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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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Sunday 29 March 2015

Cameron & Grayling in Election 'death' wish!


In this Sunday Express article Killer drivers to face life in prison Chris Grayling
Chris Grayling
 & David Cameron are pledging all sorts of emotional retribution of drivers who have had a horrible accident.


I have written the following to the paper but may as well publish it here. 

What is it about drivers and driving that is hated so much by the Westminster Metropolitan Elite? Life jail for an accident? ( March 29th). Let's remind Mssrs Grayling & Cameron that there are 32 million drivers without whom our society would cease and most of us would die from lack of basics. See part of the Elite here.

You wouldn't believe from the anti driver rhetoric in the UK, that after about 300 billion drivers miles a year, there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home, more people die of strangulation and hanging and more from self harm. Far more than that die from thirst whilst in hospital too. Road death in perspective

So UK's drivers are doing much better than their treatment deserves. Given that planes and trains don't have opposing traffic or humans and animals mixing with them, how can Grayling and Cameron condone a highly dangerous scenario from economic expedience and then clamour to jail people for long periods when it goes wrong and accidents happen? 

A massive imbalance of justice and evidence already exists when it comes to drivers.

Dangerous or careless driving are both entirely subjective based on the opinions of ordinary, often hostile witnesses. That isn't allowed for murderers or robbers where only experts are able to give their opinion.

A murderer sets out deliberately to kill, and yet, even in the worst cases, it was never the intention of drivers. To suggest, as several anti driver MPs have and as expressed in your article, that the sentence should be based on the number killed is simply to fail to understand that it was from and as a result of the one act and not deliberately the aim to kill any, never mind more than one; as a murderer does. See

If a driver makes a mistake, the result varies from nothing at all, to bent metal, to serious injury and to death but from the same act and intent. How can an action, which one day is of no police interest, suddenly change, from the horrible coincidence that human flesh intervened, to a long term in prison?

There is no place for emotionalism
Ross & Claire Simmons
 when talking about jailing drivers. Losing someone dear still doesn't turn people into road safety experts or advocates of sentencing either.

When will politicians understand that jail only deters deliberate acts? No-one goes out to crash, never mind kill anyone. As driver's sentences have got longer, in placating a loud anti driver minority by the way, have the deaths and injuries ceased? 

But has Grayling & Cameron got an election death wish? Attacking UK's 32 million driver voters who are serving this country so proudly and well? With that kind of timing and unfairness, neither deserve to be elected.

David Cameron has previous for thisSee our letter to the Times.



Friday 27 March 2015

Revenge & prosecution isn't the answer.



Another family who cannot accept that a jury listened to all the evidence and could not conclude that the texting happened at the time of the accident or caused it. Story here

Why not just cancel courts altogether and have trial by bereaved instead?  The very definition of road cycling, would have it banned if it were anything else. 

There are now already 28 dead UK cyclists totally unnecessarily because society really doesn't depend on exposed people mixing and mingling with large moving machinery that's frequently bumping into things. When it bumps into a cyclist it invariably results in death or serious injury.  It's about time we all faced reality no matter how tragic.

This driver has gone through Hell already and I can never fathom how revenge and prosecution can bring the victim back anyway.

With the fake definition of 'accident' See it here. drivers are treated like criminals. When will officials accept that punishment cannot deter accidents and only intended crime?

Today it's just started for another driver and the death of a fifteen year old cyclist. It's about time politicians accepted that road cycling is a hazard to those who do it as well as an unfair liability on drivers too. Currently this driver is in custody for having an accident. We have had to write to the newspaper for clarification.


Your report of the tragic death of a 15 year old cyclist included that the driver was arrested. Yes of course we know the power under which he was arrested but not the justification of doing so at that time. We have long been concerned about the routine arrest of drivers who are in shock and trauma after a horrid event. See here Note: It turns out the police had arrested and kept in custody someone who wasn't involved at all.

The real reason of course is to catch an unguarded incriminating comment such as 'I just didn't see him'  etc. Yet burglars, robbers and murderers are never arrested, unless caught in the act, until investigations are complete and being deliberate acts, unlike an accident, they have worked out their alibi in advance too.

