A new study by short-term insurance provider, Veygo, has revealed that if you’re looking to let the train take the strain, you could be charged as much as £40 PER DAY to park your car in the station car park. In a typical working year (less weekends and holiday), that could equate to as much as £9,000.

Of course that’s with a London weighting, surely once you get outside of London, things are much cheaper? Selly Oaks in the West Midlands has free parking, as does Kirkby in Merseyside, and you’ll pay just £2.40 for a whole day of parking in Benfleet, Essex.

However, Reading station charge £25 per day, Glasgow and Edinburgh charge £24 & £22 respectively, and Manchester Piccadilly want £21 for a day’s parking. Cheap at almost half the price of St. Pancras.

Intervention

We’re forever being told that we should use mass transit or public transportation to help the environment, and aside from the argument that in most cases, it really isn’t that great or reliable, we need to factor in costs.

Rail fares are due to be increased again in January, which will push the average price of a season ticket up by a further £100, which also means for the first time ever, average prices will be above £3,000.

Add in a extra few thousand pounds for parking, and you have yourself the potential to buy a cleaner, greener vehicle that’s capable of transporting you and your family, with shopping or luggage to the exact destination you wish to be.

Whether you agree or disagree with the left-leaning politics, there’s an argument to be made regarding nationalising mass transit, just to stamp out the blatant profiteering and extortion from the privately-owned companies behind the networks.

Politicking

It doesn’t matter who is in power, or whether you believe that mass transit will never be the solution that’s required, surely, if the authorities want to promote the use of this kind of transport, they should  do more to subsidise passenger costs, or even implement regulations to prevent the disparity throughout the country.

Charging by popularity rather than actual cost makes a great business case, but effectively, the authorities are promoting the use of these networks, and the network operators are benefitting hand-over-fist thanks to this coercion. Shouldn’t something be done?

Yes, there’s an argument that real estate prices need to be accounted for, you’d expect some discrepancy between the Southern areas and those further North, but £9,000 difference is greed, pure and simple.

Most expensive rail car parks

Of course, we could leave the car at home, walk or cycle to the station if we’re young and fit enough, but that’s a solution for the minority, not the majority. After a quick search, for me to travel to London early morning, and back early evening, I’d be looing at £141 for the rail fare, and a further £12 to park – £153 against a rough cost of £50 (inc ULEZ and Congestion).

Is it really that surprising that passengers are choosing their car over rail travel? A third of the price, with all of the convenience. Add in a family and the differences really stack up.

Despite some protestations in other articles, I’m all for trying to help reduce air pollution, live a cleaner lifestyle and reduce my carbon footprint, but if I had to do that three times a week, it would be cheaper to rent a room than travel, and that just can’t be right.

Top 10 car parks

The top ten most expensive (outside of London) and cheapest rail car parks  are:

In the interest of fairness, it’s worth pointing out that along with travel season tickets, a number of the station car parks also offer parking season tickets, which could reduce the charge significantly – Reading station for example offer a season ticket for ‘just’ £1,850, which could see a saving of around £3,775 over standard rates.

But of course, that begs the question … if they can offer parking for that cheaper price, and still make a profit, why are they blatantly ripping off other motorists?

What are your thoughts? Should the government step in and regulate the prices? Are the station operators just being greedy? Let us know in the comments.

“Grately Railway Station, Hampshire.” by Mike Cattell is licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

Bristol City Council is aiming for the fastest improvement in air quality to meet legal nitrogen dioxide (NO2) targets in a bold plan with more aggressive measures than those used in London. In what would be a landmark ruling, Bristol could be the first UK city to ban all diesel private passenger cars.

The council’s proposals also recommend a charging Clean Air Zone (CAZ) for non-compliant commercial vehicles and if the government approves the plans and changes the law to put a diesel car ban in place, both reforms could come into effect March 2021.

Up in the air

Bristol City Council (who have received £1.65million from the government to fund how they would tackle the city’s air pollution) have spent £1million and missed two earlier deadlines resulting in the government threatening legal action and granting an extension while ordering them to produce a plan.

