, temporarily fix the congestion point where the extra lane is built.
By making the journey faster and more appealing, they usually generate a compensating amount of traffic which worsens the jams at the points leading to and from the point where capacity has been expanded. Then the demand is for more motoring provision at those points, and the cycle repeats. This is not an LA-specific phenomenon.
If Greater London is your example, it's a poor one, since it is not exactly crawling with available affordable land in congested areas where those lanes could even go.
Sorry but that's absolutely false and demonstrably false too.
Drive around and most of the motorway network is clear almost all of the time. The roads have been built but they're not utterly congested, they work smoothly.
The only places that congestion is a major problem is where capacity is insufficient for the population. And yes, if you then have high population growth then what was sufficient capacity may become insufficient for the increase once more, but if population is stable or population growth is matched by construction then congestion does not become a problem.
Leeds may be a poor example but its also an old fashioned city, Milton Keynes is a pretty good counter-example. Driving through Milton Keynes is very pleasant, I've never personally been stuck in traffic any time I've driven there, it has plenty of cycle paths too if that's your interest. Again a place where everyone wins.
And many towns all over the country are similar too, including my own.
The idea that congestion is the natural state of roads is a naïve belief only held by anti-car zealots. Driving at 30mph to 70mph is the natural state of roads and congestion is the exception not the norm and is due to a lack of capacity and can be fixed.
Cars as we know them are history. They will all be gone in 20-25 years. Electric autonomous cars which you can summon with an app will replace them. Get ready
Owning a car in 2050 will be like owning a horse now. A weird anachronism that was once universal
Don't be stupid.
You can already summon cars with an app today. Its called a Taxi.
Unsurprisingly people don't want that. Only city dwellers and drunks do that.
I can understand why it appeals to you.
The future is going to be hard for you
People like you have been ranting against cars for a very long time.
Nothing has changed though. I'm not an alcoholic so I have no reason to rely upon taxis like you do.
Your sad, dreary, pathetic, lower middle class provincial life in your red brick Barratt Home semi will only be improved when you have to get a TRAM to work because cars have been abolished
Just rejoice. Rejoice at that news
LOL.
My wonderful new build semi I live in has not one but two private off-road parking spaces. And is future-proofed with an electric car charger port built in to the property as standard.
Just rejoice at that.
God, you really DO live in a new red brick semi? Sometimes I scare myself
Yes, I really do and I love it.
I'm a big advocate of building more new semis so others have the same opportunity I have.
Would it make a big difference if the bricks were another colour other than red?
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
The 'review of LTN' thing. In my field many 'professionals' and trade organisations have given up on any attempt at impartiality or objectivity, and have got in to the habit of deriding opposition to LTN's as 'conspiracy theorists' and 'misinformation', egging each other on and basically creating their own echo chamber in a sort of pseudo FBPE model. It has been interesting to watch the horror unfold in some circles that the government might actually be listening to the people.
Though there is a definite nutcase wing to the anti LTN movement.
Just as there is a definite nutcase wing to the pro LTN movement.
There's nutcases attracted to most movements.
The key is to learn how to filter out the nutcases and pay attention to those with legitimate arguments.
Just as you can lower traffic by filtering out commuters who don't need to be on that road by giving them a newer, alternative route, leaving the old road available for those who actually need it.
Except its not flawed, it does work. Extra lanes does fix it. 🤦♂️
The fact that anti-car zealots like you always jump to Los Angeles as a contradiction, while disregarding the huge population growth in LA is staggering. Its like people who think the only systems that exist on the planet is the NHS or American healthcare.
LA is not the alternative. The population of LA Metro Area has gone from 4 million to 13 million, in the same time as Greater London has gone from 8 million to 9 million.
For towns without a 300% population growth yes absolutely extra lanes handle the traffic. If you have 300% population growth, then no shit Sherlock that you need extra transport capabilities.
Extra lanes, where these are possible, temporarily fix the congestion point where the extra lane is built.
By making the journey faster and more appealing, they usually generate a compensating amount of traffic which worsens the jams at the points leading to and from the point where capacity has been expanded. Then the demand is for more motoring provision at those points, and the cycle repeats. This is not an LA-specific phenomenon.
If Greater London is your example, it's a poor one, since it is not exactly crawling with available affordable land in congested areas where those lanes could even go.
Sorry but that's absolutely false and demonstrably false too.
Drive around and most of the motorway network is clear almost all of the time. The roads have been built but they're not utterly congested, they work smoothly.
The only places that congestion is a major problem is where capacity is insufficient for the population. And yes, if you then have high population growth then what was sufficient capacity may become insufficient for the increase once more, but if population is stable or population growth is matched by construction then congestion does not become a problem.
Leeds may be a poor example but its also an old fashioned city, Milton Keynes is a pretty good counter-example. Driving through Milton Keynes is very pleasant, I've never personally been stuck in traffic any time I've driven there, it has plenty of cycle paths too if that's your interest. Again a place where everyone wins.
And many towns all over the country are similar too, including my own.
The idea that congestion is the natural state of roads is a naïve belief only held by anti-car zealots. Driving at 30mph to 70mph is the natural state of roads and congestion is the exception not the norm and is due to a lack of capacity and can be fixed.
Cars as we know them are history. They will all be gone in 20-25 years. Electric autonomous cars which you can summon with an app will replace them. Get ready
Owning a car in 2050 will be like owning a horse now. A weird anachronism that was once universal
Don't be stupid.
You can already summon cars with an app today. Its called a Taxi.
Unsurprisingly people don't want that. Only city dwellers and drunks do that.
I can understand why it appeals to you.
The future is going to be hard for you
People like you have been ranting against cars for a very long time.
