M27 Traffic Lights

The petition is entitled Remove the traffic lights at the exit of the m27 onto the m271 and there are no explanatory notes.

As a consequence of the latter, I am left once again crying whyyyyyyyy?

I have even gone so far as to look at Wikipedia, which tells me that the M27/M271 junction is J3 of the M27, and further, that congestion occurs both ways on the M27 between J3 and J4. It seems possible, therefore, that this is why they want the traffic lights removed (there are currently 14 signatures). But who knows?

This petition has at least made me start to laugh again after the last one got me all cross.

Rewards for Those Without Cars

The petition is entitled reward people who don't have a car and the explanatory notes say

"Why not reward people who don't have a car (through poverty or through choice) with an annual benefit that would make using public transport more affordable? Paying people £500 or £1,000 a year for not having a car may make it easier for people to give up their vehicle if they don't use it much and reduce the temptation to travel short distances."

There's a lot to be said for a carrot-rather-than-stick culture. The only thing is - this is only going to be an encouragement to people who really can practically get rid of their cars. Most people really, really feel they can't. So while this would be a nice inducement to people like me (who already don't have cars!) it's not going to do a thing to encourage people like my mother (who needs her car to work) to use public transport more often.

Surely a better use of the money would be to make public transport cheaper for everybody, to encourage people who need cars some of the time to minimise their use?

Cars per Household Again

The petition is entitled Limit every household to just two cars and the explanatory notes say

"I am asking the Prime Minister to make it a criminal offence for every household in the UK to have more than two cars, regardless of the number of individuals living in the property. We need to take urgent action to stem our road use, ease congestion and protect the environment."

This is a far more sensible petition than the similar one I talked about in Cars per Household. So much so that I'm not about to label it a duplicate.

The only real flaw is defining what a household is. Are my five random stranger housemates and I a household? What about one family I used to know, who a few years ago consisted of two elderly but active parents and one middle-aged developmentally disabled son - who holds down a job as a mechanic very happily but isn't really capable of living alone (gods only know what'll happen to the poor chap when his parents have both died - as it is, he and his increasingly frail, now-widowed, mother lean on each other most touchingly!). It would have been hopelessly impractical for them to be restricted to two vehicles - and why on earth should three adults who choose to share a house have to be counted thus? We're forever being told that adult children (as it were) can't afford to leave home because of house prices - preventing them from having vehicles as well is inviting a world of unjust trouble!

Car Engine Size

The petition is entitled reatly reduce road tax on bigger engine and the explanatory notes say

"surely road tax is in place to pay for fixing/replacing roads? then how come 6 months tax for me costs £100, where an almost identical car with a 1.6 engine costs much less, even though the damage caused would be the same? this extra money doesn't even appear to be used for carbon exchange projects, but on other ways to tax us using technology (pay per mile, speed cameras, congestion charges etc)"

Actually, since a larger-engined car is heavier than an otherwise-identical car with a smaller engine, I imagine they cause more road damage ...

Flying Cars

The petition is entitled Fund research into the development and intergration of flying cars to British Airspace and the explanatory notes say

"Death, accidents and traffic jams are common throughout Britains roads, however there is an alternative that has been explored yet.

Flying cars will relive all traffic congestion, decrease the amount of time driving (direct routes) and cut deaths on the road to 0 as A) Cars wont be on the road to cause deaths B)If you have a flying car you will not want to crash it

So i urge the government to give more funding to this new form of eco-friendly travel."

Someone wanting to live in the 2000s predicted in the 1960s, I see ...

I'm particularly taken with "If you have a flying car you will not want to crash it". D'you know what - I don't think people want to crash their non-flying cars ...

Given how many bad drivers there are, I cannot imagine how disastrous this would be. And I'm also quite unconvinced by the idea of routes just being a free-for-all - on the one hand I'm not sure how you'd make it not be, but on the other I cannot imagine how chaotic a free-for-all would be.

And then there's the practicality ... Being airborne is tricky. It requires lots of effort. Personal helicopters, say, are not practical things to be around. A few very rich people haven't them causes little trouble, because aside from anything else they all-but-forcibly (possibly forcibly ... I'm not quite sure where to look up how, if at all, their use is restricted) land in controlled places and generally fail to be around the public.

I strongly suspect that no amount of research is going to make flight eco-friendly. It might, possibly, maybe, decrease congestion. The sheer energy-expenditure of keeping heavy things up in the air, however, is not going to be eco-friendly until and unless there's an eco-friendly method of energy generation and storage. And I really don't share your optimism that accidents would be reduced!

