Shafting The Motorist!

I've just had the journey from hell. I live around five miles from Lancaster but it took forty five minutes. Lancashire County Council and the Lancashire Police seem to hate motorists. In recent days we have had numerous new speed limit signs appear in our streets, and invariably the speed limits have changed. 30mph limits are down to 20mph limits. 40mph limits are down to 30mph and so on. The same stretch of road, no change in population or building density, and it suddenly changes from 40 to 30mph for no apparent reason. Then bang, you hit a speed camera.

This whole area is suddenly plastered with speed signs. It looks to me like they are splashing out on speed signs to use up their leftover budgets before the end of the financial year. Or some dodgy bureaucrat or councillor has shares in a sign company.

There is ample evidence that the less 'furniture' there is cluttering our streets the safer they become. The idiots in control in this country seem to think that turning our streets into obstacle courses with warning signs every five yards, chicanes, speed humps and ever more complex traffic light sytems is helpful. Well it's not you pillocks! Like every other aspect of life piss off and get off our backs, life would be much more bearable if you did!

Read this article about shared space in Drachten.

Or this article about shared space in Bohmte.

Problem here is your nanny state doesn't trust you. And don't even get me started on those patronising effin' signs that light up a smiley face if you are under the limit and frown if you are speeding. Or bloody mothers who treat other motorists like potential child killers, then drive abominably and park even worse when picking up little Kylie or Jason from school because the fat little pampered brats can't waddle the mile home on their own.

They deserve their own post. But I'm off for a brew now.

Jamming Up British Motorways

I really do not like using motorways when the hard shoulder becomes an extra lane if the traffic is heavy. I find around Birmingham/Solihull it just causes confusion with people taking their eyes off the motorway to try and work out what the ridiculous number of signposts are saying they can or can't do. Hard shoulders were put there for a reason and should only be used in cases of emergency or breakdown. But no, the government has announced that they are going to screw up even more of the motorway network by introducing the scheme around Manchester, London and Wakefield.

The best solution to the problem of congestion would be for the police to start nicking the pillocks who sit in the middle lane for mile after mile. Or the idiots who do 50mph or less on the motorway. On Saturday on the M6 in Lancashire there was a prize pillock sat in the middle lane doing 45mph. Now tell me that is not dangerous. But where were the police? Probably booking some poor sap for doing 78mph but driving perfectly safely.

I love my football but hate having to drive to the game on a Saturday when all the weekend drivers are out. On the M6 by Preston there is a four lane stretch where the Blackpool motorway joins the M6. Widening it to four lanes was a complete waste of time and money because, nine times out of ten, idiots sit in the third lane so it is effectively just a two lane carriageway with lanes one and two empty but three and four filled with cars bumper to bumper.

Please, please if you are one of the pillocks who sits in the second lane for mile after mile would you explain to me why you do it and why you don't bother reading the highway code? In fact if you are one of them please piss off and don't ever drive on the motorways ever again.

I feel better for that. Road rage in my living room.

Road Rage

If people persistently parked in front of your garage door, what would you do? I think most of us would either leave a note on the offending vehicle, or speak to the driver if he/she was around. But how many times do you put up with it until you snap? The man in the following video snapped and did what I think many of us would do eventually.



But sadly he has now been banned from driving. What constantly angers me is why so many parents, often those who bleat most at drivers who do 31mph past little Tarquin or Kylie's school, think they, as parents, have a God given right to park where and how they want when on the school run, note the driver parking on the yellow zigzags in the video to collect the kids. This case just compounds that and I for one am disgusted that this man has lost his licence.

He should really be given a medal!

Sunday Drivers

They really do piss me off, not just Sunday drivers but weekend drivers on the whole. This weekend was particularly bad as I had to drive to Clitheroe on Saturday and Manchester on Sunday, and it's the back end of the holidays so the M6 in Lancashire was full of them.

Why do the prats sit, mile after mile in the middle lane? Or lane two if you prefer, or the second lane. They really do piss me off, so much so that I can feel my blood pressure rising and end up screaming words of abuse that I didnt even know I knew when I see one ahead.

Then, as if that's not bad enough when you try and pass them they start to accelerate, so you start passing them at 70mph but reach 80mph by the time you succeed. As soon as you pass them they then return, still in the middle lane, to a serene 65mph and drop right back. Bastards!

But when you glance to your left as you pass them you see some silly bleeder, nose an inch from the windscreen, gripping the steering wheel so tight their knuckles are pure white with veins bulging. They stare ahead with a look of concentration that makes them look like they're desperately trying to break wind because their lives depend on it. If they are that scared when driving on the motorways piss off and use the 'A' roads.

I can just imagine Cecil turning smugly to his beloved Celia as he hogs the middle lane and saying: "Oh look behind my dear, three lanes of the motorway all jammed up and the road ahead is perfectly clear. Think we timed our departure just right". No you moron, it's jammed because you are sat in the middle lane doing 69mph, while the inside lane is empty, thus causing a tailback from Lancaster to the Scottish border! You are screwing up the bloody motorway network you tit.