Nothing has changed though. I'm not an alcoholic so I have no reason to rely upon taxis like you do.
Your sad, dreary, pathetic, lower middle class provincial life in your red brick Barratt Home semi will only be improved when you have to get a TRAM to work because cars have been abolished
Just rejoice. Rejoice at that news
LOL.
My wonderful new build semi I live in has not one but two private off-road parking spaces. And is future-proofed with an electric car charger port built in to the property as standard.
Just rejoice at that.
God, you really DO live in a new red brick semi? Sometimes I scare myself
Yes, I really do and I love it.
I'm a big advocate of building more new semis so others have the same opportunity I have.
Would it make a big difference if the bricks were another colour other than red?
Well, it would make you slightly less predictable
So if I was instead ranting about how aliens are going to invade and remove our cars and we're all going to die so BRACE and we won't need cars as we are about to be nuked by Russia and look at my incredible meal and drink *photo attached* as I'm travelling and *don't stop to breath* look how evil the woke are isn't Putin great for standing up to the woke even if he's going to nuke us so BRACE ...
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Just to give my inner Yorkshireman a spin: anyone who buys Farrow and Ball paints because they think the colours look classy has got more money than sense.
All you need is a camera, a graphics program that allows you to fiddle about with RGB colours (which is practically any graphics program), and a knowledge of how to convert between RGB and the Swedish NCS colour system (which is easy enough), and then you can go to your local Brewers and get whatever Farrow and Ball colour you want (or even one you like a bit better) for a fraction of the price.
See my other post. You need a colour chart to go with the camera (and raw output) otherwise you are dependent on the camera's guess at white balance.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
"The father of Hollywood star Florence Pugh has criticised Oxford's low-traffic neighbourhood scheme which he said hit his finances hard, with his bar being repossessed.
Clinton Pugh, who owns businesses in Cowley Road, has criticised the East Oxford LTN which was introduced as a trial in May 2022 by Oxfordshire County Council."
"The father of Hollywood star Florence Pugh has criticised Oxford's low-traffic neighbourhood scheme which he said hit his finances hard, with his bar being repossessed.
Clinton Pugh, who owns businesses in Cowley Road, has criticised the East Oxford LTN which was introduced as a trial in May 2022 by Oxfordshire County Council."
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
"The father of Hollywood star Florence Pugh has criticised Oxford's low-traffic neighbourhood scheme which he said hit his finances hard, with his bar being repossessed.
Clinton Pugh, who owns businesses in Cowley Road, has criticised the East Oxford LTN which was introduced as a trial in May 2022 by Oxfordshire County Council."
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
Homicide is not a major problem in our country either, thankfully. In 2022 a meagre 0.3% of all deaths were caused by road traffic accidents.
EVs do not emit any significant numbers of particulate matter, the claims they do are false and normally spread by climate change denialists.
There are solutions to congestion, so long as population is relatively stable. Congestion is primarily linked to population growth exceeding capacity growth. Cars outside of inner cities are for almost all the country the most efficient use of transportation too, that results in the least delays for journeys not the most.
Motorists pay an order of magnitude more than what they cost in infrastructure etc, pollution is not a problem with EVs once again and obesity is not caused by transportation it is caused by overeating.
PS Incidentally 93% of transportation in the UK is by car, 3% is by rail.
Rail caused 253 deaths in the UK in 2022, which scaled up proportionately to cars is the equivalent would be 7,483 so its not as if rail is death-free either.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
While you're at it, why not destroy that new fangled machinery in cotton mills so that the people working there don't lose their jobs?
Amazon, Etsy etc are successful because they are a superior technology over High Streets. I can think of anything I want, absolutely anything, go on my phone or computer, and have it in my possession tomorrow.
Rather than having to drive to the High Street, find parking, go to a shop and hope they have that in stock which they may not.
Or let me guess, you wouldn't want me driving to the High Street anyway?
Superior technology and favourable tax treatment. These are the weapons of the online shopping revolution. Especially the latter.
Speaking from a customer view point the reason I shop online for all but food and clothes is simple. I need a new washing machine....on the high street I would have a choice of maybe 20 models.....online I can choose from maybe 400 models. I no longer have to put up with the shit dixons and curries want to palm off on me
How do you pay for that with cash?
I don't. I do not have an aversion to paying by card in the least or online shopping. I do have an aversion to everything having to be an electronic transfer.
Things I am happy to pay by card for....online purchases from reputable companies
Things I prefer to pay cash for all my local expenditure whether food shopping, buying a round in a bar, buying a vehicle, paying the guy that cuts my grass, bus and train tickets.
I don't have any loyalty cards, I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out. The only social media I participate in is PB. I regularly try and dox myself to ensure I haven't left a significant digital footprint and where I can I use tor.
It is not paranoia I just dont believe in letting anymore info escape than I absolutely have to because I know how much info is out there. Remember the case of tesco's outting someone as pregnant before even she knew due to the collected data.
Simply put...once your data is out there its too late to take it back
"I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out." I think you may be missing the point there, but each to their own.
You're a very eccentric person - don't ever change, eccentricity is good.
It does rather miss the point of a phone being mobile!
Why not just turn it off when out, so it is in your pocket if needed, yet not traceable?
Because even if it is off the gps can still be activated likewise the microphone
What? You're saying that a hacker can access the GPS and microphone on my iPhone (and presumably send themselves the data from those) at any time? Even when the phone's switched off?
I'd like to see the evidence for that claim.
I didnt claim hackers could in particular but certainly state agencies like for example the NSA or GCHQ certainly can. State agencies leaving a backdoor into devices however does mean a hacker could use the same.....a backdoor is usable by anyone.