Earlier in the year, the council proposed two ways to get NO2 levels down to the European Union target. Their first option proposed a ban on all diesel vehicles from the city centre between the hours of 7 am and 3 pm, while the second was to introduce a clean air charging zone akin to the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in London only for commercial vehicles, with fees of up to £100 a day.

The council left the plans open for the public vote, over six weeks throughout the summer, with the most popular of the two options to go to the Bristol City Council’s Cabinet. They received over 5,000 responses with 3,414 respondents saying they thought a CAZ would be a good way to improve air quality and 66% of people were ‘very concerned’ about the health impacts of air pollution.

In many parts of the city, air pollutants exceed legal and safe European and World Health Organisation limits and need reducing as a matter of urgency to lessen the impact on health, but the council forecast they wouldn’t meet legal limits until 2028 and so are proposing a third, hybrid plan, which combines both options and which they’ve estimated will hit the city’s NO2 legal target by 2025.

A modest proposal?

Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, acknowledging the proposals were ambitious, feels they prove the council’s dedication to tackling air quality so they meet legal limits within the shortest time, without ‘disproportionally affecting citizens on lower incomes’ which he says will happen with a ‘blanket approach’ to charging vehicles.

‘Protecting the most vulnerable people from pollution is central to these plans, and we have ensured that all impacts have been carefully considered.

‘If approved, mitigation measures will support those most affected, especially those living in the most deprived communities’, said the mayor.

Nicholas Lyes, Head of Roads Policy for the RAC, says that while the motoring organisation recognises that Bristol must improve the city’s pollution, the impact of the proposals on diesel owners would be ‘unprecedented’.

‘Major routes into, out of, and even around the city—like Temple Way and Brunel Way—would become out of bounds, with diesel vehicles forced onto other roads, which risks causing congestion problems where they don’t exist at the moment.

‘Bristol has bold plans to improve its public transport system, but major improvements like its mooted rapid transit system or even more park and ride sites are still many years from becoming a reality,’ he added.

Mr Lyes said that many motorists must use their cars for journeys because of a lack of economical and reliable alternatives and that not everybody can afford the penalty of an early exit from their car finance packages.

The council also propose a scrappage scheme, but Mr Lyes said it could be very expensive for owners of older cars to switch to something different and that the RAC worries the scrappage scheme wouldn’t get drivers into cleaner cars because they’re too expensive.

Mixed feelings

Bristol is my closest city. It was my place of work (and partying) for eight wonderful years and I almost moved there. This story is therefore close to my heart, and I wanted to see what the locals had to say on the matter.

Responses from residents online are mixed. Somebody wrote that the latest diesel cars are cleaner than petrol engines and so the council’s plans are ‘complete overkill and wrong’. Another claimed most people rely on their cars because public transport isn’t affordable or reliable and clean cars cost more than most can afford.

Others are happy with the proposals, congratulating Bristol and telling them to ‘ban all cars, get the lazy gits on the buses.’

Somebody else claimed he had reduced his asthma treatment by half and no longer needed to remove ‘black sludge’ from his windscreen each day after moving from Hotwells to Lawrence Weston and the impact on health from poor air quality is something we can’t dispute.

According to a King’s College London and UK100 report, higher pollution days in the city cause four more cardiac arrests and an additional 18 hospital admissions for asthma or strokes amongst children and adults. We know air pollution can cause permanent lung damage in babies and young children and the worsening of lung and heart disease in older people. In fact, it leads to about 300 premature deaths for Bristol residents each year.

Council data shows that 40% of Bristol’s NO2 pollution comes from diesel cars, while diesel buses and coaches produce 23%, and 22% of emissions come from diesel vans. While the mayor is under a legal obligation to produce a clean air plan to protect the people of Bristol, we have to ask—will the proposals just move air pollution to the outer suburbs? And what about the impact on the poorest and most disadvantaged in the city?

One thing on which I think we can agree is that we need the government to change our transport system to one that fulfils the present and future needs of both our society and our planet, or in common parlance, one that is ‘shipshape and Bristol fashion’.

The Outline Business Case (OBC) went to a cabinet meeting yesterday (Tuesday 5th November). If approved, the proposals go to the Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU) before a final plan submission to government next year. The deadline for implementation is March 2021.