Probationary Driving Licences

The petition is entitled introduce a Graduated Driving Licence to include a two year probationary period after passing the practical test and the explanatory notes say

"During this probationary period newly qualified drivers must display P plates and must not carry more than one young passenger unless there is an adult over the age of 25 present (excluding parents carrying their own children). Drivers would not receive a full licence until they had safely completed this period which could be extended following traffic offences. This type of licence is the only measure shown internationally to have cut the rates of death and injury in this group."

This appears to be a better-phrased version of the petition I talked about in A Variation on Driving Ages. It doesn't discriminate against young people, and while it doesn't provide direct evidence, my prodding has indeed shown that (per the Department for Transport), several countries in the EU do indeed have measures like this, which presumably they believe to be effective. (I haven't actually found any evidence that they're effective as such. But I've found plenty of evidence that people believe they are, possibly for good reasons. Which is a start.)

The only thing - aside from "more bloody duplication" - that bothers me about this petition is the "not having other young people in the car without adults" bit. I suppose I see what it's getting at - the risk of young people inciting each other to idiocy. (And goodness knows I remember being in a race between two 18-yr-olds when I was 17. Terrifying. It happens.) Or perhaps rather than "young people" the petitioner merely means children, to not put them at risk or something. The DfT link doesn't suggest any other countries have this practice, however, so I'm not sure why the petitioner thinks it should be added.

OK, I'm biased. I grew up in rural Gloucestershire where public transport verged on non-existent. It was an enormous relief to my mother when my friends got old enough to drive so she no longer had to drive 30-mile round-trips regularly to take me to and from rehearsals. And of course it was a huge boon to one's social life when people started to be old enough to drive. Notwithstanding the aforementioned racing incident.

On the other hand, I'd probably add zero-alcohol-wossnames to the restrictions. Austria has this, and so too (from Wikipedia) do several Australian states.

At any event: a nice sensible petition overall, which is disadvantaged by being merely a sensibly-written version of a previous one.

A Variation on Driving Ages

The petition is entitled enforce all under 25's to show a P-plate for two years after passing driving test and the explanatory notes say

"In order to reduce the risk of serious accidents involving young inexperienced drivers, there should be a compulsory "P" plate to replace the "L" plate on passing the driving test. This would indicate to other road users that a) the driver has passed the driving test b) the driver is young c) the driver is inexperienced. The "P" plate would only be available on "lower-powered" cars, say less than 1.2 lt. At the end of 2 accident free years, a further test could be taken and then the restriction could be lifted. If a culpable accident occurs then consideration would be given to extending the duration of the P-plate. Anyone who should be on P-plate use and caught driving without would have their licence withdrawn and would need to be put through the standard test again."

At least this petitioner hasn't decided young people have no right to drive at all. I suppose that's progress.

I don't think I'm inherently opposed to this idea, either - in its very broadest outline. I don't see why it should only apply to new drivers under the age of 25, and I don't know that having a second test is terribly practical, or yet restricting it to "lower-powered" cars. Also I suspect it's hopelessly impractical - how on earth would you enforce it?

You'd need to change the law about learners - currently (providing you can get insurance) you can learn to drive in any kind of car. It would hardly be fair for you to learn in you parents' high-powered thing and then not be able to drive it having passed your test!

But the idea's not bad. It's just that the specifics don't seem well-thought-out.

Two More Driving Age Petitions

Two more petitions about driving ages, just like the ones I talked about in Driving Ages and Driving Ages Again.

The first petition is entitled Raise the minimum driving age from 17 years old to 25 years old and the explanatory notes say

"70% of accidents are caused by the youngest 30% of drivers. Raising the minimum driving age to 25 years would ease congestion, improve road safety and reduce the number of road-traffic accidents exponentially."

While 70% of accidents may be caused by the youngest 30% of drivers, I maintain that unless you've compared what proportion of accidents are caused by, say, the 30% most inexperienced drivers, you have no evidence at all that age is in the least bit relevant.

Further, I maintain that it's grossly unfair to arbitrarily select young people to penalise so strongly just to alleviate congestion.

The petition is entitled Increase the age of driving to 21 and the explanatory notes say

"I believe that if the age of learning to drive was increased to 20 with a year of learning before taking the test was put in place, this would dramatically reduce the accidents and road deaths due to immature drivers. This would also have a massive impact on current road conjestion (not reducing but keeping the level current) with very few new drivers taking to the roads, giving the government more time to tackle conjestion problems. It would also lower carbon emmisions and lower insurance premiums for safer drivers and force the government to improve public transport as more people would be forced to use rather than drive to work etc."