States have been increasingly trying to increase their surveillance powers of everyone. This is why e2e encryption is under attack, Kosa law in the states, online safety bill in the uk. Spain pushing for it in the eu who have at least backtracked.
When states are pushing for more and more data to be available from us all for them to ferret through I think I have a point
The bit I never get with this 'not-paranoia' is who exactly is going to be ferreting through the smartphone data of 70m people in this country?
Sorry are you serious do you know how echelon works?
Sorry, let me put it another way: who's going to give a shit about me, what I do, where I go, who I meet, who I call, what I buy?
Now, if I was a budding terrorist, well, maybe. Even if I were an ordinary criminal then yes maybe the state would be interested.
But I'm not. No one is going to be the slightest bit interested in me.
So I will keep carrying my smartphone round with me. I'm even going to keep it on. And I may use it from time to time to, make calls, look things up, pay for shopping, find my way around, listen to books, pay for car-parking... Amazing things smartphones.
Well I used to think like that. And then in 2020 the state essentially criminaliaed meeting other people. So I'm now much more cautious about anything which could allow me to be tracked. The state is not some benign organisation. The British state may be less sinister than the Chinese state but it is only a matter of degree.
What I find interesting is how tech companies have preyed on human naivety and ignorance. No one would ever have given their consent to the type of tracking and mining of personal data that has been and continues to go on. The state just lags behind by a couple of decades, hampered by the fact that it cannot do things without our consent.
Total bollocks the state does things all the time that they do not have consent for and rely on not getting found out. The fbi and nsa for example keep getting pulled up for surveillance they have been doing with out consent. I am pretty sure our security services have been doing nothing less.
To trust the state is to be naive. The state is run for the benefit of those that run it. Try bringing the poweful to book and you will find yourself in a world of hurt
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
Each road collision costs a fortune too.
Most cars being driven on the road have only 1 person in them, and they are only used for maybe 1 hour a day - sorry, this is impressionistic and I don't have the exact statistics to hand. But these pieces of equipment are very heavily underused, causing there to be FAR more traffic on the road, and MANY MANY more cars produced, than are actually necessary for carrying the same amount of people on the same road journeys that they make today. That's insane, it causes a lot of pollution, and it's a huge waste of resources and of human labour power. Now there's a real issue, and the way to address it isn't by changing the kind of motors that are fitted in the cars.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
While you're at it, why not destroy that new fangled machinery in cotton mills so that the people working there don't lose their jobs?
Amazon, Etsy etc are successful because they are a superior technology over High Streets. I can think of anything I want, absolutely anything, go on my phone or computer, and have it in my possession tomorrow.
Rather than having to drive to the High Street, find parking, go to a shop and hope they have that in stock which they may not.
Or let me guess, you wouldn't want me driving to the High Street anyway?
Superior technology and favourable tax treatment. These are the weapons of the online shopping revolution. Especially the latter.
Speaking from a customer view point the reason I shop online for all but food and clothes is simple. I need a new washing machine....on the high street I would have a choice of maybe 20 models.....online I can choose from maybe 400 models. I no longer have to put up with the shit dixons and curries want to palm off on me
How do you pay for that with cash?
I don't. I do not have an aversion to paying by card in the least or online shopping. I do have an aversion to everything having to be an electronic transfer.
Things I am happy to pay by card for....online purchases from reputable companies
Things I prefer to pay cash for all my local expenditure whether food shopping, buying a round in a bar, buying a vehicle, paying the guy that cuts my grass, bus and train tickets.
I don't have any loyalty cards, I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out. The only social media I participate in is PB. I regularly try and dox myself to ensure I haven't left a significant digital footprint and where I can I use tor.
It is not paranoia I just dont believe in letting anymore info escape than I absolutely have to because I know how much info is out there. Remember the case of tesco's outting someone as pregnant before even she knew due to the collected data.
Simply put...once your data is out there its too late to take it back
"I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out." I think you may be missing the point there, but each to their own.
You're a very eccentric person - don't ever change, eccentricity is good.
It does rather miss the point of a phone being mobile!
Why not just turn it off when out, so it is in your pocket if needed, yet not traceable?
Because even if it is off the gps can still be activated likewise the microphone
What? You're saying that a hacker can access the GPS and microphone on my iPhone (and presumably send themselves the data from those) at any time? Even when the phone's switched off?
I'd like to see the evidence for that claim.
I didnt claim hackers could in particular but certainly state agencies like for example the NSA or GCHQ certainly can. State agencies leaving a backdoor into devices however does mean a hacker could use the same.....a backdoor is usable by anyone.
States have been increasingly trying to increase their surveillance powers of everyone. This is why e2e encryption is under attack, Kosa law in the states, online safety bill in the uk. Spain pushing for it in the eu who have at least backtracked.
When states are pushing for more and more data to be available from us all for them to ferret through I think I have a point
The bit I never get with this 'not-paranoia' is who exactly is going to be ferreting through the smartphone data of 70m people in this country?
Sorry are you serious do you know how echelon works?
Sorry, let me put it another way: who's going to give a shit about me, what I do, where I go, who I meet, who I call, what I buy?
Now, if I was a budding terrorist, well, maybe. Even if I were an ordinary criminal then yes maybe the state would be interested.
But I'm not. No one is going to be the slightest bit interested in me.
So I will keep carrying my smartphone round with me. I'm even going to keep it on. And I may use it from time to time to, make calls, look things up, pay for shopping, find my way around, listen to books, pay for car-parking... Amazing things smartphones.
Well I used to think like that. And then in 2020 the state essentially criminaliaed meeting other people. So I'm now much more cautious about anything which could allow me to be tracked. The state is not some benign organisation. The British state may be less sinister than the Chinese state but it is only a matter of degree.