What do you think of Bristol City council’s proposals? How could the council improve upon their plans? Will the proposed ban affect you? Tell us in the comments.

“Cycling Bristol” by Tejvan Pettinger is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

We often hear about ‘range anxiety’ when talking about electric vehicles, of course it refers to the angst you feel when travelling anything further than your regular journey, or pushing the limits of the range; will you make it to your destination?

Charging stations are becoming commonplace, although still not quite as readily available or accessible as traditional garage forecourts, and of course, by their very nature could be occupied for some time, but researchers at Penn State University in the U.S. may have the answer.

80% charge in half an hour

Manufacturers of electric vehicles are constantly developing methods to increase charge rates, or lessen charge time, to make the whole process of driving a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) as convenient as possible – it really wasn’t that along ago that running out of charge meant a ten-hour (at least) wait, while the electricity trickled through the cells at a snail’s pace.

Most mainstream manufacturers now offer something like an 80% charge in thirty minutes, but even that figure still lags way behind the traditional internal combustion refuel where the longest wait could be in the queue to pay for it.

This is just one of the reasons that people quote as to why they’d never own a BEV, or why an all-electric vehicle will never have the same dominance as ICE. But what if you could completely recharge in ten minutes?

New process, same tech

Recharging batteries (be that a regular lead-acid, phone, camera … pretty much any battery) faster than recommended has always been able to be done, but invariably it damages the battery and shortens the lifespan; be that the life of the battery itself, or the charge it holds.

And when you hear that replacement batteries can cost thousands of pounds (a Nissan Leaf battery pack for example will cost £4920), it’s the wise choice to do all you can to prevent damaging the batteries, and maximise their life.

Lithium-ion batteries are no different – rapid charging will lead to degradation; at lower temperatures, the ions end up as spikes on the anode electrode rather than having a smooth finish, in a process called ‘lithium plating’. This leads to reduced capacity and potentially premature failure. The way to avoid lithium plating is to charge at higher temperatures.

However, heating the battery is not without problems either; while it avoids the plating issue, it can deteriorate the battery in other ways, so the key is to find the sweet spot.

The Penn State team have found that by heating the batteries to 60C, and then rapidly cooling them to ambient temperatures, lithium plating is avoided, as is heat damage – the best of both worlds.

New battery

To make this technology work, the team have developed a new battery which incorporates a thin nickel foil, which when activated, creates an electrical circuit that heats the internal structure of the battery in less than 30 seconds, the cooling effect comes from the vehicle’s own cooling system.

Professor Chao-Yang Wang at Penn State said: “We demonstrated that we can charge an electrical vehicle in 10 minutes for a 200 to 300-mile range, and we can do this maintaining 2,500 charging cycles, or the equivalent of half a million miles of travel. The 10-minute trend is for the future and is essential for adoption of electric vehicles because it solves the range anxiety problem.”

Essentially, this could be great news for buyers that have, up until now, been putting off a purchase of a BEV due to worries over charging, but as with all things technology related, this will mean a further increase in purchase price until the tech is readily and widely adopted.

It has taken around ten years of constant development for regular electric vehicles to even get close to their ICE counterparts in terms of purchase price, and the majority of that price differential was always accounted for by battery prices, so it’s likely that a return to newer battery technology could once again push those prices upwards.

With that said, the whole BEV market is really still in its infancy, it will take decades of development for the tech to plateau, just the same as the internal combustion engine. No doubt that we’ll see waves of new technology being introduced which will lead to a surge in pricing, before settling back down again – there will be a constant ebb and flow of pricing, right up until the ‘next big thing’.

There was most definitely a time that motorists, journalists, and ‘petrolheads’ laughed at the thought of an electric vehicle becoming mainstream, but that time is almost here, and thanks to technology and processes, these new vehicles will be better than anything that has preceded them.

What do you think … will reduced charge times be enough to turn the tables for you? Should we just embrace BEVs with the same vigour as we do (did?) the petrol engine? Let us know in the comments.

