Hello everybody
Just a word of warning to those of you who live outside London and at some time may consider coming down this way for a meet.
Either leave the car at home or park and ride in. I drive an HGV on nights and normally
our first run of the night involves going into cental London. The traffic wardens in Westminster are dyed-in-the-wool gold plated Bastards. If you stop to ask directions they slap a ticket on your motor. Even us delivering to the numerous stores we have in the area are not immune, the record so far is three tickets in one unloading session, which took about an hour. If your car is uplifted and impounded, it's 200 quid plus to get it back.
Harry & Wendy please note : if God created the North, Ken Livingstone has sure as shit created the South, ( well, London anyway ).
Be Warned !!!
Benji
Why would anyone want to take there car into central London? Compared with the rest of the country the public transport is so efficent there is no need for anyone (possible exceptions the disabled or those transporting goods) to block up the roads with their little metal only thing Ken Livingston has done wrong on this issue is not make the charge high enough or the area large enough.
Transporting goods is another , I would accept that some form of road transport is necessary for this, but I have often wondered why deliveries cannot be done more efficiently and perhaps outside of normal shoppping hours, therefore causing less problems to predestrians and other road users.
I wish all people thought like you and left their cars at home, but unfortunately they don't
do they.
If you don't like the sight of our ghastly lorries delivering the goods you buy, then I suggest you strike up a conversation with Tesco to work out what time is convenient for us to deliver the stuff you all want 24/ 7.
The reason you see our vehicles delivering from the road or across the pavement is due to the fact that inconsiderate car drivers have usually blocked the desgnated unloading area.
There's an old saying in the haulage industry :
IF YOU'VE GOT IT, A LORRY BROUGHT IT.
benji
I understand what your saying but given that we are currently being told that there is a national shortage of qualified HGV drivers and given that lorries take up so much room on our roads and emit so much pollution isnt it about time that this country looked at other forms of transport for goods?
The obvious solution is rail but it seems our present goverment is incappable of arranging a decent service for people let alone for goods!! The canals are also underused. Of course neither of these is going to get goods to central London branches of Tesco so some lorries are always going to be necessary.!
A more radical solution is neighbourhood shops that can compete with with major supermarkets. Govement could make this possible by lowering business rates for such shops and maybe even giving grants!! Radical but not only does it mean less lorries trainling to large stores but also means people dont need to take their cars to shop. Less pollution all round.
It's the old argument isn't it, trains v road.
Even if you had nice corner shops, you've still got to get the goods to them. A train can't do it.
As for public transport in London, trains and buses are just dirty cattle tucks aren't they.
This thread started off as me trying to save people anguish and money, but I've ended up
defending my existence as a truck driver.
Funny old world, innit
Thanks TallnHairy
I've been driving these things for 28 years now and still got a clean licence.
Nice to know someone understands.
Benji
TallnHairy
I'm a fair bit older than you, but I'd like to buy you a pint of ale one day mate.
Don't worry, Mrs Benji will be there too.
Hi Foxylady
Yeah, with a bunk in the back
Benji
Research from the University of Lancaster reported today concludes that trains are not more environmentally friendly than cars. They have become so heavy complying with health and safety requirements and DDA compliance that they are less fuel efficient than cars per seat. The automotive industry has made great strides in fuel efficiency recently but the rail industry has gone backwards.
The big issue to be sorted is vehicle occupancy in cars to reduce congestion.
Anyway they now say that a family of four travelling in their car from Edinburgh to London is about as envirnmentally friendly as you can get.
Where on earth did you get those ideas from?
Unnesessary cycle lanes are being used by TfL purely as an obstacle to drivers, with no thought to the safety of cyclists. We've alread seen the first death due to this - take a look at
Obstructive traffic light sequences are being used by TfL to annoy dirvers so much they use alternative routes. Who is more likely to kill a pedestrian, an annoyed driver or a calm one?
As for athsmatics, try standing behind a badly maintained diesel powered London bus for a while and see if you still think modern small-engined cars with catalytic converters are the source of the problem. Cutting out all the obstacles to driving, and providing adequate parking, would allow drivers to get to where they want to be quicker, meaning their cars spend less time on the road, and put out less polution. TfL's policy is to increase journey times and therefore increase pollution.
Small other idea on this growing topic, electric cars in cities not that uncommon but they hit by same 'traffic calming'... The fuel source needs to be worked on, the idea of personal transport is not the problem, walking, bus, or driving, we're all people who need to get from a - b... modern transport policy seems to focus on making driving as hard as possible to 'encourage' us to use other methods regardless of enviromental impact, it about the latest fashon...
You ever tried to shop with a family on a bus? Mass transport has some answers, bikes another way, walking is good, but to try and 'push' people into them is not the answer. Making car drivers lives hell (like filling in all the bus stops to make busses act as a traffic calming measures) is just plain stupid. Its not traffic calming, its traffic annoying, and tense drivers are more likely to make a mistake...
How often I have been bounced around by 'Speed humps' doing 15 miles an hour in a 30 limit, I still get shaken up. You try that with a spinal casualty, or even the more common broken arm, it hurts... Lets focus on good cycle lanes, lets have good cheap busses, lets have well lit paths and good pedestrian lights or bridges over roads. All this is good.
Lets not decide that to have this we need to put lumps in our roads, slow everyone to 20 MPH so pedestrians can chose to walk out without looking more safely and get busses to drive slow down roads with no overtaking areas.
We need as much effort in keeping roads useable as everything else, good police work can easily catch speeders we dont need 'traffic calming'. Just because I need to drive to get to work I am just as 'good' a person as someone who live 5 minutes walk away from their office and walks, and have just as much right to get there.
So before anyone talks about more traffic calming think about this, would you encourage bus users to walk by removing the seats???
Well said.
TfL are already taking the seats out of tube trains just so they can cram more people in :-(
wow, a political debate on a swinger's forum!? :-) For you guys in central London, like my self, I recommend Rio's (sauna/swing club) as it's the most centrally located, convenient for tube, some good pubs close by. I walk home myself which gives me some time thinking about all the sexy fun that happened previously! :-)