I fundamentally disagree. I think the British state is a benign organisation. Inept at times, not always fair, not very efficient, but basically benign.
Would you care to inform the birmingham 6 that, or the brazilian electrician executed by the order of cressida dick or anyone else subject to state abuse. No such thing as a benign state
Unless absolutely no abuses or mistakes ever exist, general benign intent and action is irrelevant?
I think it is pretty pointless to declare 'no such thing as a benign state', because it then makes distinguishing between different states meaningless, when there are in fact stark differences. I think that's the kind of argument overtly hostile states would love promulgated to excuse their natures - to make the difference one of degree, not kind.
There are certainly states that are less malevolent than others. Ours is one but if you cross the wrong people here you will be crushed cf david kelly
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
While you're at it, why not destroy that new fangled machinery in cotton mills so that the people working there don't lose their jobs?
Amazon, Etsy etc are successful because they are a superior technology over High Streets. I can think of anything I want, absolutely anything, go on my phone or computer, and have it in my possession tomorrow.
Rather than having to drive to the High Street, find parking, go to a shop and hope they have that in stock which they may not.
Or let me guess, you wouldn't want me driving to the High Street anyway?
Superior technology and favourable tax treatment. These are the weapons of the online shopping revolution. Especially the latter.
Speaking from a customer view point the reason I shop online for all but food and clothes is simple. I need a new washing machine....on the high street I would have a choice of maybe 20 models.....online I can choose from maybe 400 models. I no longer have to put up with the shit dixons and curries want to palm off on me
How do you pay for that with cash?
I don't. I do not have an aversion to paying by card in the least or online shopping. I do have an aversion to everything having to be an electronic transfer.
Things I am happy to pay by card for....online purchases from reputable companies
Things I prefer to pay cash for all my local expenditure whether food shopping, buying a round in a bar, buying a vehicle, paying the guy that cuts my grass, bus and train tickets.
I don't have any loyalty cards, I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out. The only social media I participate in is PB. I regularly try and dox myself to ensure I haven't left a significant digital footprint and where I can I use tor.
It is not paranoia I just dont believe in letting anymore info escape than I absolutely have to because I know how much info is out there. Remember the case of tesco's outting someone as pregnant before even she knew due to the collected data.
Simply put...once your data is out there its too late to take it back
"I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out." I think you may be missing the point there, but each to their own.
You're a very eccentric person - don't ever change, eccentricity is good.
It does rather miss the point of a phone being mobile!
Why not just turn it off when out, so it is in your pocket if needed, yet not traceable?
Because even if it is off the gps can still be activated likewise the microphone
What? You're saying that a hacker can access the GPS and microphone on my iPhone (and presumably send themselves the data from those) at any time? Even when the phone's switched off?
I'd like to see the evidence for that claim.
I didnt claim hackers could in particular but certainly state agencies like for example the NSA or GCHQ certainly can. State agencies leaving a backdoor into devices however does mean a hacker could use the same.....a backdoor is usable by anyone.
States have been increasingly trying to increase their surveillance powers of everyone. This is why e2e encryption is under attack, Kosa law in the states, online safety bill in the uk. Spain pushing for it in the eu who have at least backtracked.
When states are pushing for more and more data to be available from us all for them to ferret through I think I have a point
The bit I never get with this 'not-paranoia' is who exactly is going to be ferreting through the smartphone data of 70m people in this country?
Sorry are you serious do you know how echelon works?
Sorry, let me put it another way: who's going to give a shit about me, what I do, where I go, who I meet, who I call, what I buy?
Now, if I was a budding terrorist, well, maybe. Even if I were an ordinary criminal then yes maybe the state would be interested.
But I'm not. No one is going to be the slightest bit interested in me.
So I will keep carrying my smartphone round with me. I'm even going to keep it on. And I may use it from time to time to, make calls, look things up, pay for shopping, find my way around, listen to books, pay for car-parking... Amazing things smartphones.
Well I used to think like that. And then in 2020 the state essentially criminaliaed meeting other people. So I'm now much more cautious about anything which could allow me to be tracked. The state is not some benign organisation. The British state may be less sinister than the Chinese state but it is only a matter of degree.
What I find interesting is how tech companies have preyed on human naivety and ignorance. No one would ever have given their consent to the type of tracking and mining of personal data that has been and continues to go on. The state just lags behind by a couple of decades, hampered by the fact that it cannot do things without our consent.
Total bollocks the state does things all the time that they do not have consent for and rely on not getting found out. The fbi and nsa for example keep getting pulled up for surveillance they have been doing with out consent. I am pretty sure our security services have been doing nothing less.
To trust the state is to be naive. The state is run for the benefit of those that run it. Try bringing the poweful to book and you will find yourself in a world of hurt
Um, I'm pretty sure our phone conversations and internet conversations are routinely recorded and stored. This is conceptually different from being overheard and understood, since the conversations are not listened to by a human but instead subject to statistical analysis by software. I think things like WhatsApp are secure. @rcs1000, any ideas?
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
While you're at it, why not destroy that new fangled machinery in cotton mills so that the people working there don't lose their jobs?
Amazon, Etsy etc are successful because they are a superior technology over High Streets. I can think of anything I want, absolutely anything, go on my phone or computer, and have it in my possession tomorrow.
Rather than having to drive to the High Street, find parking, go to a shop and hope they have that in stock which they may not.
Or let me guess, you wouldn't want me driving to the High Street anyway?
Superior technology and favourable tax treatment. These are the weapons of the online shopping revolution. Especially the latter.
Speaking from a customer view point the reason I shop online for all but food and clothes is simple. I need a new washing machine....on the high street I would have a choice of maybe 20 models.....online I can choose from maybe 400 models. I no longer have to put up with the shit dixons and curries want to palm off on me
How do you pay for that with cash?
