I drive 25 miles to work each day, why, because I can't afford to live in town where the jobs are. So I'm out in the sticks, where the bus leaves the village twice a week, and its a 7 mile bike ride to the train station to fork out £12 for a ticket which would normally cost me £1.60 in petrol. Today was an example, the train (new rolling stock) was 15mins late, I had to stand all the way and the heater was stuck on, so we all stood their sweating looking out the window at those people who could control when they left, how hot they were, didn't have to add 90mins to their journey or fork out a fortune for the privalege to stand sweating buckets.
So if the government want people to cut their carbon consumption, they will have to promote home working, build more equity share properties in town, or subsidise the public transport system to a greater extent (except that would be a massive back track on the privitisation, and that is effectively what we had 20 years ago).
Oh yeah, and stick a flipping huge amount of tax on aviation fuel.
I too get stuck behind suv's in country lanes where they can't fit when an oncoming walker is on the other side of the road. I too have to overtake miles of strewn 4x4's outside schools with sucidal mothers flinging open their 1/3 tonne vehicle doors without looking.
BUT... what really gets on my tits, is cyclists, and people who rave on about cycling saving the world. Frankly these poeple are just selfish and slightly deluded.
Someone, explain to me how a cyclist who pays no road tax at all is considered green when they cause massive tail backs. Everyday, especially in the summer, I get stuck in traffic at least 4 times in the journey, sometimes for 5mins in a 2 mile queue. So, you've got hundreds of cars which are a rolling road block, all in 1st/2nd gear, all expelling more c02 and for a much longer period than if the traffic was free flowing in a higher gear. So after 10mins, what was the obstruction, a frickin cyclist, yes very green that. Cars moving in 2nd gear, then the inevitable stab of the accelartor to get past in the oncoming gap, expelling way more emmissions than normal. God help you if a coach gets caught behind. Hundreds of vehicles, miles of road, all chugging and belching out emissions that they need not.
But at least those half a dozen cyclists have saved half a dozens cars worth. Oh and they'll be fitter, mmm, all those fumes as hundreds of veicles have to accelerate past them, breath deeply cyclist, feel fitter? They won't be a drain on the NHS with respiratory problems in the furture will they.
Then there's the insurance, many cyclists seem to totally ignore the highway code and general commone sense, they use the road yet they don't have insurance. So if a cyclist scrapes your car when filtering, or you crash having to take avoiding action, who pays the bill, the motorist.
They stuck a single cycle lane on a main road where we live, its dangerous as they moved the white line over (but not the cat eyes) and did not widen the road. The 50mph road is now covered in glass from mirrors, as the vehicles are now in a near permanent head on collision. But the cyclist, who increases pollution through creating traffic jams, pays nothing in the way of insurance and nothing for road tax, yet has had the road layout changed paid from taxes, they are ok at least, those half dosen souls trying to intoxicate themselves (this does of course depend on the area).
Alot of this country is too small for dedicated cycle lanes! It would not be a problem if 75% of us used bikes, and bikes paid road tax to fund changes, and bikes paid insurance like everyone else to cover their mistakes, but its only 4% and its never going to swing the other way (25yrs at least). So yet again, 96% of the road using people get grief because 4% feel they are "doing their bit", like I said, selfish and short sighted.
If 75% used bikes, and that was to just get to the local train station with a fantastic value for money service which was always on time, high frequency and you could sit down, magic.
Get gov's to really push for hydrogen vehicles, where the only emmission is water (ignoring the environmental impact of the build for the moment). With high tax on aviation fuel, financial incentives for people to recycle much more of their daily waste (incentive or penalty??)
Local town planners to make solar pannels standard on new builds and not freak out when others try to get it added (goes against local look). More home working incentives, also higher bandwidth infrastructure.
In the short term, subsidise gas or up the tax on coal to stop power stations switching back to coal due to massive hike in gas prices.
In Scotaland they manufacture high quality tidal machines for export, were a flipping island with some of the strongest currents! Make use of that power in creating renewable energy sources.
Improve home engery efficiency, offer incentives on using class A (efficency rating) white goods. Use more boilers which use solar pannel to heat water, with the steam then used to power a mini turbine which puts electricity back into the grid, P2P electricity if you like (saw it a few years ago).
Anyway, that's my last few months worth of saved up ranting all used now
stats taken from dept for transport http://tinyurl.com/jfmem
