The Driver's Site for the East Midlands

Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


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Saturday 31 May 2014

Speeding Industry demanding higher penalty. Why?

In screams for more and higher penalties for 'speeding' and that is to merely exceed an arbitrary and unscientific number on a pole which actually causes nothing, the following examples of 'speeding' are cited. 

There are even cyclists shouting for two more 0s to be added to all 'speeding' fines. Again the shrill minority who have no expertise in driving, accidents or prosecution shouting loudest. See comments here

'The fastest speeding motorist recorded in England and Wales in the last 12 months was doing over twice the speed limit on the M25 at Swanley, according to figures obtained by the Institute of Advanced Motorists.

More worrying for cyclists were the drivers caught on camera doing twice and in one case three times the limit on A and B roads.

Eighty-five percent of police authorities responded to the IAM’s freedom of information request asking for details of the fastest speeds recorded by cameras between April 2013 and May 2014.
The highest speeds recorded away from motorways and other 70mph limits were:
  • 30mph road: 96mph on the B1288, on Leam Lane, Gateshead
  • 50mph road: 119 mph on the A414 Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire
  • 60mph road: 127mph on the A413 Wendover By-Pass, Wendover'
But again the IAM misses the point entirely. These are not 'speeding' they are driving dangerously and can be charged with that and fined accordingly. If one of these crashed and killed, they wouldn't be charged with death by speeding would they IAM?  So the penalty is already available.to prosecute these dangerous drivers.

So why is IAM promoting the 'speeding' industry and lazy police who not only fail road safety by not charging the appropriate offence, but are earning so much from 'speeding' to do so too?

Of course they're 'speeding' IAM just as a murderer commits assault, ABH and GBH along the way too. At 30 MPH speeding is at 31 so it can't be still speeding at 96 MPH can it IAM?

Saturday 24 May 2014

Example of a loony left eternal student. 'Give us our country back'

BBC Today Editor Wishes 'Every UKIP Voter Would Die'
 
 by WikiGuido
 
 The BBC's warning to its staff to remain impartial came too late for Mimi Kempton -Stewart, the assistant politics editor of the Today  programme. Here are some of her thoughts on yesterday' election, including that "it'd be nice" if "every UKIP voter were just to disappear forever or die'
 
 
UKIP are awful, really terrible, I can't wait until this darned election is over so we can all be rid of them on our screens and airwaves!’
 
Mimi Kempton-Stewart
 
Honestly, if every UKIP voter were Just to disappear forever or die, the world would be a better place. That's my view, anyway.’
 
Mimi Kempton-Stewart 
 
 
To me the word "UKIP" sounds like a dog being sick. Like their politics! Anyway, I'm off back to work, at my Job at the BBC
 
Mimi Kempton-Stewart 
 
 
@JakeCallaghan
and I didn't say 'should' die, I Just said it'd be nice if they did, working for the BBC doesn't mean I can't have views.’
 
Mimi Kempton-Stewart 
 
 Kempton-Stewart, a former Guardian Student  Media digital journalist of the year,has apologised and deleted another tweet, though the others remain up:
 
Apologies for my previous deleted tweet on UKIP. The use of the phrase "drowned in acid" was inappropriate as a BBC employee and I regret it—
 
 
Mimi Kempton-Stewart
 
 
'Charming Should Mimi really be anywhere
near determining the output on "Today",the nation's
agenda setting radio show?' Asks Guido.
 
 
We need to sideline left of centre officials or at least pair them with centre/right thinkers in all depts. of central and local government.
 
I'm sure it can be done, but all politicians should be able to recognise minority lobbying anyway surely?
 
Majorities should set agendas. It can't be hard to identify a minority agenda setter surely? It's far too easy for minorities to change things in the UK. They should really be made to work harder to win over the majority in a democracy. And let's have more than models and theory if vast costly changes to our lives are being proposed too.
 
That's what UKIP would say and the voters are getting to know it too. So let's see her sacked or moved to harmless post if you want to begin to win the nation’s hearts and minds Mr Cameron.    


Thursday 22 May 2014

Why we shouldn't respond to naivety.









Look at the pictures in this Evening Standard story Isn't this the way that the ban the bombers, anti hunt, anti fracking green left loonies make their points? Laying in roads etc? Usually, without doubt, they all have in common a kind of delayed student naivety that they never ever grow out of. A very dangerous breed, often sporting some degree or another but the worst kind of idiots; those who think they're clever. Another common thread is that they all come from a minority and cyclists are in a tiny minority for sure.


If one needs further evidence of how naive and stupid these demonstrators are is that they think that being exposed on two flimsy wheels in the middle one of the busiest roundabouts in the world is a great idea.