I don't. I do not have an aversion to paying by card in the least or online shopping. I do have an aversion to everything having to be an electronic transfer.
Things I am happy to pay by card for....online purchases from reputable companies
Things I prefer to pay cash for all my local expenditure whether food shopping, buying a round in a bar, buying a vehicle, paying the guy that cuts my grass, bus and train tickets.
I don't have any loyalty cards, I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out. The only social media I participate in is PB. I regularly try and dox myself to ensure I haven't left a significant digital footprint and where I can I use tor.
It is not paranoia I just dont believe in letting anymore info escape than I absolutely have to because I know how much info is out there. Remember the case of tesco's outting someone as pregnant before even she knew due to the collected data.
Simply put...once your data is out there its too late to take it back
"I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out." I think you may be missing the point there, but each to their own.
You're a very eccentric person - don't ever change, eccentricity is good.
It does rather miss the point of a phone being mobile!
Why not just turn it off when out, so it is in your pocket if needed, yet not traceable?
Because even if it is off the gps can still be activated likewise the microphone
What? You're saying that a hacker can access the GPS and microphone on my iPhone (and presumably send themselves the data from those) at any time? Even when the phone's switched off?
I'd like to see the evidence for that claim.
I didnt claim hackers could in particular but certainly state agencies like for example the NSA or GCHQ certainly can. State agencies leaving a backdoor into devices however does mean a hacker could use the same.....a backdoor is usable by anyone.
States have been increasingly trying to increase their surveillance powers of everyone. This is why e2e encryption is under attack, Kosa law in the states, online safety bill in the uk. Spain pushing for it in the eu who have at least backtracked.
When states are pushing for more and more data to be available from us all for them to ferret through I think I have a point
The bit I never get with this 'not-paranoia' is who exactly is going to be ferreting through the smartphone data of 70m people in this country?
Sorry are you serious do you know how echelon works?
Sorry, let me put it another way: who's going to give a shit about me, what I do, where I go, who I meet, who I call, what I buy?
Now, if I was a budding terrorist, well, maybe. Even if I were an ordinary criminal then yes maybe the state would be interested.
But I'm not. No one is going to be the slightest bit interested in me.
So I will keep carrying my smartphone round with me. I'm even going to keep it on. And I may use it from time to time to, make calls, look things up, pay for shopping, find my way around, listen to books, pay for car-parking... Amazing things smartphones.
Well I used to think like that. And then in 2020 the state essentially criminaliaed meeting other people. So I'm now much more cautious about anything which could allow me to be tracked. The state is not some benign organisation. The British state may be less sinister than the Chinese state but it is only a matter of degree.
What I find interesting is how tech companies have preyed on human naivety and ignorance. No one would ever have given their consent to the type of tracking and mining of personal data that has been and continues to go on. The state just lags behind by a couple of decades, hampered by the fact that it cannot do things without our consent.
Total bollocks the state does things all the time that they do not have consent for and rely on not getting found out. The fbi and nsa for example keep getting pulled up for surveillance they have been doing with out consent. I am pretty sure our security services have been doing nothing less.
To trust the state is to be naive. The state is run for the benefit of those that run it. Try bringing the poweful to book and you will find yourself in a world of hurt
Um, I'm pretty sure our phone conversations and internet conversations are routinely recorded and stored. This is conceptually different from being overheard and understood, since the conversations are not listened to by a human but instead subject to statistical analysis by software. I think things like WhatsApp are secure. @rcs1000, any ideas?
Everything you type on your keyboard is logged. As for Whatsapp, the notion of state needs to be updated. Facebook and Google are part of the state. One's concepts have to be critical. Don't judge the state by what it says about itself or by what it says it is.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
While you're at it, why not destroy that new fangled machinery in cotton mills so that the people working there don't lose their jobs?
Amazon, Etsy etc are successful because they are a superior technology over High Streets. I can think of anything I want, absolutely anything, go on my phone or computer, and have it in my possession tomorrow.
Rather than having to drive to the High Street, find parking, go to a shop and hope they have that in stock which they may not.
Or let me guess, you wouldn't want me driving to the High Street anyway?
Superior technology and favourable tax treatment. These are the weapons of the online shopping revolution. Especially the latter.
Speaking from a customer view point the reason I shop online for all but food and clothes is simple. I need a new washing machine....on the high street I would have a choice of maybe 20 models.....online I can choose from maybe 400 models. I no longer have to put up with the shit dixons and curries want to palm off on me
How do you pay for that with cash?
I don't. I do not have an aversion to paying by card in the least or online shopping. I do have an aversion to everything having to be an electronic transfer.
Things I am happy to pay by card for....online purchases from reputable companies
Things I prefer to pay cash for all my local expenditure whether food shopping, buying a round in a bar, buying a vehicle, paying the guy that cuts my grass, bus and train tickets.
I don't have any loyalty cards, I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out. The only social media I participate in is PB. I regularly try and dox myself to ensure I haven't left a significant digital footprint and where I can I use tor.
It is not paranoia I just dont believe in letting anymore info escape than I absolutely have to because I know how much info is out there. Remember the case of tesco's outting someone as pregnant before even she knew due to the collected data.
Simply put...once your data is out there its too late to take it back
"I don't carry a mobile it stays on my desk when I go out." I think you may be missing the point there, but each to their own.
You're a very eccentric person - don't ever change, eccentricity is good.
It does rather miss the point of a phone being mobile!
Why not just turn it off when out, so it is in your pocket if needed, yet not traceable?
Because even if it is off the gps can still be activated likewise the microphone
What? You're saying that a hacker can access the GPS and microphone on my iPhone (and presumably send themselves the data from those) at any time? Even when the phone's switched off?