Aside from a temporary hiatus, you would presumably have exactly the same number of new drivers as you get now; they would just be doing it later.

Four petitions making exactly the same spurious, illogical, unscientific arguments. Only qualifying as not-duplicate, presumably, because they've each chosen a different arbitrary minimum age that would be "more acceptable" to them personally to have people driving at.

Motorway Lighting Again

The petition is entitled switch off lighting on motorways and main arterial routes and the explanatory notes say

"in France the motorways are unlit they do not have more accidents just less light polution and usage on the national grid thus saving energy and tax payers money while reducing light polution"

Fascinating petition - I thoroughly agree with it. Distinct contrast (and this is the only reason it's actually fascinating) to the petition I talked about in Motorway Lighting which demands more motorway lighting.

Now, it's true that my mother, whose night-sight isn't good, does try to time the drive home (to Gloucestershire) South from here (Co. Durham) so that, if at all possible, the only bit she does in the dark is the bit past Birmingham, where the motorway's lit up. But I'm fairly sure that's as much to do with familiarity as lighting (rats, why didn't I ask her on the phone earlier?)

At any event, I agree with the sentiment and mostly am only posting about it to highlight the interesting contrast.

Reduce Fuel Tax

The petition is entitled Reduce the tax we motorists pay on fuel, and to have a maximum cap on fuel tax and the explanatory notes say

"When the recent petrol prices hit over £ per litre and over £1.10 per litre of diesel, the government were earning more in tax, the real price per litre if tax was capped would have been closer to 94pence approximately, but even this is TOO high, we pay the highest fuel duty in the world, and we need to stop paying extortionate amounts of money for fuel, These motorists are doctors, nurses, teachers, and so on. Without these people the country will stop."

My mother is a practice nurse who does home visits to her patients, so I am reasonably aware of the need for nurses, doctors, etc., to drive professionally.

That does not in any way, shape or form justify cutting fuel tax. If a person is required to drive for their job and considers that their pay shouldn't be covering the fuel costs, they should be coming to some arrangement with their employers to claim back the fuel costs incurred in their work. (My mother's mileage situation has changed since I actually lived in a house with her and I'm not 100% sure what arrangement she has currently. But some arrangement exists, certainly.)

To cut taxes for vast quantities of people in order to spare merely a few, when those few could easily be re-compensated in some other way, is ludicrous beyond belief.

I'm prepared to think it's possible that this petitioner is a well-meaning person to whom this idea (claiming costs back) hasn't occurred. But it seems to me equally likely that he's someone who objects to paying tax on his fuel as it is and thinks that this emotive argument might help him. He is, I sincerely trust, wrong, if this is his aim.

Private Sector Road Priority

The petition is entitled Give Private Sector Motorist Priority on the roads and the explanatory notes say

"Private sector employees and businesses pay taxes that keep the rest of the country moving. Yet they share the roads with public sector motorist, pensioners and school run trips, causing billions of pounds in delayed commuting to work for PS workers.

Non PS car drivers only draw from the taxes paid by PS workers, and then pay it back in to the system. They do not contribute to the wealth of the country.

Private sector workers should be given priority to get to over public sector workers, pensioners and school run trips. They should also be exempt from speeding fines, clamping, parking and other traffic offences. Traffic lanes should be coloured red for PS workers and normal tarmac for the rest. Any driver found in the private lane who is not a registered PS worker should be banned from driving for a year and forced to pay large fines.

2 plus lane schemes should be used to support private sector commuters and not school run families."

This, surely, has to be a joke or satire? He surely is aware that, for example, all road-users pay taxes on their road use, and indeed that everyone pays tax on any income and VAT on things they buy and so on and so forth? Surely?

Really, I'm just flagging this for your attention, be it horror-struck or humorous depending on how real you think the petition is (I'm oscillating, myself, between thinking no one could be this daft and fearing that actually they could ...)

Anti-Congestion Rewards

The petition is entitled consider using reward rather than punishment in anti polution/congestion taxation and the explanatory notes say

"We always seem to be taxed more as a way of stopping us doing anti social things. Why not consider rewarding us for not doing something. For example, to help reduce congestion on our roads, we could offer a reduced rate road tax which would only allow the vehicle to be used at quieter times, (ie through the night.) If we could encourage freight to move during the night, then the roads would benefit during the busy daytimes. In the same way, if freight were moved by rail or even canals, then there should be a tax benefit. In short, reward instead of punsment."