“Electric Car” by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine Photostream is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

While I’m sometimes dismissive of a handful of new driving regulations, and feel that the authorities are too reliant on using technology to ‘spy’ on us, without discretion, lenience or the ability to put our case, there does come a time when they seem to get things right.

Until recently, to be prosecuted for using a mobile phone at the wheel, you had to be using the device for communication – text messaging or calls etc, and although there are circumstances that could see you prosecuted for using the phone for other uses, they were in the minority.

In 2018, a member of the public was convicted for using his phone to film the aftermath of a road accident while driving through it, he appealed the conviction in the High Court and was cleared. Lady Justice Thirlwall said: “The legislation does not prohibit all use of a mobile phone held while driving.”

“It prohibits driving while using a phone for calls and other interactive communication – and holding it at some stage during that process.”

Closing the loophole

Research by the RAC has shown that 17% of UK drivers admit to checking their phones for texts, emails and social media while driving, and 35% of the under-25s regularly do so.

In 2017, there were 773 incidents of road traffic collisions where the driver using a mobile phone was to blame, this includes 43 fatalities, and 135 serious injuries. Clearly, the drastic cut in police numbers (just under 30% in a decade) has exacerbated the problem.

But similar to a number of other legal actions and processes, the authorities are now turning to technology to enforce new regulations; new HD cameras that use a combination of ‘sophisticated algorithms’ and artificial intelligence to determine whether a driver is using their phone, and it won’t matter for what reason.

Hi-tech cameras

Highways England are currently trialling hi-tech cameras that attach to the overhead gantries, and are capable of automatically detecting, photographing, and sending to the relevant authorities, hi-def pictures showing the driver using their phone; a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) will shortly follow.

Similar systems trialled in Australia earlier this year, caught more than 100,000 motorists trying to cheat the system (in just six months), and it’s hoped that there will be similar results in the UK. A spokesman for the Department of Transport (DfT) said that “some very early trial work on technology to detect mobile phone usage on the strategic road network is in place” and the results were encouraging.

The end of the Police

While this is yet another nail in the coffin for the police, with the government outsourcing more processes to technology, you’d have to argue that while technology may have many, wonderful uses, policing the roads to this extent shouldn’t really be one of them.

The reliance on tech means that the government (and it really doesn’t matter which one) can almost justify the decrease in numbers, spending and budget; with ‘criminals’ being caught 24/7 through the use of cameras, why should they spend more money on actual human resource to get the job done?

But this is a very short-sighted view (but would we expect anything less?) from the ministers and politicians – there will come a day when cars virtually police themselves; they already have the technology to adjust speeds, and of course when they’re fully autonomous, accidents will be fewer, speeding will be albeit impossible, and it won’t matter whether you’re making calls, sending video messages or updating your social media.

So then we could perhaps turn to other ‘real’ crime, except that the numbers of police will have dwindled so much, and the expertise in catching criminals forgotten, and the ‘thin blue line’ will be so thin, as to be non-existent.

Technology may be great for simple, repetitive and mundane tasks such as catching motorists flouting the law, but not great for chasing down the burglar running from a crime scene, or stopping the drug dealer from handing out parcels of junk on the street corner, for this, we need human resource.

Breaking the law

I’m genuinely pleased that the tech exists to catch drivers using mobile phones (for whatever reason), I think they’re a scourge of our society, and repeat offenders should actually lose their licence, but the politicians, law makers and authorities need to understand that motoring crimes aren’t the be all and end all.

Any monies saved through the use of technology should be fed back into the system to develop further resource, not be seen as a bonus to pay the politicians for sleeping in the Commons.

What do you think to the tech? Should repeat offenders lose their privilege to drive? Are the authorities heading down a slippery slope? Let us know in the comments.

“Using a mobile phone while driving stock photo” by DPP Law is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A sorry figure

The latest DVLA figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show police nabbed over 200 17-year-olds who had just passed their driving tests and over 40 children aged 15 and 16—all behind the wheel with drugs in their system.

Six people lost their licences after causing death while driving while intoxicated with substances that included cannabis and cocaine.

Some of those whose offences resulted in the death (of at least one other) received a four-year driving ban as punishment and while DVLA data doesn’t show if courts handed out custodial sentences, few offenders go to prison.