I'd like to see the evidence for that claim.
I didnt claim hackers could in particular but certainly state agencies like for example the NSA or GCHQ certainly can. State agencies leaving a backdoor into devices however does mean a hacker could use the same.....a backdoor is usable by anyone.
States have been increasingly trying to increase their surveillance powers of everyone. This is why e2e encryption is under attack, Kosa law in the states, online safety bill in the uk. Spain pushing for it in the eu who have at least backtracked.
When states are pushing for more and more data to be available from us all for them to ferret through I think I have a point
The bit I never get with this 'not-paranoia' is who exactly is going to be ferreting through the smartphone data of 70m people in this country?
Sorry are you serious do you know how echelon works?
Sorry, let me put it another way: who's going to give a shit about me, what I do, where I go, who I meet, who I call, what I buy?
Now, if I was a budding terrorist, well, maybe. Even if I were an ordinary criminal then yes maybe the state would be interested.
But I'm not. No one is going to be the slightest bit interested in me.
So I will keep carrying my smartphone round with me. I'm even going to keep it on. And I may use it from time to time to, make calls, look things up, pay for shopping, find my way around, listen to books, pay for car-parking... Amazing things smartphones.
Well I used to think like that. And then in 2020 the state essentially criminaliaed meeting other people. So I'm now much more cautious about anything which could allow me to be tracked. The state is not some benign organisation. The British state may be less sinister than the Chinese state but it is only a matter of degree.
What I find interesting is how tech companies have preyed on human naivety and ignorance. No one would ever have given their consent to the type of tracking and mining of personal data that has been and continues to go on. The state just lags behind by a couple of decades, hampered by the fact that it cannot do things without our consent.
Total bollocks the state does things all the time that they do not have consent for and rely on not getting found out. The fbi and nsa for example keep getting pulled up for surveillance they have been doing with out consent. I am pretty sure our security services have been doing nothing less.
To trust the state is to be naive. The state is run for the benefit of those that run it. Try bringing the poweful to book and you will find yourself in a world of hurt
Um, I'm pretty sure our phone conversations and internet conversations are routinely recorded and stored. This is conceptually different from being overheard and understood, since the conversations are not listened to by a human but instead subject to statistical analysis by software. I think things like WhatsApp are secure. @rcs1000, any ideas?
The software, I am pretty certain, can pick out expressions on the lines of Fellow jihadis, let's assassinate X Y or Z, and flag them for human analysis
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
That is nonsense, it is the oldest fallacy in the book that "Congestion is solvable by adding capacity." Added capacity means additional journeys in additional vehicles. This is well understood and just not controversial.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
That is nonsense, it is the oldest fallacy in the book that "Congestion is solvable by adding capacity." Added capacity means additional journeys in additional vehicles. This is well understood and just not controversial.
No, that is total bollocks spread by people with an anti-car agenda.
Added people equals added journeys, added capacity does not.
If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously.
Most of the myth that extra capacity equals extra journeys is made by looking at Los Angeles, and disregarding the fact that LA's population has gone from 4 million to 13 million in the same time as Greater London's has gone from 8 million to 9 million. For a like-for-like comparison lets see how London's Tube would be coping if its population was now 26 million people instead of 9 million.
So long as population is relatively stable, or capacity grows at the rate of population, then congestion is a very solvable problem.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
Each road collision costs a fortune too.
Most cars being driven on the road have only 1 person in them, and they are only used for maybe 1 hour a day - sorry, this is impressionistic and I don't have the exact statistics to hand. But these pieces of equipment are very heavily underused, causing there to be FAR more traffic on the road, and MANY MANY more cars produced, than are actually necessary for carrying the same amount of people on the same road journeys that they make today. That's insane, it causes a lot of pollution, and it's a huge waste of resources and of human labour power. Now there's a real issue, and the way to address it isn't by changing the kind of motors that are fitted in the cars.
Cars that are parked off-road aren't on the road by definition and don't take any road capacity or cause any congestion whatsoever.
Many pieces of equipment aren't used 24/7 but that doesn't stop it being useful. My radiators are currently off and have been off for months now, and will be off for another couple of months, so does that make them redundant or a waste of resources?
My car has taken me just under 100,000 miles since I bought it. Its by far the most useful piece of equipment I own, not a waste of resources.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
That is nonsense, it is the oldest fallacy in the book that "Congestion is solvable by adding capacity." Added capacity means additional journeys in additional vehicles. This is well understood and just not controversial.
No, that is total bollocks spread by people with an anti-car agenda.
Added people equals added journeys, added capacity does not.
If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously.
Most of the myth that extra capacity equals extra journeys is made by looking at Los Angeles, and disregarding the fact that LA's population has gone from 4 million to 13 million in the same time as Greater London's has gone from 8 million to 9 million. For a like-for-like comparison lets see how London's Tube would be coping if its population was now 26 million people instead of 9 million.
So long as population is relatively stable, or capacity grows at the rate of population, then congestion is a very solvable problem.
"If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously." No, but it causes another person to think "Oh, look at this enticing new route from A to B, I shall buy a car to go to B now that the car journey is so much more attractive than the bus/train I formerly took" or "I shall get a job in B and drive there 5 days a week in the car I formerly used only at the weekend." This is just obvious.
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
Deaths on our roads are half-way to being an order of magnitude higher than homicide.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
Each road collision costs a fortune too.
Most cars being driven on the road have only 1 person in them, and they are only used for maybe 1 hour a day - sorry, this is impressionistic and I don't have the exact statistics to hand. But these pieces of equipment are very heavily underused, causing there to be FAR more traffic on the road, and MANY MANY more cars produced, than are actually necessary for carrying the same amount of people on the same road journeys that they make today. That's insane, it causes a lot of pollution, and it's a huge waste of resources and of human labour power. Now there's a real issue, and the way to address it isn't by changing the kind of motors that are fitted in the cars.