We advise all drivers, under these shocking circumstance, to do no more than provide ID so that they must be released.

Thursday 26 March 2015

Why York women can give this a miss.

York cycling seminar for women and why they should give it a miss.

'Just ask yourselves. Would your reporters be able to keep you going by pushbike? Well don't ask women to run a home and kiddies on them then.'

Are York taxpayers aware that their council has spent money to promote cycling for women? A seminar to be held at York Race Course, Making Cycling More Appealing to Women on 30 April.

Yes we know the London Metropolitan  Anti Driver Pro cyclist Elite, exposed here as one of the speakers of this event no less,Yep it's Rachel Aldred, and especially here in this massive anti driver pro cyclist tome, paid for out of charity taxes We deal with it here  have been operating against drivers for far too long, but has the York Council got to fall for it too?

Central Government, without asking why we must have road cycling and rolling over to a cycle maker's demands for £10 per head from all of us, have already awarded £650 million a year to something 99% don't do and none of us actually need.  See it here So York tax payers are stumping up even more then?

Women aren't daft. If cycling was a viable road transport, we would all be doing it. And that's the point. the LME are trying to force cycling on us all and making us pay for their efforts too. It's like trying to force jogging on us at our expense.

Another speaker, Carlton Reid, is a rabid anti driver who simply cannot admit that society only needs drivers and walkers on roads. The author of a pointless history 'Roads Weren't Built for Cars' seems to think that things like gears and wheels and roads didn't exist until the pushbike and that no-one would have thought of the pneumatic tyre or road metal without the pedal cycle. See Roads Weren't built for cycling either mate. See

And don't let's have the old health chestnut. There's far safer and more efficient ways of being healthy than impeding essential infrastructure. Currently 35 cyclists have died already on UK's roads this year. see See  from this unneeded activity. If this were a serial killer there would be outrage and we would all be locked in our houses. .

Well here are 18 reasons, from cyclists, why women should think twice about cycling. See

Just ask yourselves. Would your reporters be able to keep you going by pushbike? Well don't ask women to run a home and kiddies on them then.

We will be doing our utmost to assuage any guilt York women may feel about giving this event a miss. I hope you will too.

Keith Peat
www.driversunion.co


Wednesday 25 March 2015

Transport Safety Commission anti driver profiteers charter.

A massive report but...er! After 300 billion drivers miles a year, there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home, from strangulation or hanging and from self harm. So what's this really about then? Here's all of it.

Transport Safety Commission.

Who are they? Well they are the usual anti driver Metropolitan Elite See them here. and what a coincidence some of the same faces are even Here An outfit set up by that other road safety anti driver outfit PACTs See PACTs among this lot

Exactly the kind of expensive report written by academics of the Westminster Metropolitan Elite. More on that here Massive so as to bamboozle politicians who simply can't read it all.

Here are just bits of it:

See how an accident becomes a 'crime'
'In implementing its commitments made in September 2014 to victims of crime, the Ministry of Justice should make sure that all victims of road traffic crime benefit equally with victims of other crimes from their implementation.' (TSC Who is responsible?)

Why not set an impossible road safety industry Nirvana to keep harassing drivers and ensure road safety industry profiteering for ever more?  See are we killing too few people on the roads?
'We recommend that national Government sets ambitious targets for casualty reduction on the path towards zero deaths and serious injuries.'  (TSC Who is responsible?)


Ah yes. The usual stunt. Link cycling to walking. Why? Walkers are already well provided for and in common with drivers, are needed for the survival of the community where cyclists aren't. Who is to ask 'Why must we have cyclists at all if it is so dangerous then?'  So here are the classic false premise' of the cycle lobby. 1) We must have cyclists 2) Cyclists are like walkers. 3) Cycling death & injury is worth it. They've pinched this from a BMA cyclist!
The benefits of walking and cycling substantially outweigh the potential harms from injury but the safety of these modes needs to be improved. The UK is a relatively poor performer in cycling safety compared with many of our continental neighbours but the risks are perceived to be even higher [R Geffen, CTC: ev sess 3]. There was broad support from CTC and Living Streets for 20 mph limits in urban areas to encourage people to walk and cycle more. (TSC Who is responsible?)


