As if motorists aren't already subject to more than enough obstacles, obstructions and legislation, it's now been announced that the penalty for failing to wear a seat belt is to be upgraded from a fine to penalty points, no doubt with a fine attached. The reason given is that more than a quarter of car occupants killed in road accidents in 2017 were not wearing a seat belt at the time, all 200 of them. Apparently, the penalties for other driving offences are also to be increased.
It is entirely unclear to me why something which affects so few and is a personal cost should be seen as reason to inflict yet more pain on others. Admittedly, wearing a seatbelt is now something that the vast majority of drivers accept without any thought, but this proposal is yet another imposition on the already hard done by motorists who have little to be cheerful about.
Buying a new car incurs a massive tax - 25% car tax plus 20% VAT amounts to a third of the total cost. Somewhere in the region of 65% of the pump price of petrol is tax, then there's the 'road fund licence' not to mention insurance premium tax every time we insure our vehicles. Every service and replacement part - tyres, exhausts, brake pads and the rest - incurs 20% VAT too. Sadly, money is only the tip of the iceberg.
Legislation abounds. Laws against speeding, drinking, smoking, using mobile 'phones, wearing seat belts not being insured or having an MOT, failing to abide by assorted traffic signals and signs, having worn tyres or defective lights and much more; the appalling thing is that I doubt even 1% of those guilty of any of these offences is ever brought to book, meaning that they are the victims of an appallingly hopeless system. Laws that are rarely enforced fall into disrepute and bring contempt on those who made them.
And then we come to the worst aspects of motoring in the modern world. In the UK, our towns and roads are simply not able to cope with the volumes and types of traffic. Lorries and buses are far too big for roads constructed in the days of horses and carts; many 'cars', the SUVs so beloved by many, are now also too big, blocking views for other road users and being driven as if their owners owned the road too. We have ever increasing numbers of traffic lights, appearing at every junction, roundabout and motorway slip road; there are lumps, bumps and humps in our roads everywhere, supposedly to slow we crazed drivers down but, in reality, just causing annoyance being potential hazards. There is an abundance of road side signage, some flashing distracting messages (another hazard), some being superfluous, some being indecipherable and some hidden from view by overgrown foliage and yet all to be ignored at our peril. Yellow lines, double yellow lines, red lines and bus lanes, all add to the motorists joys, while the humourless traffic wardens hunt us down with glee, handing out their extortionate fines for the slightest contravention.
Added to all of this is the almost unbelievable state of some roads, peppered with potholes, and the extent of road works almost everywhere. Our towns are clogged up with traffic held up by gas works, sewer works, telecoms works, the construction of new housing estates, resurfacing works and road widening. No longer are such works scheduled so as to avoid all main roads in an area being affected at the same time - instead we have frequent gridlock. Our local streets are too narrow and modern housing estates having little provision for parking while older areas often have none, as there were few cars when they were built.
Our motorways seem to be in a constant state of repair and regeneration. To my personal knowledge, the M1 has been undergoing road widening and upgrading (to a 'Smart Motorway', whatever that is) since the early 2000s, with no end yet in sight; the resulting delays to motorists even when there isn't an associated blockage of some other sort, have been horrendous. Any serious incident on the motorway network results in the police closing whole sections while they investigate, often causing hours, or even days, of difficulties for drivers and resulting in enormous disruption and congestion on alternative, local roads.
Wherever we poor benighted motorists are, we are put upon, monitored, taxed and vilified. We are pursued by the law, local councils and even self appointed vigilantes in some places. Picking the wrong route at the wrong time can result in being stuck in mile after mile of traffic jam, with no way out; even relatively short local journeys can turn into hour long nightmares, stuck at crossroads, traffic lights or road works. In most of the country we have little or no alternatives, with public transport outside of the major cities being of little use.
Those who planned our towns and roads have proved to be as useless as those who plan everything else. The assumptions on which they made their plans were so far from reality as to be no more than hopeless stabs in the dark. Adherence to outdated desires to keep supposedly iconic buildings has prevented proper development in many town centres, leading to a failure to make provision for modern traffic flows and needs in many places.
All in all, motorists have a pretty bad time and yet we seem to make little protest. Why do we put up with it all ?
No comments:
Post a Comment