Cars that are parked off-road aren't on the road by definition and don't take any road capacity or cause any congestion whatsoever.
Many pieces of equipment aren't used 24/7 but that doesn't stop it being useful. My radiators are currently off and have been off for months now, and will be off for another couple of months, so does that make them redundant or a waste of resources?
My car has taken me just under 100,000 miles since I bought it. Its by far the most useful piece of equipment I own, not a waste of resources.
You're missing the point. I mean a waste of resources for society. That a car which takes a lot of resources and labour to produce is left mostly parked and when it's being driven it has ~5 seats and mostly contains 1 person is a waste of resources. How is it possible to disagree with that??
That was my point - what we call colour is individuals' subjective experience. Granted there's a broad overlap between most people's colour perception, but it's not 100%.
"The visible spectrum" is a fairly imprecise concept. (Also RGB filters can differ significantly.)
I find the idea there should not be parallel motorways rather amusing.
To put it in a way out London anti car brigade might understand, the existing motorway network is rather like the M6 is the Northern line, the M62 is the Central line and ... That's kinda it except other routes.
As if the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Picadilly lines didn't exist and everyone on them wanting to go West to East or vice versa was instead routed only onto the Central line.
Oh and of course if the Central Line ever got closed due to a breakdown ...
In this analogy the buses (A Roads) run almost point to point everywhere in London and are only about 15% slower, though.
So why did we bother with Crossrail?
Why not tell people "tracks already exist, oh and stop taking trains just get a bus instead".
That's like what your attitude is to drivers.
Because we regard induced demand for mass transit as a positive thing, not least because it reduces private motor journeys.
Which just shows how slanted and bollocks your argument is.
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
Of course it is. Less oil imported from abroad, less congestion for essential journeys, fewer pollutants in the air, a likely reduction in the 5 deaths a day on our roads, safer streets for those saving the NHS billions by walking or wheeling.
Of course it is not.
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
That is nonsense, it is the oldest fallacy in the book that "Congestion is solvable by adding capacity." Added capacity means additional journeys in additional vehicles. This is well understood and just not controversial.
No, that is total bollocks spread by people with an anti-car agenda.
Added people equals added journeys, added capacity does not.
If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously.
Most of the myth that extra capacity equals extra journeys is made by looking at Los Angeles, and disregarding the fact that LA's population has gone from 4 million to 13 million in the same time as Greater London's has gone from 8 million to 9 million. For a like-for-like comparison lets see how London's Tube would be coping if its population was now 26 million people instead of 9 million.
So long as population is relatively stable, or capacity grows at the rate of population, then congestion is a very solvable problem.
"If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously." No, but it causes another person to think "Oh, look at this enticing new route from A to B, I shall buy a car to go to B now that the car journey is so much more attractive than the bus/train I formerly took" or "I shall get a job in B and drive there 5 days a week in the car I formerly used only at the weekend." This is just obvious.
I do not have an anti-car agenda. I have a car.
"I shall buy a car to go to B now that the car journey is so much more attractive than the bus/train I formerly too"
No, just no.
90% of people already get to work via car.
You simply can't switch many people onto travelling by car when 90% already do, and those who don't largely don't because they don't want to anyway.
It's population growth that matters, not nonsense about induced growth when you can't induce much beyond 90% in the first place anyway.
The total has increased every year since, climbing to just over 343,000 accounts in 2021-22 – representing well over 1,000 for every business day of the week....
...A few weeks before the Farage story broke, the Guardian revealed how a retired social worker who had spent the past year doing humanitarian work across Ukraine had her account suddenly shut by Lloyds...
Journalists should be FOI-ing more regularly to check the effects of changes in legislation on its unintended victims.
This government is, of course, hostile to the idea of FOI rights.
The total has increased every year since, climbing to just over 343,000 accounts in 2021-22 – representing well over 1,000 for every business day of the week....
...A few weeks before the Farage story broke, the Guardian revealed how a retired social worker who had spent the past year doing humanitarian work across Ukraine had her account suddenly shut by Lloyds...
Journalists should be FOI-ing more regularly to check the effects of changes in legislation on its unintended victims.
This government is, of course, hostile to the idea of FOI rights.
Perhaps the largest number of these closed accounts are those of UK citizens who live and work in the EU. The clearing banks in the UK had a mass clear out of any account holders who were not UK tax payers or who could not demonstrate a UK address.
Farage may find that he is not that popular with those of us who have had to make significant changes to our finances because of his own disastrous policies. Personally I have no polite words for the SoB.
The total has increased every year since, climbing to just over 343,000 accounts in 2021-22 – representing well over 1,000 for every business day of the week...
"...The number of deaths registered in 2022 in England and Wales was 577,160. This was 9,174 fewer death registrations than in 2021, and 6.2% (33,747 deaths) above the five-year average (2016 to 2019 and 2021)..."
Comments
... would that be better?
Nighty night
Reducing private journeys is not a positive.
I recently had to take a load of photographs of leaves with a DSLR to determine their colour (spectrometry on the cheap). Don't ask...
Without a reference colour chart [eg https://www.amazon.co.uk/X-Rite-ColorChecker-Passport-Photo-2/dp/B07PNCPZ8G] that there's no way of accounting for the influence of the ambient light. Always use one if photographing items for a catalogue otherwise you'll get complaints.
The official dye colour won't tell the full story (and anyway, RGB isn't the full spectrum of visible colours).