Ah yes the money. There's always money to be spent and pocketed See some of the vested interests who were listened to for this report 
'It would probably have to be funded by central government (as with a number of independent regulatory bodies), through a grant defined by the need to be able to fulfil its functions but, at the same time it would be essential that it be kept independent of central and local government.'  (TSC Who is responsible?)

And more!
Additional funds could be found for road safety on local roads(TSC Who is responsible?)

Ah. Jobs for the boys who actually make money from all this and cost the country millions while doing it too
'We recommend that the head of any road accident investigation body is a member of the Chief Accident Inspectors Board. Further discussion is needed to determine the detail. It could be a Board (the “National Road Safety Board”) of four or five individuals covering a range of skills and expertise, with five to seven years tenure.' (TSC Who is responsible?)

The road accident investigation function serves little purpose unlike rail and air investigation. Both of those can reveal corrective faults. Air crashes are usually in remote areas so minute site work disrupts nothing and rail investigation is based on speed and getting the network back rapidly. 

Closing motorways and towns for many hours causes massive disruption, many millions of pound of lost time and knock on accidents later and elsewhere never associated with the closure. Most road accidents are absolutely obvious from the get go. The purpose of these investigations is really to trawl for a culprit or to provide material for expensive lawyers. How many have actually resulted in a manufacturer's modification?  
'The road accident investigation function could be created as a subsidiary organisation. It would probably have to be funded by central government (as with a number of independent regulatory bodies), through a grant defined by the need to be able to fulfil its functions but, at the same time it would be essential that it be kept independent of central and local government. There are a number of governance models in current use that could achieve this.'  (TSC Who is responsible?)

Note: They have used Black's Law Dictionary to define the term “accident” as: "an unintended and unforeseen injurious occurrence; something that does not occur in the usual course of events or that could not be reasonably anticipated... an unforeseen and injurious occurrence not attributable to mistake, negligence, neglect or misconduct" The effect is to take out unintentional and even mistake. This means that there is always someone to blame in a road accident unless proven otherwise. A totally anti driver, Cycle Lobby, policy.  But when we looked up Black's they said this: 'An unforeseeable and unexpected turn of events that causes loss in value, injury, and increased liabilities. The event is not deliberately caused and is not inevitable.' See it here
Law Dictionary: What is ACCIDENT? definition of ACCIDENT (Black's Law Dictionary) 
We prefer that as well as Odhams and the Oxford dictionary. Where we can reverse the policy: That there's always an accident unless proven otherwise. This would take out very costly long road closures that kill more from the cost and many associated knock on accidents elsewhere as a direct result of the closure. 

The same principle would also apply to drivers. Far too many are being routinely arrested at an accident when too unfit and vulnerable to make comment. Any comments made whilst at such a disadvantage should be discounted by the courts. 

Restoring the word 'accident' would save many millions of pound in police time and many failed prosecutions too.

Our submission to the consultation was ignored of course. 

Another manifestation of this anti driver elite, is the recent road accidents by constituency charts. Paid for by driver insurance and other charity money. It's here But to get this in perspective. See the authors in this group.

The three anti driver rationales of speed & speeding

It's worth simplifying the issues of speed and limits since the anti driver Westminster Metropolitan Elite, the profiteers of the 'Speeding' Industry, and ACPO etc deliberately confuse the issue to keep in business.

For a full legal explanation See here. 

But let's focus on the justification for focusing on speed for now:

1. 'It's deliberate disobedience.

That really is the only justification for prosecuting many thousands of perfectly safe drivers or else admit the limit is failing, so are the cameras and that there is clearly a fault at the site that needs correcting. How many people do you know, speed deliberately? 

2. 'The faster things are going, the worse the damage and injury.'

Under this comes the peculiar stat 'Hit someone at 30 yada yada...' and 'hit someone at 20...yada yada.'

