What i do find amusing is a passenger clutching on to twenty pages printed off the internet, from the RAC or the AA route planner, the car has a sat nav, and the passenger is looking at a road atlas .
How lost can you be ?
Bluey Circles:
muckles:
I don’t think the car is utter nonsense,
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I wasn’t meaning that the car is utter nonsense, in fact far from it, it’s concept and how it has been developed is just amazing, they really are truly wondrous machines and a credit to man’s ingenuity.What bemuses me is our relationship with the car; A surprising number of people are utterly obsessed by them, I’m sure many spend far more than they can afford to own the latest editions, air conditioning, climate control, electric windows, electric seats, state of the are hi-fi… People better equip their cars than there houses which is just odd.
It’s complete madness, year by year the things are getting bigger and more powerful, we own more of them than ever before (my wife has two of the dam things adding up to 375hp, god knows why, she can’t be much more than 8 stone) People wash and polish these contraptions every week, they become depressed at the tiniest of blemishes to the paintwork, they become upset if anything slows them down, continuously whining about ‘The Traffic’ with little concept that the are ‘The Traffic’. The situation is madness and it’s getting worse.
I am sure society will one day wake up and think to themselves WTF are we doing.
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I know people who have the same relationship with bikes, they spend thousands on the latest super carbon fibre mega lightweight kit, but really a more basic bike would do the job.and many people view cars simply as transport and don’t care about maintenance or how they drive.
But as society I think we need to re-evaluate how we use cars, I look up a few stat last night and basically since 1950 the number of private cars and light goods vehicles, under 3500g, has gone from about 3 million to 30 million. in the same period the number of all other vehicles Trucks, large vans, buses etc has maybe doubled at the most, and is only a small fraction of vehicle on UK roads.
So when cars drivers complain about trucks causing congestion, they need a reality check, it’s the increase in private vehicles on the road that has caused the problems.
muckles:
But as society I think we need to re-evaluate how we use cars, I look up a few stat last night and basically since 1950 the number of private cars and light goods vehicles, under 3500g, has gone from about 3 million to 30 million
Which can only mean one of two things.Either the government is lying about immigration levels and the population is now 10 x higher than it was in 1950.
Or car ‘ownership’ isn’t the same thing as car ‘use’.On that note I’ve got two cars one for local shopping use an one for the aforementioned fun road trips.I can obviously only drive one of those at any time with the latter spending most of its time in the garage going no where. 
Or maybe it’s a combination of both.IE a higher population level than is being stated for obvious reasons regards immigration policy.Together with the above ( probably deliberate to help make the bs Green Party case ) confusion between car ‘ownership’ v ‘use’. 
muckles:
But as society I think we need to re-evaluate how we use cars, I look up a few stat last night and basically since 1950 the number of private cars and light goods vehicles, under 3500g, has gone from about 3 million to 30 million. in the same period the number of all other vehicles Trucks, large vans, buses etc has maybe doubled at the most, and is only a small fraction of vehicle on UK roads.So when cars drivers complain about trucks causing congestion, they need a reality check, it’s the increase in private vehicles on the road that has caused the problems.
Not only that but they have probably more than doubled in size (just like the occupants)
as an example, the all new “Mini Clubman” has a bigger wheelbase than the first Range Rovers.
Carryfast:
muckles:
But as society I think we need to re-evaluate how we use cars, I look up a few stat last night and basically since 1950 the number of private cars and light goods vehicles, under 3500g, has gone from about 3 million to 30 millionWhich can only mean one of two things.Either the government is lying about immigration levels and the population is now 10 x higher than it was in 1950.
Or car ‘ownership’ isn’t the same thing as car ‘use’.On that note I’ve got two cars one for local shopping use an one for the aforementioned fun road trips.I can obviously only drive one of those at any time with the latter spending most of its time in the garage going no where.
Or maybe it’s a combination of both.IE a higher population level than is being stated for obvious reasons regards immigration policy.Together with the above ( probably deliberate to help make the bs Green Party case ) confusion between car ‘ownership’ v ‘use’.
According to this
gov.uk/government/uploads/s … s-2014.pdf
Vehicle miles have increase from 12 billion in 1950 to a whopping 240 billion in 2014
I used to nights on pallet hubs, it was surprising to see the amount of traffic when everyone else was asleep, even working on Sunday in the day, everyone on the move to nowhere special .
Off to the garden centre to buy a pot plant for Auntie Bertha .
Sunday afternoon most of the major routes are heaving as it’s tea time, home in time to feed the kids and get them in bed for school on Monday .
Carryfast:
Or car ‘ownership’ isn’t the same thing as car ‘use’.On that note I’ve got two cars one for local shopping use an one for the aforementioned fun road trips.I can obviously only drive one of those at any time with the latter spending most of its time in the garage going no where.