Drivers in their late twenties are the most serious offenders. Age 25 is when most people get disqualified because of driving while intoxicated with drugs.

The middle-aged and elderly didn’t have clean records, either. Courts prosecuted 78 motorists over the age of 60 for failing drugs tests. The eldest to lose their licence was a 74-year-old woman.

Figures show that men offend the most, with 18,175 prosecutions, compared with 1,440 women.

The figures include those prosecuted for driving or being in charge of a vehicle when unfit, driving or attempting to drive with a drug level above the specified limit, and causing death by careless driving.

Driving under the influence of drugs became a recognised criminal offence in 2015. In the 12 months following the law change, a police survey showed that when officers from 26 forces stopped motorists on suspicion of taking drugs and carried out 5,857 roadside drug tests, 3,718 tested positive.

‘Google it’

Campaigners say police miss many other drugged lawbreakers because officers stop and test fewer motorists at the roadside since the number of road policing officers fell by a third in the last 10 years.

David Jamieson, who was once a Transport Minister with responsibility for road safety, now West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, said:

‘These figures are staggering. The reality is drug driving is a hidden epidemic. A lot of people think they can get away with it because so few police are on the roads and the likelihood of being stopped is really low. What we need is tougher enforcement.’

In August 2018, after smoking cannabis, an 18-year-old smashed his police officer parents’ £35,000 Audi into pedestrians Jason Imi and John Shackley, causing their instant deaths.

Max Coopey, who passed his driving test only two months before the incident, was over the limit for the class B drug cannabis and, although he denied taking it, tests also found codeine in his system.

Courts spared the teenager prison at his trial in January this year and charged him with drug driving rather than death by dangerous or careless driving, which carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years. They ordered him to pay £105 costs, and he received a meagre 100 hours of community service and a 24-month driving ban. Thames Valley Police didn’t consult the Crown Prosecution Service.

Despite having 3.3 micrograms (µg) in his blood when the legal limit is 2µg, Mr Coopey claimed the cannabis hadn’t affected him.

Speaking at his victims’ inquest in July, Coopey said:

‘Just because something is in your blood doesn’t mean you’re under the influence. Google it.’

A spokesman for road safety charity Brake said:

‘These shocking figures reveal just how prevalent drug driving is on our roads. It is vital that both the law and our enforcement ability is effective in catching, punishing and deterring this dangerous behaviour.

‘The Government must prioritise the type-approval of roadside screening devices that can detect all banned drugs and step up roads policing levels to deter offending.

‘We also need to see the law used to its fullest extent with tougher penalties handed out, making clear that drug driving will not be tolerated.’

The weed of crime bears bitter fruit

In England and Wales, it’s illegal to drive if either you’re unfit to do so because you’re under the influence of drugs (illegal or legal) or your blood has certain levels of illegal drugs, even if they haven’t affected your driving.

If the police suspect you’re under the influence of drugs, they can stop you and make you do a ‘field impairment assessment’ (a series of tests, such as asking you to walk in a straight line) or use a roadside drug test to look for cannabis and cocaine.

If they think you’re unfit to drive, they’ll arrest you, take you to a police station, and ask for a blood or urine sample for testing. The police can charge you if your sample tests positive for drugs.

As with drink-driving, if you’re convicted of driving under the influence of drugs, you could get a driving ban of at least 12 months. You also risk receiving an unlimited fine and even up to six months in prison.

A conviction for drug driving will mean a significant increase in the cost of your car insurance, that you have trouble travelling to countries like the United States, and if you drive for work, your employer will know of the conviction on your licence.

You can usually consider a criminal record for a motoring conviction as ‘spent’ after five years but drug driving information stays on your DVLA driving record and driving licence for up to 11 years.

The law differs in Northern Ireland and Scotland introduced a new drug driving law last week.

If you take legal drugs (whether prescription or over-the-counter) and aren’t sure whether you’re safe to drive, talk to your doctor, a healthcare professional, or a pharmacist.

How do you feel about the current drug driving law? What could further reduce driving while under the influence of drugs? Has a police officer ever pulled you over to test you for drugs? Why do you think drug driving is on the increase? Tell us in the comments.