Rule 77 of the Highway Code, if common sense isn't an option, advises cyclists to walk around such dangerous places or use subways. But these Super Brains believe their right to cycle comes before their personal safety at all times. 


Isn't all this a good reason why we must treat them as the adolescents they really are and take matters out of their hands?



Every newspaper and politician who encourages and lauds cyclists like these, instead of blaming drivers, should look to their own consciences the next time one is killed or maimed on our roads.

Before we spend millions on keeping cyclists happy and many more millions hampering essential road traffic, is anyone going to simply advise them to get off their bikes and walk around these dangerous places? Why on earth not? Millions spent on cyclists and roundabouts is millions less for the NHS, A & E and emergency services where it would be better spent. 



Friday 16 May 2014

Attack on drivers by two green left wing groups in one week. Coincidence?



Sustrans, as its not too imaginative name implies is all about sustainable transport. To you and me that means back to the horse and bullock and Oh yes and of course manpower transport.

What these greeny left anti people people, oh yes yet another charity, can't accept is that, from the time we took to the horse, camel, bullocks, many thousands of years ago, we ceased to rely on running and walking to expand and thrive. The pedal cycle is only a very recent idea and for a short time in the last century, did allow some independent, although very confined and limited, transport options for those who couldn't afford their pony and trap or a motor car. Those days are long gone and because cycling really isn't a viable option to most, most simply don't do it and all who do are still, directly or indirectly, dependent on drivers and their motor cars.

No surprise that Sustrans managed to dig up 5% of only 470 parents to say this week that their child had been hit by a vehicle, 18% had experienced vehicles not stopping at crossings and 13% that their child was 'nearly hit by a speeding car' See it here.

So according to Sustrans, we are to conclude that about one million kiddies have been hit by a vehicle? About 3.6 million have experienced failures to stop at crossings? Bearing in mind that is totally subjective and without accidents to back them up and get this, about 3.2 million were 'nearly hit by a speeding car'. How subjective is that? 'Nearly'? 'Speeding'? 

After 300 billion driver miles in 2012, with kiddies being encouraged to mix and mingle with big machinery by people like Sustrans, only 33 were killed whilst walking or cycling. Yes '1 is 1 too many' we know but we don't know the cause of these accidents for starters and the anti car brigade, like Sustrans, ignore that since motor vehicles keep all of us alive, including about 20 million kiddies 33 must be read in that context. The only way Sustrans can shock is to misuse these tragic deaths, link them together as if a classroom of kiddies, like Dunblane or Aberfan for example and then postulate the shock as if it were. 'if a whole classroom of children had been killed under other circumstances there would be public outcry,' they say.. How low can the anti car lobby get? 

Hot on the heels of that blatant dishonesty comes a left wing green think tank, titling itself Institute for Public Policy Research, (IPPR)
and a very costly anti driver report written by a lawyer not a scientist basically explaining why we must get out of our cars and be taxed more if we don't. IPPR boast a staff of 40 and yes, yet another green anti people people pro windmill charity too. See the full report here

Again lots about how unhealthy vehicles are and indeed so much science for a lawyer too. He cites people like Professor Steven Glaister a professor of RACF who said in one report 'There's more young people killed on roads than by hanging themselves or being murdered' Yes right prof we certainly hope so.  An example of Steven here.

But just like Sustrans, the report fails to mention that life expectancy is going up not down and without drivers and their cars, our society collapses big time and nearly all of us would die. Not healthy at all. It fails to mention that, after three hundred billion driver miles a year, there's more death from accidents in the home than from any cause on the roads. It claims that man is responsible for climate change when he isn't and exaggerates UK's transport contribution to global man made Co2 which is actually only about 0.6% of all man made Co2. It blames drivers for pot holes too. This wasn't from 'wear and tear'. It was local officials following the global warming mantra and laying cheap Mediterranean roads which retain moisture so that any deep freeze expands the water and breaks up the roads. Our roads didn't use to collapse in big freezes. How rich then for the greens to try to blame drivers for their policies.

Congestion? Yes that's the drivers fault too. Of course it's nothing to do with ideological anti driver policy of bus lanes, turn only lanes, lengthened traffic light phases, and worst of all, closing off legitimate alternative routes and funneling traffic to the same choke points then? 

Obesity? Yes that's driving's fault too. Nothing to do with diets and computer games and TV and no after school activity. This report believes that tipping kids out of cars and onto the roads is a safe healthy idea. There are other much safer ways of being healthy and getting exercise. 

But since it is drivers, at great personal cost as the report acknowledges, keeps our society running, so what if, having done all that, a driver doesn't walk to his local shop? Don't let's feel guilty about using our cars; we are paying too dearly for it already. 