Im sure there are plenty of people like myself with multiple cars but as you said you can only use one at a time. I have four cars currently but only two of them actually have TAX/MOT/Insurance. Still thinking about buying another, been looking at 90’s BMW 8 Series 
My brother has three cars but only one on the road.
Bluey Circles:
According to this
gov.uk/government/uploads/s … s-2014.pdf
Vehicle miles have increase from 12 billion in 1950 to a whopping 240 billion in 2014
To be fair I’d doubt if the Greens and their cheap labour allies idea of putting the nation back where it was in 1950 regards private transport use is going to be a big vote winner. 
While the figures can probably be explained by the combination in de industrialisation since then meaning that people have to travel further for work and massive understating of population levels,as a result of equally understated immigration levels.In addition to selectively chosen statistics to make the case that the Greens and more importantly employers looking to put their employees back on the bus or bicycles to save wage costs,want the figures to say.
mrginge:
Im sure there are plenty of people like myself with multiple cars but as you said you can only use one at a time. I have four cars currently but only two of them actually have TAX/MOT/Insurance. Still thinking about buying another, been looking at 90’s BMW 8 SeriesMy brother has three cars but only one on the road.
Deffo get the 8 series but go for the V12 and manual box and get it de limited.Bluey Circles’ lot will hate it. 
mrginge:
Carryfast:
Or car ‘ownership’ isn’t the same thing as car ‘use’.On that note I’ve got two cars one for local shopping use an one for the aforementioned fun road trips.I can obviously only drive one of those at any time with the latter spending most of its time in the garage going no where.Im sure there are plenty of people like myself with multiple cars but as you said you can only use one at a time. I have four cars currently but only two of them actually have TAX/MOT/Insurance. Still thinking about buying another, been looking at 90’s BMW 8 Series
My brother has three cars but only one on the road.
Yes there are people who collect cars, but I doubt that would account a for the massive increase, when I was growing up despite being in an isolated village most families only had one and quite a few families and older people didn’t have a car.
Many women didn’t drive or if they did they didn’t have a car, that was used by the husband to get to work in the nearest town, the women that worked had jobs in the village or relied on their employer to provide transport, buses were rarity even then.
However basic groceries were available at the village shop, which could be got to by bike or foot and there even a mobile shop going round the villages. The main shop was a family outing on a Saturday and we went to school on the school bus.
Now many families have 2 cars, or more if they have grown up children living at home, and they’re used most day for people to go to work or take the children to school. And of course there has been an increase in the UK population since the 1950’s. Now we can’t go back to the 50’s and probably wouldn’t want to, but we can move on from where we are.
Now I don’t have a problem with cars or car ownership, I have a car and I like cars, but really when you see people jump in a car to take children less than a mile to school, the small town I live is grid locked twice a day during term time. Or when people jump into the car to nip to the local shop, I think there must be a better way.
Peoples excuse for driving their children a short distance to school is often its too dangerous to let them walk or cycle, and they’re probably right because the roads are full of people driving their children to school. 
So this is where we as a society need a look at how we use the car and the infrastructure, we need an infrastructure that mean people felt safe cycling or walking on a short trips and then they have their car to use for the longer trips or the major shop of the week.
Those that stick their hands over their ears, when anybody suggests there is another way than total reliance on the car are as out of touch as those who think they can get cars removed from our daily lives.
muckles:
Now I don’t have a problem with cars or car ownership, I have a car and I like cars, but really when you see people jump in a car to take children less than a mile to school, the small town I live is grid locked twice a day during term time. Or when people jump into the car to nip to the local shop, I think there must be a better way.Peoples excuse for driving their children a short distance to school is often its too dangerous to let them walk or cycle, and they’re probably right because the roads are full of people driving their children to school.
So this is where we as a society need a look at how we use the car and the infrastructure, we need an infrastructure that mean people felt safe cycling or walking on a short trips and then they have their car to use for the longer trips or the major shop of the week.Those that stick their hands over their ears, when anybody suggests there is another way than total reliance on the car are as out of touch as those who think they can get cars removed from our daily lives.
Great sort out the school runners.However if you look further into the problem,like here,you’ll probably find that most of that traffic is parents from way outside the area taking advantage of policy which allows them to place their children in schools way outside their own areas.The reason usually being that they don’t like the over crowded zb school provision in their own places so prefer to dump their problems on other better areas.Which gets taken to another level when,as in our case,it’s a nicer area neighbouring London.In which Londoners not only don’t like the zb hole they’ve made for themselves to live in but they also seem to have somehow managed to get our County Council to take on London’s education needs because they don’t like the school ‘environment’ in their own place.The result then being loads of school time commuting while the parents in our own place can’t get places locally for their children so have to then travel outside the area to get school provision.
Having said that I’m not naive enough to believe that the anti car agenda isn’t more a case of dictatorial car hating Greens who just don’t like car use at all.Allied with the cheap labour agenda that sees an economic advantage in putting the working class back on public transport and bicycles as it was in 1950.