Second biggest cause of rising carbon

With some commentators using this report as an ideal vehicle to urge a ban on all SUVs and 4x4s, it’s important to clarify that despite the headlines, you can’t just make the decision to outlaw these vehicles based on such a report.

The fact that the global share of the SUV market has almost doubled to 39% of all car sales between 2010 – 2018 shows that manufacturers are making a product that the world wants to buy, even bucking the trend of declining car sales of around 2% in 2018; if the market wasn’t there, the manufacturers would stop making them.

Further, the same study shows that the average mass of a vehicle has risen by around ten percent since 2000, which ‘shows the trend for larger vehicles’, but says nothing of all the technology fitted by the manufacturers to improve emissions or safety, as regulations require.

From 2004, average vehicle CO2 emissions have fallen by around 23%, and fuel economy has risen by 29%, the equivalent of 5.6mpg. In the intervening years, fuel economy and CO2 emissions have improved in 11 out of 13 years (to 2016) and new records are constantly being set. Despite piling on the weight, their footprint has never been lighter.

Also, the report claims that CO2 emissions from SUVs alone is higher than shipping and aviation – 700 megatonnes for SUVs, 233 Mt for aviation, and yet some quick research shows that the UK alone produced around 80 Mt of CO2 in 2018, not including any other country.

New car sales

Of course, the fact that they’re the least efficient models typically on sale doesn’t help, but the real problem isn’t so much how much gas they guzzle, but the popularity of them – nearly 40% of all new car sales worldwide in 2018 were SUVs, or nearly 35 million vehicles all told. In Europe and the UK, one-in-three cars sold is an SUV, in America, that figure is closer to one-in-two.

Perhaps part of the responsibility of the popularity could be placed at the doors of the politicians and environmentalists who insist that modern cars should be super-efficient – small, 3-cylinder engines, lightweight body panels, minimal structural reinforcement (replaced with the crash cell), smaller wheels … all in a bid to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) across the range of models offered by the big brands.

In all honesty, until we’re all driving the same electric vehicle, with our other article this week, charging only from sustainable power sources, there will always be one element of the motoring society that’s going to be victimised, penalised or hard done by.

We’ve discussed how the government needs to change the way they tax our usage of our cars, and even when we’re finally all-electric, the motorist won’t escape further taxes – just as we now pay VED, fuel duty, congestion or ULEZ, you can almost guarantee that a new element will be introduced, such as rubber pollution from our tyres, or air pollution from brake dust.

The good news is that once we’ve hit ‘Motoring 2.0’, at least we should (in theory) be treated equally; no more exemptions for the wealthy motorist who can afford the latest in technology, or penalising the poor for having the audacity to run a car that’s a few years old, and in that case, purely paying per mile of usage would be fair, and right.

What do you think to this latest report? Is it just another cheap shot at a specific group of motorists? Perhaps an early warning of impending taxation? Let us know in the comments.  

£1.5 billion scheme

The Government are now looking at how to make that difference more noticeable, and their solution is to add green coloured number plates into the mix.

The scheme is part of a £1.5 billion drive to raise awareness of electric vehicles, and we’re told that along with the green number plates, it will offer numerous other benefits including free or reduced parking, and perhaps the right to travel in bus lanes.

Except … don’t a number of cities already offer that for electric vehicles? Just without the green plates.

It’s admirable that Grant Shapps wants to incentivise buyers of Battery Electric Vehicles, but reducing the grant to help with the purchase of a new EV is just the opposite, as is changing the criteria for getting help to fit a charging system at home.

So what the Transport Secretary is really saying, is “We want to incentivise you to buy green, but in such a way that the incentives are meaningless, and don’t cost us anything; we’re giving you a gimmick.”

Positives and negatives of electric power

To be clear, I’m not anti-electric vehicles, or pro-fossil fuels. I genuinely think we’re witnessing tremendous breakthroughs, the likes of which haven’t really been seen since Karl Benz first strapped an engine to vehicle, but I’m anti gimmicks, especially those that cost us, as motorists, even more in tax.