The second part of this is a good idea - incentives to encourage freight transport by rail or canal sound like an excellent plan to me, and if a way could be found to encourage companies to transport road freight at night I'd certainly be a happier driver!

The problem, though, is the "if". The same problem applies to the first idea - how on earth do you police the "night driving only" tax disk? Quite impossible.

I suppose in the event of serious vehicle-tracking systems coming into play it might be possible to do that way ... but ... eeeek and yuck and oh, the civil liberties issues ... I don't think this one's going anywhere, I really don't.

Petrol Pricing and Rounding Errors

The petition is entitled Fuel Pricing to the Whole Penny and the explanatory notes say

"Lets put a stop to fuel companies charging 91.9p, 90.5p, for fuel by the litre. Lets get them to make it to the whole penny after all check your wallet. Anybody out there .1 of a penny."

Anybody out there ever bought 1l of petrol? Anybody out there think this pricing format is actually harming anyone? Anybody out there actually think this matters?

No? You amaze me!

Road Rationing

The petition is entitled find a means of rationing congested road-space which does not rely on pricing and the explanatory notes say

"We object to road-pricing which tends to reserve congested roads for those who can afford to pay. There are other possible methods of rationing apart from pricing. We need innovative solutions, based on technology, need, equity and the general public interest."

Well, that's a really meaningful petition, then!

"I object to this - find a better way". No suggestions on what way would be acceptable; a declaration that there are other possible methods, but no details on what they are.

"Innovative solutions" - meaningless twaddle. "Equity"? What on earth?

Just a load of pointless wibble. Pity the poor moderator or political skivvy who has to respond - though I suppose those experienced at spinning can spin an answer as meaningless as the content quite easily. Pah.

Driving Ages Again

The petition is entitled Increase the minimum legal age to drive cars to 20 years old and the explanatory notes say

"If the minimum legal age to start driving a car was 20 years old, congestion would immediately be cut by a certain percentage, and the roads would be safer as a result, because young people would have had the chance to grow up a little and calm down ... before taking to the road. There would also, as a result of this proposed change, be less accidents."

Oh look, an almost identical petition to the one I talked about in Driving Ages yesterday. OK, this one says 20 instead of 19, but ... people really ought to look for duplicates.

The Facts and Figures page for the Petitions site says (emphasis mine):

"An early question for the site's administrators was what to do about petitions which were identical or very similar to ones already on the site. Some users contacted us saying that duplicate petitions should be rejected, because they add confusion and clutter the site. On the other hand, we felt it was unfair to pick one petition from a number of similar proposals, and reject the rest.

As a first step, mySociety, the charity who built the site for us, added a search box to the petition creation process, prompting users to check whether they would like to sign an existing petition before creating a new one. Eventually, though, we decided to change site policy to reject petitions which appear to be duplicates. However, if a user feels strongly that their petition really is different from others, they are still able to resubmit."

Presumably, therefore, the either the moderators didn't think that this constituted a duplicate petition (odd), or the creator of this petition didn't. Either way someone was a muppet.

And that's before we point out that the petitioner's a muppet for thinking this, too.

I don't believe accident rates are high among the young because they're young. I believe it's because they're inexperienced. This Nottingham University research project's brief suggests that it's the inexperience not the youth that causes it, but admittedly I can't find any studies saying so specifically. So it's my opinion against the petitioner's, I suppose. But this is my blog, so I'm going to say they're muppets and I'm right.

I suppose I should say that I suppose it's possible that congestion would be reduced. But at what cost? You could reduce congestion by banning any age-group or any other arbitrary group from driving: it doesn't seem justified to do so, though.

Driving Ages

The petition is entitled Make the minimum driving age of 19 and the explanatory notes say

"17 years of age is too young. Lives could be saved because at 17 people are not mature enough to command a vehicle."

Firstly, I don't see why seventeen is too immature to command a vehicle, nor why nineteen should be expected to be so much more mature.

And secondly, I think that this would cost lives, not save them. Learning to drive is a filthy expensive experience; costs are greatly reduced for those fortunate enough to have parents with cars they can practice in. Ultimately, people are better drivers for this practice. Shifting the age up would drastically reduce the number of people who would be able to supplement their learning this way - so many people leave home at 18! - which would benefit no one.

Unjustified rubbish!

(P.S. I have come to realise that there are "themes" to these petitions, above and beyond classifications like "Green Ink Brigade" and so on. So I'm going to start labelling them as such. Gradually I'll go back and edit in these new classifications, too. Hence the new classification: Transport. Lots of petitions are on this theme, after all.)