As far as your eye is concerned, the ball is mostly a mix of red and green...unless you have tetrachromacy.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIE_1931_color_space
Clinton Pugh, who owns businesses in Cowley Road, has criticised the East Oxford LTN which was introduced as a trial in May 2022 by Oxfordshire County Council."
https://news.sky.com/story/florence-pughs-father-blasts-low-traffic-neighbourhood-scheme-as-he-loses-his-bar-12930872
1) The LTN he is filmed in front of is one he campaigned for because it helped his business (he used it for outside seating): https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8743081.cowley-road-side-street-get-taste-mediterranean/
2) He's been trying to sell up since pre-COVID and pre the other East Oxford LTNs, maybe if he was less negative he'd have succeeded: https://www.oxinabox.co.uk/exclusive-the-end-of-an-era-why-clinton-pugh-is-selling-cafe-coco-kazbar-and-cafe-tarifa-three-of-oxfords-most-iconic-restaurants-and-bars/
3) His business model has been overtaken - what was new and hip and trendy when he opened in 1992 looks weak and dated now, for example: https://twitter.com/KentishCyclist/status/1685687870697144321
Oil is yesterday's problem.
Congestion is solvable by adding capacity, as we've already discussed.
Pollutants are yesterday's problem.
Deaths on our roads are miniscule and you get deaths from a plethora of other sources too.
Billions aren't saved, car drivers are the absolute golden goose cash cow for the Exchequer whereas rail can't even operate without massive subsidies.
Prejudiced people like you are absolutely terrified it seems of a pollutant-free vehicle which is the future.
1) Cars
2) New build houses
3) Not being in the pub
I think the only things left are a plastic lawn, a French Bulldog, and an "exceptional hardship" plea for his driving licence.
Edit: Forgot Range Rover Evoque in white.
There are no pollutant-free vehicles, even EVs emit a lot of particulate matter from tyres and braking, nor are there solutions to congestion - even if you spend a fortune concreting over green spaces for a marginal gain on private car journeys between cities, you simply add congestion on the way to and from the destinations within those cities.
Motorists' taxes pay a fraction of what they cost in infrastructure, health spend relating to pollution, and health spend relating to diseases of inactivity and obesity.
Before:
https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1615230760356827136?t=FWRJ3Vw6tGNdf3xwidOB_A&s=19
After:
https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1676632965315526668?t=mx29_ISgV_yUDd8pMrH-yQ&s=19
EVs do not emit any significant numbers of particulate matter, the claims they do are false and normally spread by climate change denialists.
There are solutions to congestion, so long as population is relatively stable. Congestion is primarily linked to population growth exceeding capacity growth. Cars outside of inner cities are for almost all the country the most efficient use of transportation too, that results in the least delays for journeys not the most.
Motorists pay an order of magnitude more than what they cost in infrastructure etc, pollution is not a problem with EVs once again and obesity is not caused by transportation it is caused by overeating.
PS Incidentally 93% of transportation in the UK is by car, 3% is by rail.
Rail caused 253 deaths in the UK in 2022, which scaled up proportionately to cars is the equivalent would be 7,483 so its not as if rail is death-free either.
I never drink and drive though. If I'm drinking in the pub I will walk home.
To trust the state is to be naive. The state is run for the benefit of those that run it. Try bringing the poweful to book and you will find yourself in a world of hurt
This is one of the best English accents videos I've found recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU8uenMGt_o
Note to GCHQ: JUST KIDDING
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/30/nigel-farage-banks-driving-cash-out-royal-commission-coutts/
Added people equals added journeys, added capacity does not.
If someone is already getting to work in their car and extra capacity is added, then that doesn't cause the same person to now go to two places of work simultaneously.
Most of the myth that extra capacity equals extra journeys is made by looking at Los Angeles, and disregarding the fact that LA's population has gone from 4 million to 13 million in the same time as Greater London's has gone from 8 million to 9 million. For a like-for-like comparison lets see how London's Tube would be coping if its population was now 26 million people instead of 9 million.
So long as population is relatively stable, or capacity grows at the rate of population, then congestion is a very solvable problem.
Many pieces of equipment aren't used 24/7 but that doesn't stop it being useful. My radiators are currently off and have been off for months now, and will be off for another couple of months, so does that make them redundant or a waste of resources?
My car has taken me just under 100,000 miles since I bought it. Its by far the most useful piece of equipment I own, not a waste of resources.
I do not have an anti-car agenda. I have a car.
"The visible spectrum" is a fairly imprecise concept.
(Also RGB filters can differ significantly.)
No, just no.
90% of people already get to work via car.
You simply can't switch many people onto travelling by car when 90% already do, and those who don't largely don't because they don't want to anyway.
It's population growth that matters, not nonsense about induced growth when you can't induce much beyond 90% in the first place anyway.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/30/uk-banks-closing-more-than-1000-accounts-every-day
...The figures, obtained through a freedom of information (FoI) request made to City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority and first reported in the Mail on Sunday, revealed that in 2016-17, just over 45,000 accounts were shut by banks.
The total has increased every year since, climbing to just over 343,000 accounts in 2021-22 – representing well over 1,000 for every business day of the week....
...A few weeks before the Farage story broke, the Guardian revealed how a retired social worker who had spent the past year doing humanitarian work across Ukraine had her account suddenly shut by Lloyds...
Journalists should be FOI-ing more regularly to check the effects of changes in legislation on its unintended victims.
This government is, of course, hostile to the idea of FOI rights.
Farage may find that he is not that popular with those of us who have had to make significant changes to our finances because of his own disastrous policies. Personally I have no polite words for the SoB.
See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathregistrationsummarystatisticsenglandandwales/2022#:~:text=The number of deaths registered,2016 to 2019 and 2021).