For a start there would need to be hundreds of bodies hit at exactly 20mph or 30mph and it's impossible to measure that precisely, for it to be a fact. So it's just ministry of guesswork theory. But that isn't the main fault of this argument. It is about mitigating the effect of the accident after it's happened and fails to focus on the cause of the accident first to stop it happening in the first place. So it isn't about accident prevention at all then is it!

3. 'The slower everything goes then the less chance of an accident.'

Yep that is so. So let's stop all traffic, including cycling by the way, and get road safety Nirvana. But we would kill many millions from a complete shutdown of our system, our economy and lack of basic necessities.  See Penning's 6th Former's attitude  and More on that here 

So there is a massive cost to the economy of slowing and hampering UK's essential infrastructure that the anti driver Metropolitan Elite, as well as the profiteers, won't mention. We estimate it to be about £3 billion a year for every 1 MPH UK's roads are impeded. Yes for every 1 MPH. In fact, ludicrous as it may sound, on a cost effective basis, road casualties could already be too low if we are killing far more people from a bad economic policy. To get it in perspective do see Road Death in perspective.

And low and behold. Today, here it is in a massive glossy report from one of these anti driver charities.

'To achieve further significant casualty reduction and safe active travel requires re-establishment of clear leadership at national government level. We recommend that national Government sets ambitious targets for casualty reduction on the path towards zero deaths and serious injuries.' See more on it here

But finally, I love this one See some of the road safety fat cats here.

Tuesday 24 March 2015

The metropolitan elitists of the Westminter anti driver bubble.

Dr Rachel Aldred
Followers of this Blog will already know of the compelling evidence of the links that Drivers' Union has made with ideological anti driver groups and Westminster Officials. See the DfT and the honours system and  DfT Minister & charity experts  We are calling it the Westminster Anti Driver Elite. (W.A.D.E)


Now we have come across Dr Rachel Aldred who is Senior Lecturer in Transport at Westminster University. A regular writer in the Guardian. She is an MSc In Transport Planning & Management. And is very much within W.A.D.E.
Rachel Aldred

But surely an eminent lecturer at Westminster should be totally objective in her subject. But take a look at her web site here She is totally committed to cycling and non driving. How on earth can someone so in a thrall of one type of transport lecture people and be objective about it? Well she clearly isn't. She has just recently had published in Local Transport Today This item here  

I wrote a response which was subsequently published which queried Dr Aldred's CV in road accidents, prosecution, speed limiting and driving- what university degree teaches top driving expertise?- and I pointed out the dangerous concept of road cycling and that society must have only drivers and walkers on the road to sustain itself.


I have long been concerned about the very large number of people running and commenting on the life and death issue of road safety, accidents, driving and the prosecution of many thousands of our citizens with no background in the subject whatsoever. If it were bungee jumping or free fall parachuting, we would defer to experts wouldn't we? Yet the charities thriving from road safety, many with a green anti driver ideology or a vested interest, are far too many. I can cite spokesmen; one of them pretended to speak for drivers on a Select Committee, who has vested interests in driver prosecution. Rod King of 20s Plenty is just one example of these with no CV and an agenda other than road safety. He falsely tells the readers of LTT  'Finally we have Keith Peat of the Driver’s Union, saying that cyclists should be banned from the roads'  Why is it these ideologists are so dishonest? King is an advocate of road safety policy by parochial Nimbyism and polls of people just like him with no CV but personal aspiration. 

 I was accused of making a slur on the character of Dr Aldred, by yet another academic, who is also being too precious about the fact that his degrees, like hers, actually count for nothing in this life and death issue.  It therefor wasn't at all unwarranted, to point out that Rachel Aldred is just an academic, who has no actual CV in the subject. It is a worry that, from the cycling lobby she doesn't seem to be objective as a transport expert. But she is obviously not the best person to be advising Westminster on any road safety issue is she! I will take this matter up with her employers.

Here is some of Rachel's CV 'One of my research projects (Near Miss Project) was awarded Cycling Initiative of the Year 2015 by Total Women’s Cycling. I’m also, according to BikeBiz, one of the 100 Women of the Year 2015Since November 2012 I’ve twice been elected as a Trustee of the London Cycling Campaign and I’m Chair of its Policy Forum.'  

