Tuesday 18 May 2010

‘more bad news for Britain’s motorists’

After speed cameras, road humps and mobile phone bans, there could be more bad news for Britain's motorists.

sobs an entity named Juliette Jowit. She’s could be writing for the Daily Express but in fact she’s the Observer's environment editor.

Notice that Ms. Jowit uses the standard sleight of hand of the car supremacist journalist by conflating dangerous, lawless motorists with ALL motorists. Would she write that resources deployed against rapists are ‘bad news for Britain’s men’?

Why should a speed camera be ‘bad news’ for a careful and lawful driver? The three restraints she mentions are all designed to reduce road carnage. Journalists who use the kind of formulations like Ms. Jowit are on the side of killing pedestrians and cyclists. When I read their shoddy reportage I often wonder just how many parking tickets and speeding convictions these journalists have personally clocked up, given their absolute obsession with representing the worst kind of driver as a hard-done-by victim mercilessly oppressed by the state.

Police are urging Ministers to give them the power to stop vehicles by remote control.

But when you read her story it turns out that police are doing no such thing.

In what will be seen as yet another example of the in-creasing power of Big Brother, drivers face the prospect of their cars being halted by somebody pushing a button.

An hysterical exaggeration, though it sounds a marvellous idea to me. I’d love a button on my bike which I could press, which would instantly bring all those fuckwit drivers on mobile phones sliding silently to a halt.

The police lobby is being led by Superintendent Jim Hammond of Sussex police, who chairs an Association of Chief Police Officers technology working group which is examining the idea. 'Providing an effective means to remotely stop a vehicle is fast becoming a priority,' Hammond told a European conference. 'The development of a safe and controlled system to enable remote stopping has the potential to directly save lives.'

However, Bert Morris, deputy director of the AA Motoring Trust said: 'People don't like the idea of Big Brother taking over their driving. In years to come that might be acceptable, but it's very, very important that there's a step-by-step approach.'

Yes, the AA will continue to resist every possible ‘road safety’ initiative to the very last pedestrian and cyclist corpse.

It’s interesting that

technology could cut the 3,420 deaths a year on Britain's roads by 59 per cent.

But as we know we now have a government that is bitterly opposed to average speed cameras, because they work. So I don’t think Ms. Jowit need fret.