Then you get to J32 of the M6 and there are four lanes. Yes four lanes for them to screw up. So Cecil the nobhead stays in what was the middle lane, but has now become lane three for a few miles and hey presto, he's fucked up the whole motorway network, quite possibly causing traffic jams as far back as Inverness, or at least Aberdeen now.

Thanks to these prats we effectively have a two lane motorway network. What the pillocks do is effectively close the inside lane, unless you want to be highly dodgy and overtake on the inside. So if you are one of those tits who sits in the middle lane mile after mile when the inside is empty please leave a comment explaining why you are such a selfish, useless, moronic prick of a motorist.

I think we should be allowed to force them off the road. Preferably at the top of the Thelwall Viaduct or the Dartford Bridge. What a satisfying splash that would make.

Speeding Motorists all Middle Class!

Yesterday I blogged about an article claiming that all the English are prejudiced, today it's an article claiming that speeding motorists are all middle class. Who could be making such a ridiculous statement I hear you ask? Well, it's none other than the outgoing, thankfully, chief constable of Cambridgeshire police, a certain Julie Spence. I must say she does look like a right old battleaxe in the photograph with this article.

She claims that it is speeding motorists, and parents parking badly outside schools, that are of most concern to the populace of Cambridgeshire. Well, in that case, Cambridgeshire is the place to live. No murders it seems, unless you live in Soham of course, but that doesn't count in her pea-sized mind obviously as a speeding Ford Mondeo wasn't involved, just a homicidal maniac.

Just to prove her complete idiocy the following quote is from the article:

“Speeding is middle-class anti-social behaviour,” she says. “People think we should be able to get away with it. They wouldn’t tolerate lawbreaking by somebody else but they do it themselves without thinking.

“It all seems OK until something tragic happens, like their child dies because of a road traffic accident.”

Well then here's a thought Julie. A true deterrent would be warning motorists that if they speed, and get caught, their first born will be thrown under a speeding car as punishment. I'm sure that would work you pathetic old hag!

Most people who drive, I would say well over 95%, have been guilty of speeding, probably on a regular basis, but have never been involved in an accident as a result, let alone killed a child. Emotive language such as that does absolutely nothing to deter the rational human who often does 80mph on the motorway or 35mph in a 30mph zone.It is bad driving that causes accidents usually, rather than speed, or even the child running out into the road. But the anti-motorist obsessives could never accept the child being guilty of causing the accident, it must have been the motorist. That emotive 'child killer' argument is now verging on immoral.

What drew me to this wretched woman's interview, is her blanket swipe at the middle class, as if good working class people never speed. What absolute nonsense. These blanket attacks on the middle class wouldn' be tolerated if they were about other groups, such as ethnic minorities, gays, religious groups. Well certain religious groups, and unles your name is Dawkins. If you made a statement such as, 'black people have big nostrils' (see my post yesterday) the self-righteous liberals would be down on you like a ton of bricks. But it's OK to attack the whole of a particular class it seems, at least if they are middle or upper. Then the police wonder why we are losing faith in them and we increasingly see them as the enemy.By the way, I think I am probably working class, so it is not self-interest that is driving me.

This mad woman should visit any inner city area, especially after dark, and see the number of working class kids speeding and doing handbrake turns, often in other peoples' cars, yes thieves as well as speeders. Where I grew up in Manchester it is almost a spectator sport, and not a middle class person about.

So, good riddance to Julie and let's hope the nutter in North Wales, Richard Brunstrom follows her soon.

Hammering The Motorist-Again!

Be careful when you pop your pay and display sticker on your windscreen. Chomping on the toast and marmalade this morning I was unfortunate enough to catch the BBC news. Lo and behold there was yet another item on how local Town Hall Mussolini's are making up their income shortfall from stinging motorists.

It seems that each local authority has the power to write into their parking regulations that anybody displaying more than one pay and display ticket can be given a fine by their enforcement officers, even when there is a valid one displayed.

The only way to avoid this, if you insist on displaying the odd old sticker in your windscren, is to check the regulations at the Town Hall of the authority you happen to be parking in. But you can bet they will all soon pick up on this and it will go nationwide.

If you do have trouble being 'taxed' as a motorist I suggest you remember to visit the website below:

AppealNow.com

More Green Taxes From Motorists?

This article appeared in WHATCAR? in March 2008.

This article appeared in the Daily Telegraph today.

The thrust of the first article was that the government was planning to introduce average speed cameras on 500 miles of motorway for safety reasons, because currently used cameras don't work. Yeah right, piss all to do with upping the income from motorists then.

In the second article the Department of Transport is now hiding behind a front organisation, the Sustainable Development Commission, to claim that average speed checks should be introduced on all motorways because reducing speed is necessary for the saving of the environment.