Note: Near Miss Project is another blame the driver crusade which would mean cyclists getting even more drivers in trouble and again is being promoted by The Guardian See it here.  

Now having had a right of reply to her article published in LTT, the cyclist lobby is outraged, in the person of CTC, and  accusing me of fostering 'Tribalism' and having a 'simplistic' view of road safety. Well it is a very simple subject and it is only the false statements and stats of the anti driver lobby and the profiteers, that deliberately make it complex and confusing.   CTC is just one of many anti driver charities that want drivers jailed for long periods after an accident, and is a classic example of the cycle lobby who just want a one way debate about road cycling.

It's the cycle lobby who actually thrives from 'tribalism' since it's an equalising device which, until I point out that The Emperor is naked, the debate raises cyclists, unopposed, to the false level of essential infrastructure and they're not that at all..

I see it as a duty to road safety and major infrastructure to wrest the attention and priority of ministers from the anti driver lobbyists of no CV. At the moment, they are only responding to the anti driver amateurs or vested interests and by any standards that really cannot be healthy for essential infrastructure, drivers and road safety.

I wonder if the good Doctor will agree? 

I wont give up the day job.

Now see this massive,Costly Westminster report , led totally, by the pro cycling faction in Parliament paid for by charity money. 

Now see another London doctor's RAC Foundation report, clearly addressing the notion of: 'too much car ownership.' 

24/3/15 Westminster University
Dear Sir/Madam

I am an ex police road safety volunteer and I am very concerned that road safety is now totally based on the views and aspirations of those with no CV in the matter of accident investigation, top road driving, driver prosecution and speed limiting. I am sure you will agree that, when left open to all and sundry, it would allow profiteering and ideologists an open door. 

We have a massive web site that shows that road safety is now entirely based on either vested interests or anti driver ideology. 

I have just posted the following blog page on Dr Rachel Aldred and her activities and I think you will find that she cannot possibly be objective in transport modes or road safety. This is a life and death issue with the added dimension of driver prosecution and jail, as well as major infrastructure. 

I cannot see any alternative than that she is removed from her post.

I note that you are a charity who depends on the community who in turn depends on its drivers.

Wishes
 
​29/5/15 Dear Mr Peat

Thank you for your recent email.

The University of Westminster is committed to freedom of academic e_xpression, across many disciplines, encompassing various and diverse academic views.

We encourage the sharing of the development and outcomes of the research and work undertaken by our research students and staff, to better inform and stimulate public awareness and debate. Please see our public website for more information and news:

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/research

We are also strong advocates of freedom of speech

http://www.westminster.ac.uk/about-us/our-university/information-compliance/freedom-of-speech
In this instance, whilst we appreciate you do not share Dr Aldred’s academic views, we can see no reason for the University to take any further action.

 Kind Regards

Kate Hayes

Director
Recruitment, Admissions and Marketing

Hi, Kate,

Pretty much as I anticipated. So using her role and position to support, promote a biased and partial personal preference on matters for which her CV isn't appropriate is 'freedom of speech' is it?

So I take it she will continue in the same vein. 

I will add your response to our public comments on the subject.

Wishes






Friday 20 March 2015

10% of road journeys by pushbike? Wha ha ha.

In this story top companies to urge parties to make election pledges to cycling. Why aren't these companies making appeals for drivers? All the more reason for drivers to get pledges from their candidates. Here's how to do it.

Setting a meaningful target, to make cycling account for 10% of all trips by 2025

Oh right and can these companies and their employees exist on pushbikes? And before the lobby makes an utter fool of itself, can I mention that 10% of journeys would need to be about 30 billion miles a year, carrying heavy loads and people at a faster speed than pushbikes can go?

The current mileage, apart from the tiny minority who commute, but don't have to, seems to be cyclists out on a jolly as a hobby and generally being an unnecessary hazard to major infrastructure.

But what happened to the £650 million a year of Taxpayer's money that's just been granted?

Given that 99% of people don't cycle and that no one actually needs it, they should be demanding from their candidates that this money is cancelled and spent on hospitals, police and fire and rescue.