It really beggars belief that we are allowing all these non expert anti driver green charities to exist. Who paid for this anti driver nonsense? Why, the drivers of course.  

But what is sinister about this left wing green report is that it recommends its changes are handed to local authorities instead of central government. Divide and rule you see. 'And we must not allow any referendums on this' it says too. Oh and surveys must be rigged to get the right answers. And it goes on to state that then, anyone opposing it, 'can validly be accused of wilful fiscal irresponsibility..'  Just like 'Climate change deniers'

Wake up UK's drivers. Expose this crowd and the profiteers who feed from them. See road safety fat cats here

'Thanks also to a number of civil servants from across the government who engaged with me over the course of the project.' 
Says the author. May we inquire who these civil servants are?

Tuesday 13 May 2014

'Cyclist died from high volumes of motor transport'.

Yet another cyclist dies whilst trying to mix with London's motor traffic on one of the busiest roundabouts in the country, the Elephant and Castle. Story here.

About 30 years ago I was knocked off my Dawes racer in the middle of the same roundabout. It was so fast the first I knew was I was down and survival instinct, being what it is, I was up again just as fast too.

But what is so desperate about this death is this quote from the London Cycling Lobby:   


Charlie Lloyd, from pressure group the London Cycling Campaign, said: "Our thoughts go out to the family and friends of the man who died today. "This whole area is notorious for the serious danger it presents to people on bicycles because of the high volumes of lorries and other motor vehicles that pass through here."

Oh really Charlie? Err roads are where motor vehicles of all sizes are expected to be. The danger is mixing and mingling with them isn't it?

Oh I forgot. Cyclists have a right to place themselves in extreme danger without nasty things happening to them.

No chance of Charlie advising his followers to get off, push the bikes and use the subways and pedestrian crossings is there Charlie?

So here is the evidence of why the Cycle Lobby must be ignored in their campaigns. They're so irrational and irresponsible about their own safety aren't they?

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Grayling proves hardly a week goes by without attacks on drivers

What is it about politicians when they get to power? Is part of being a minister to have one's brain removed so they can be clones of their civil servants to promote the same ideology as a line of predecessors have?

It certainly seems like it to me both in the DfT and Ministry of Justice when it comes to drivers.

There are certainly hidden faces in both departments that drivers need to root out. 

What a vote winner to push for long terms of jail for disqualified drivers 'who kill or injure'. 

Yes even I can identify with that but what of disqualified drivers who were driving safely and weren't to blame when someone died? Is there a dispensation or exclusion for that? Driving, perfectly safely, whilst disqualified is only a serious administration offence and in itself is not dangerous or an indication of manner of driving.

How often does merely exceeding a drink limit when a death has occurred deflect from the cause of the accident now? I have no problem with a long term for causing a death by drink driving but I do have a problem with a long term where the drinking was purely coincidental to the accident.

In both examples, I do have a problem with the constant attack on the driver on a populist basis.

Is Mr Grayling one of the anti driver fat cats when there are far worse killers? See The starving then there's road safety. 

Drivers. Take his name. He needs your vote as much as he needs a bit of imagination and original thought. 

Friday 2 May 2014

Graphic videos that show no rules or law can protect innocent cyclists

These two shocking videos demonstrate brilliantly what I have been trying to get through to cyclists. 'Road cycling is highly dangerous'.

It's bound to be. The definition of the concept says it all: To be exposed and unprotected on two flimsy wheels, in the path of, mixing, mingling and often competing with large pieces of essential machinery on the move, operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mental capacity. That is road cycling. It is an idea that would never be accepted or introduced now if a new proposal.

These videos show why. Of the first there are the rash claims of a cycling copper and a cycling writer that it was attempted murder. A shame because this kind of irrationality only diverts from the reality. One could just as easily claim that the second driver deliberately rammed the cyclist too.

Watch the videos and then ask 'Is my bike ride so crucial?' and 'Do I want my kiddies exposed to this?'

See the 1st video here  The 2nd video.

Look drivers are continually bumping into things unintentionally but mostly just resulting in dents and bent metal. Why wouldn't they be bumping into exposed cyclists too?

The religious cycle lobby will be inflamed by the obvious conclusions but they are only a tiny minority of the 60 million that depend on drivers. Sometimes minorities need to be ignored for the general good don't they?  

At the moment the authorities, often for no more than green ideology, and certain media, are encouraging road cycling. While they continue they can have every death and injury on their conscience. 
 Luckily it seems they are failing as the post 2012 'buzz, is falling off  Perhaps costly schemes to change roads to the disadvantage of major infrastructure are premature then and to encourage road cycling is unwise too. After all, if cycling was at all viable for most of us, far more would be doing it anyway.