Cars per Household

The petition is entitled make it by law no more than 2 vehicles per household and the explanatory notes say

"2 adults and 3 children in late teens,early 20s.. mum and dad have car each. 2 of the children have cars for knocking about .. 1 has a car for college.. dad also has van for work.. 6 vehicles per household.. make mum drop dad at work to get van.. make 1 of the kids drop the other 2 off and get the bloody bus back.."

Why?

I know what I would say about why, were I mad enough to be putting this petition. But this isn't me, this is you - and you're giving no reason at all. I would say that because vehicles make a bad environmental impact just by being made, encouraging people to have fewer is a good idea. But then I wouldn't talk about banning, only encouragement.

If people can afford to have this many vehicles, and can park them, why shouldn't they? If it's an environmental issue, say so. If it's something else, say.

Household is a terribly tricky term. I have five housemates; we share a kitchen, sitting room, bathroom, loo and shower. Where we live we're only entitled to two parking permits in the house - even though we're six unconnected, unrelated strangers who happen to rent rooms-plus-space in the same house. This is annoying but understandable: parking's very limited. We just have to manage, when there are more than two housemates with cars. (At the moment I think there are exactly two with cars, but since they're just random housemates who I don't know that well, I'm not actually certain.) And we do manage - there are ways to organise around parking. (Permits are only needed between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Saturday, and we can get a limited number of Visitors' Permits; between people being out at work and Visitors' Permits we've managed, when it's been necessary.) We couldn't manage around such a ban: you'd have to not define us as a household. And why, then, should a family who happen to live together be penalised, just because they're related?

Not workable, not justifiable, nonsensical.

Welsh Road Signs

The petition is entitled Remove Welsh language from road signs in Wales and the explanatory notes say

"This is political correctness gone mad. Whilst a third of Welsh people can understand some of their language, only a tiny proportion of these use it on a day to day basis. Dual language signing serves only to confuse motorists and may cause accidents in situations where quick decisions are needed."

I grant that the petitioner has a point about how few people use Welsh - the numbers who genuinely have it as a first, preferred, language are very small - I think he's out of his tree if he thinks it's confusing. Given that drivers are bombarded with superfluous information in the way of adverts, for example (on hoardings and on lorries) and indeed might easily be distracted by, well, anything around them, were they so easily distracted ... If he's that easily distracted, I would prefer he didn't drive, to be honest.

Tarmac All the Railways

The petition is entitled tarmac over all railways, and make them into super hyways and the explanatory notes say

"railways seem doomed to failure, a thing of the past."

Oi! I don't have a car! I get travel-sick in buses! I need trains! You can't have them!

Furthermore, a "super hyway", or even "road", generally needs to be rather wider than sets of train tracks are, so something tells me it wouldn't be quite as straightforward as that.

This is one of those "they're trying to make a satirical point about the government transport policy, aren't they, not being actually serious, aren't they? Please tell me they are ..." petitions. He can't possibly mean it - right?

The petitioner knows the environmental benefits of train over road, doesn't he? And knows how ghastly it would be, say, for all commuters to have to either take (slow) buses or all drive and therefore have to have parking and ... Argle. It's just a horrific idea. And mad. And incomprehensible.

It has to be satire. I hope.

Channel Tunnel

The petition is entitled "CLOSE THE EURO TUNNEL" and the explanatory notes say

"Close the Euro Tunnel. Since it's opening it has been the main illegal immigrant route into the UK. It is also the easiest route into the UK for would be terrorists. It's time this country regained it's once great security and border controls."

Arrrgh! Possessive "its" has NO APOSTROPHE.

It is enormously difficult to find figures for how many illegal immigrants come into the UK via the Channel Tunnel and how many by other means. So either the petitioner has a secret source of information, or he's blustering with a lack of data.

Would-be terrorists ... a curious group. The men who carried out the London Underground bombings on the 7th July 2005 were all legally resident in the UK - three of them (I think) were British citizens. The men who have been charged with the attempted attacks on London on the 21st July 2005 were more diverse, but the BBC's report says that of the six one was a legal UK resident and two were British citizens - they don't mention the status of the other three. I believe that most of the men held responsible for the 11th September 2001 attacks on the US were also in the country legally.

Most of the terrorism that's taken place on UK soil in the past has of course been related to Northern Ireland - and generally, therefore, carried out by British or Irish citizens with every right to be in the country.

In short: terrorists? Rubbish! Do your research!