Walkers? All our towns and cities already have ample pedestrian infrastructure and they do not need the carriageway as do cyclists. The only reason they are included is to give some sort of credibility to the cycle lobby. 

Walkers have more in common with drivers. Both need each other and society must have walkers and drivers. Why does it need cyclists at all? That's a pretty fair question that really needs an answer. 

Monday 16 March 2015

Road safety fat cats feathering their nests again.

Politicians. You can pledge top road safety and please 35 million driver voters in one statement. 'We support genuine not for profit or ideologically based expert road safety. Profit and ideology is no basis for road safety' Who can disagree with that?
The vested interests, amateurs, and ideologically insane have written to all our political parties for an election pledge to maintain their dangerous road safety promotion. See the amateurs & vested interests demanding this election pledge And See all of them together revealed on this page.






More on Road Safety GB Ltd    IAM sells courses. They support speed cameras  See more about PACTs v Drivers here.  ROSPA are not experts in driving, road safety, or dealing with road accidents. RoadSafe One of Prince Michael's babies. Road Safety Foundation are well meaning amateurs listening to vested interests. Airso. Close associates are known profiteers.
In doing so they're playing on the recent rise in road casualties. The increase was after an all time low so a rise was predicted by us. 

They think that road casualties must keep going down and it costs nothing to achieve it. We are spending billions on bogus road safety and prosecution that could save many more lives if in the NHS, police and fire & rescue services.

Any MP with half a brain must know that we cannot achieve best road safety based on ideology, vested interest and profit. We can please drivers and make our roads safer by kicking all these signatories into touch and reviewing anti driver road safety policy. There is much we can do.

MPs should ask: When accident death in the home is higher than from all causes on the road, See more ,why there is so much focus on drivers and road death? See UK's road safety fat cats Well one answer is clear. It's something other than preventing death and casualties isn't it. 

Your party can pledge better road safety without pandering to these amateurs, profiteers, vested interests or plain ideologically anti driver groups. 

Saturday 14 March 2015

DfT, The cycle lobby, 20s plenty, the charities, what about the drivers?



Is there any wonder that drivers are aggrieved with cyclists? Here, yet again, cyclists scream for more driver jail after an accident. See Cyclist group call to ban careless driving so that drivers can be jailed longer.

Doesn't anyone of authority see the elephant in the room? Road cycling's an unnecessary hazard in the middle of essential infrastructure. Society wouldn't miss cycling at all. They are actually advised by the government, (DfT) to use their bodies to impede and obstruct drivers to force their presence. See it here, I am not making it up. Hit one and possibly face 14 years inside.

Now the same government has teemed up with a rabid anti driver group, see Anti driver cycling group & the DfT to get even more of these hazards on the road. See CTC want more driver jail & CTC another costly charity. that society doesn't need.
see DfT think vested interests & charity are experts on road safety

There are far too many charities running our roads. Like Rod King MBE of 20s Plenty for us. How did he get his MBE?
Rod KIng 20's plenty.
 For saying what someone in the DfT is wanting? We certainly have made a very compelling link to this anti driver charity and the DfT. See Honours. The smoking gun?  and here is some more on the anti driver charity honours too. See Make your own mind up. 


Then of course there is, against the advice of independent experts, the decision to make careless driving a fixed penalty offence. See a dangerous unfair concept & profiteer's charter. 

So what has happened to Robert Goodwill (Roads Minister) since he was shadow transport and we alerted him to what was going on? I would suggest he took over the same, liberal elitist civil servants that ran the Labour Transport Department too. So who are they? Who is pro cyclist and anti driver in the DfT? It's about time they were shifted to somewhere less damaging and lethal isn't it?

Thursday 12 March 2015

The road cycling lobby riding dangerously.

If you depend on motorised road transport and have no wish to start having to get on two flimsy wheels, exposed to all weathers and lots of hard work to travel a short distance, I suggest you stop buying The Times. If you don't want to pay ten pounds a person, a family of four to pay £40 per year, £650 million, for transport that isn't viable for your needs and is highly dangerous, don't buy the Times & don't vote for David Cameron or be a member of the AA either.