All bollocks. Muggins green/environmentalists will applaud it, the gullible will think it will help to save a polar bear so it's grudgingly accept it. The rest of us know the truth, it will generate millions in income for the government to spend on further building its police state.

Dismantle Traffic Lights

I have just been contacted by Martin Cassini asking for a link to an article I wrote earlier this year on 'shared space', or abolishing traffic signals, road signs and markings. He is putting together this website.

I also found this article that Mr Cassini had in the Times last year, which is an excellent read for those of us who want to liberate our roads.

Some of Life's Mysteries (Part II)

Every now and then things change, which is fine, that's life. But some of the changes I do find very difficult to understand.

Booking fees. These are an abomination and legalised theft in my opinion. Now fair enough if you happen to buy tickets from a ticket agency I suppose, they have to make their wedge. But why oh why do you get charged a booking fee when buying direct from the theatre box office? Especially when you buy on the internet and even pick up the tickets when you arrive for the show thus saving them postage.

On Feb 23 we are off to Manchester for the Versus Cancer night at the MEN Arena to hear Inspiral Carpets, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Happy Mondays and more. We booked the tickets, with a booking fee, then were prompted to request delivery method. I went for Fastrack, which was an extra £2-50 on top of the booking fee. I paid the money and lo, I had paid for the privelege of printing off the tickets using my own ink and paper. Bastards!

The other thing that really bugs me now is the way men have started towing little suitcases behind them like trolley dollies. Pick 'em up you feeble gits and if you're too weak don't go out until you've had a few good feeds and found a bit of strength.

Which reminds me that those poncy knots in scarves that men wear also drive me mad. Even when they are wearing t-shirts they have scarves on with that poncy knot. Wear it properly or leave it at home you plonkers.

Liberating the Motorist

Here is an article I have written that is featured on the UK Independence Party website. It was prompted by some discussion and comments on an earlier post on this blog.

Thanks to those who contributed and prompted me to delve a little deeper, especially Mark Wadsworth who has some posts on his blog along similar lines well worth looking at.

Kensington High Street

On the radio this morning I heard that Councillor Daniel Moylan is to receive another award tomorrow for his work on de-cluttering Kensington High Street , this link is to a full case study of the project.

In summary the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea removed much of the 'street furniture' that was misguidedly regarded as being essential for the safety of pedestrians, and bizarrely for motorists. We all know the masses of fencing, lines in the road and street signs, so the council got to work and, for once, it has worked.

It works along the lines of a project piloted in Drachten in Holland. It worked there by liberating motorists and pedestrians from constant badgering instructions and directions by, amongst other things, removing conventional street signs. It made people actually pay attention themselves and make decisions, rather than acting like robots. As a result in Drachten waiting for a bus went down from 55 to 9 seconds, because it speeded up traffic flow, and accidents dropped by over 40%.

Similar results have been achieved in Kensington and it is good to highlight, for a change, good work by a local authority. It is also more aesthetically pleasing, and what a way to prove greeny/environmentalists wrong.

Now, let's start using the same principle on every area of human activity and move towards a truly free and liberated life.

New Fuel Protests

It seems there will be new fuel protests this weekend. Details from the link below:

http://www.transaction-2007.com/

Some of Life's Mysteries

I have noticed that the older people get the more the smaller things in life anger them. I am very rapidly ageing. Here are some of the things that I find at best mysterious, at worst downright anger inducing.

Why are so many people unable to walk anywhere, or even move, without a plastic bottle of water or a paper cup full of coffee? Could it be that they are really telling the rest of us that they are so important, and therefore busy, that they only get the time for a brew when on the move? For God's sake sit down, have a breather and a proper drink. I promise you that the world will not come to an end, no matter how important you think you are.

In this country we used to drive on the left. Not any more. It now seems that a sizeable proportion of motorists on our motorways regard the inside lane, the one on the left, as unusable . Perhaps they think a confused Pole may be whizzing the wrong way down it. Or perhaps they are just too lazy to change lanes. Either way they cause jams and seriously anger most of us who do many thousands of miles each year. For God's sake move over you clowns!

And while I'm on motorists what is it with bloody fog lights? I can imagine some prat tootling along thinking: "Err, there may be fog one day." And zap, on go the fog lights. Why? In rain these stupid lights are refracted all over your windscreen and, from the rear, look like brake lights have come on. From head on they invariably dazzle you. Switch them off for God's sake unless there's fog!

Then there are really annoying shop assistants, there are either too many or too few. I'm no DIY fan, I despise DIY and usually have to ask for help when in a DIY shop. Can you find an assistant? Never. If paranoid you would think they were all hiding in the CCTV room watching you wandering aimlessly around becoming angrier and angrier while they laugh louder and louder. Then you go looking for clothes, you know exactly what you want but pesky, mithering assistants just won't let you get on with it." Do you need any help sir?" For God's sake I'm not a cretin, I know how to buy a sweater you patronsing git! There must be a happy medium surely.