If you think I'm making all this up, just look at this tweet and play The Times video. What can't speak can't lie
In it you will see AA's self promoting Edmund King with his pal Chris Boardman, who makes and sells costly 
 bikes, a pair that seem to be joined at the hip. Do see them being patronised and let off easy by the pro cycling Transport Select Committee here Boardman & King in action again. & also here The cheek of Chris Boardman

But what about the video? 

What the Times has done is show exactly why so many cyclists get doored and struck and killed. They are riding too fast and too close to things; it's that simple. It also talks in percentages too. So New York had a 250% rise in cycling. 250% of what? Three? Five? 75? What was the actual rise in New York cycling? And has this been maintained?

 'Car centric' New York? New York can't be anything else. It couldn't run or exist on cycling and nor can anywhere else either. 

The Times video also says that £650 million a year is 4% of the transport budget. Most cycling is pure recreational and the commuters are only a tiny minority too. 4% would need about 12 billion useful cycling miles a year and that would also need to be carrying heavy loads or carrying several people to justify it too. So this £40 per year is to effectively pay for a jolly, that we don't need at all for no return. Is this the best that the great Thunderer can do to justify its case? All of the transport budget comes from driver taxes of about £50 billion a year by the way.

Come on. Show yourself. Who in The Times is the cycling buff? The Times can't even run or exist on cycling. Even in The Times cyclists will be a peculiar tiny minority. So why impose on the rest of us, what you cannot do yourself Thunderer? The same with Parliament. Come on Cameron, refuse all car travel and try to do all your work by pushbike. 

The old chestnut about health and cycling creating better health. There's nothing healthy about placing yourself in great danger and being killed or injured by it, so there are far better and safer ways of staying or getting fit. 

Why is The Times and Cameron peddling such false promotion?  In any case, society didn't expand on manpower road transport and for a very short time in mankind's history, about 50 years, with no other alternative more did cycle. But if cycling was so viable, more would be doing it still. They are not because it simply isn't viable. They will be telling us we must all jog more next.

This is a blatant cycling lobby dishonest presentation so why is Our Prime Minister promoting it too?

But in many ways the video shoots itself and cycling in the foot. It shows cyclists riding fast among and close to things. That is exactly the reason that so many are in collisions and are killed or injured. Here they are, exposed on two flimsy wheels and a slender frame, mixing, mingling and competing with big essential moving machines. Of course it's highly dangerous. But they are not just a hazard to themselves. Drivers who hit one can do serious jail time and whenever transport needs to slow from a safe sixty MPH to 10MPH and then accelerate again, that costs the country money too. Multiply that by many thousands of times a day and imagine the cost to the community.

Since this video was made, incredibly the Select Committee didn't have the witnesses back as we requested, but actually recommended the bike maker's £10 a head from us all. This has since been ratified. Family of four? £40 per year, £650 million and no-one needs cycling at all.

It's not too late to tell Cameron that if he doesn't reverse it he's out at the next elections.
  

Tuesday 10 March 2015

A deliberately emotional anti driver Guardian story

Do read this Guardian story first.  It's all about a bereaved mother, Kerry Dean,
Kerry Dean
who's son was killed in a road accident, the driver left the scene, returned some hours later when he was tested and found to have evidence of drugs and drink in his blood. After a full investigation by police and a coroner, the driver was charged with whatever offences could be proven, but there was no evidence against him that he had caused the accident or that it was his fault. In total he was jailed for three years for the offences that were disclosed.

But that is not enough for Kerry or Pacts it seems. Here is a bit more about PACTS. and Much more here too. No friends of UK's drivers they.


Kerry is demanding drivers are jailed just because they have an accident it seems. She even wants the word accident not to be used, as all anti drivers do too so that more can be jailed for having a 'collision' and not an accident. The Guardian has now elevated her to that of an accident and road collision expert. Yet she clearly isn't aware that we already jail drivers for long sentences under existing law for careless or dangerous driving or  for causing death when on the phone, texting or even when not driving As in this example 


How dishonest and anti driver of The Guardian to paint a graphically emotive image at the start of the article, 'When he was found he had his hand curled up near his face in the position he had adopted to soothe himself since he was a baby'  then end it: 'Who cannot be dismayed by this story?'.No; not from the way it is written.

 Sorry Kerry, but how your son was when found has no bearing on the issue  Yes leaving this lad to die was reprehensible and worthy of its own severe punishment but that is not evidence of bad driving or that the accident was the driver's fault; even if it probably was. We cannot jail people for an accident without evidence of the cause and The Guardian should know that and gently explained it to Kerry instead of exploiting her grief.


Kerry wants passengers in vehicles held liable for leaving a scene of an accident too. Well they already are, as the article acknowledges. They can be guilty of perverting the course of justice which carries a two year sentence. But then why not charge bus passengers or by-standers who walk off too if we are to create a specific offence of leaving a casualty unaided as Kerry seems to be asking?  

The other two sad examples fall precisely into the same category. Bereaved becoming lawyers and experts yet motivated by grief, emotion and revenge because the available evidence wasn't good enough for them.


Then all becomes clear later in the piece. Now, feminists having changed the onus of evidence for rape, want exactly the same principles applied to road accidents.They want accident victims to be accorded the same victim-hood as for a deliberate crime or act.  They refuse to acknowledge that to rape and to murder is a deliberate act, but road accidents are exactly that. Unintentional and from a very dangerous scenario that society must have to exist. What these anti drivers simply cant accept is, that without drivers all of us would die, and from a scenario where people are mixing and mingling with heavy, fast machines of infrastructure there will be death and injury. But Look at the perspective here. and See less proof used in jailing drivers than murderers.


Well the anti drivers are the same people who don't like anything industrial and essential for our survival. The loud, left leaning, green, anti people people. Susanna Rustin and The Guardian may well be part of that movement and because of that drivers must use their voices against people like The Guardian who will exploit human grief to achieve their ends.


Promoting this, PACTs just demonstrates that when it comes to road safety and drivers, it really isn't objective at all. MPs please note.



We cannot run road safety by exploiting grief and emotion; it's a cheap stunt.


But be warned. Here it is in black and white. Like rape victim law, they are looking for the same principles against drivers to be applied now.  


Help us to prevent it.


www.driversunion.co







Friday 6 March 2015

Claire Perry is too anti driver to remain.

Claire Perry, MP for Devizes has already come to our attention in her support for anti driver cars & that they can be trusted to take our unaccompanied kiddies to school and collect them again safely having intelligently identified the local child snatcher and zapped him or her. See here. I mentioned the 'her' child snatchers since Claire is a feminist so wouldn't want women to be left out of that activity.

How do I know she's feminist? Well she has gone completely ga ga over a PC who has done nothing more than issue a fixed penalty ticket to a 'White Van Man who cut up a women cyclist.' Even to the point of blowing him a kiss no less.
As I write, the rest of the Cyclist Lobby have heaped so much praise on the PC Sims, not just from a minister but high ranking police officers too, that his action has been re tweeted over a thousand times and Favorited almost as much. My word. The possibility of a George Cross for so much courage in writing out a fixed penalty! Has the world gone mad? Here you can see a small sample of the tweets.   Well a tiny minority of the electorate can look quite massive when lobbying or on Twitter but nothing compared to the majority of the 33 million driver voters out there Claire. If only we could wake up this supine and silent majority! I live in hope that my next blog or even this one, may be the breakthrough.

What has caused all this excitement and joy among our cycling friends is that a driver, who was merely perceived to have cut up a cyclist, who has never complained so far, has been issued a fixed penalty for presumably driving without due care. 

We had vigorously opposed the use of fixed penalty for such a top driving offence on the basis that it warrants the full process of a court hearing and prior to this new option for lazy coppers, fixed penalty had only ever been reserved for absolute offences and not those of subjectivity as in this case. See more on this here. Would the PC have bothered unless he could just issue a ticket? My comment to him was that I would have made him prove his case at court and so should this driver have done too. 

But if drivers want to know about the anti driver war being run by the cycling lobby perhaps this tweet should convince them. 



As for Claire Perry, she really can't be so anti 33 million drivers and stay in office can she? Devizes drivers take note.