£1.5 billion to promote “Green number plates are a really positive and exciting way to help everyone recognise the increasing number of electric vehicles on our roads” (Grant Shapps) or “The number of clean vehicles on our roads is increasing but we don’t notice as it’s difficult to tell clean vehicles apart from more polluting ones.”

“Green number plates make these vehicles, and our decision to drive in a more environmentally friendly way, more visible on our roads.” (Elisabeth Costa, senior director at the Behavioural Insights Team).

This is quite literally the UK government beating their chest, ticking some boxes and shouting that they’re doing all they can to promote green travel, whereas the reality is nothing more than a number plate design change.

Campaigners against

While making glib comments about a motoring class system is all well and good, truthfully, there are real concerns from road campaigners that it could ‘foster resentment’ from owners of traditional ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powered cars, particularly those than aren’t in the position to afford a switch to electric.

Nicholas Lyes, head of roads policy at the RAC had this to say: “While the sentiment seems right, there are question marks as to whether drivers would see this as a badge of honour or alternatively it could foster resentment among existing drivers of petrol and diesel vehicles.”

“On the face of it, drivers we’ve questioned don’t seem too impressed – only a fifth think it’s a good idea and the majority said the number plates wouldn’t have the effect of making them any more likely to switch to an electric vehicle.”

The future

Without any doubt, electric vehicles are the future of transportation, and the technology involved gets more cost-efficient with each new model rolled off the production line, but more needs to be done to help those that aren’t financially able to swap.

It’s all very well offering a meagre scrappage scheme to help buyers, but targeting the most needy with two or three thousand pounds is absolutely pointless, it’s just another gimmick that can be trotted out to satisfy the box-tickers – “Yes, we’re doing everything within our power to help people convert to green”. (“The fact that they aren’t converting to green is no concern of ours … we offered them money and everything”).

Are green number plates a gimmick? Should the govt. save the money and actually offer some useful help? Or are they doing the right thing? Let us know in the comments.

Nearly 500 miles

As of April this year, there were 488 miles of smart roadways, with a plan of extending that figure to around 800 miles by 2025. Highways England are keen to point out that there were 77 deaths on traditional motorways in 2018, with just nine on smart roads. The inference being that smart roads really aren’t that dangerous.

With this in mind, Mr O’Sullivan has rejected the calls to put a hold on the extension plans, and to add more emergency lay-bys as he feels that would do very little to improve safety on the smart roadways. Edmund King, president of the AA has a different point of view: “It’s ludicrous to suggest that having more lay-bys won’t improve safety … if drivers have more places to pull off the motorway, that’s going to make the whole thing a lot safer.”

Good reason to stop

King’s assessment is somewhat backed up by O’Sullivan’s own admission that many of the accidents are  caused as a result of motorists stopping inappropriately, such as to check directions or swap phone numbers after a minor bump; surely if there were more refuge areas, drivers wouldn’t take the risk of stopping in a live lane?

Bringing out the argument of a money grab or stealth tax is quite easy, perhaps expected, but the reality is that these motorways are much more cost-efficient to build, and of course allow for an easier monitoring system, which in turn boils down to revenue, than traditional motorways, and even the most pro supporter needs to acknowledge that argument.

Best estimates put traditional motorway building or widening at the cost of around £30m per mile, while a Parliamentary report states that the M42 smart scheme was implemented at a cost of just £9m per mile, and in the days where budget is at least as important as ‘safety’, you can clearly see why it’s the favoured method of adding capacity.

Added to that is the £41m revenue generated from fining drivers for lane infringements or speeding, and smart motorways seem like manna from heaven for the government.

Less driving

As a nation, we’re driving less miles than we’ve ever done; the average car mileage is 17% less than it was in 2002, and it’s thought that a large part of this is due to the nature of driving on our roads – motoring is no longer an enjoyable pastime, it’s not a leisure activity as it once was, and we rarely choose to just ‘head out for a drive’ on a sunny Sunday.

Perhaps it’s the overcrowding on the roads, the lack of courtesy and respect, poor lane discipline or the constant fear of being targeted through the use of non-discretionary cameras, but driving in the UK is on a downward spiral, and that could be the saving grace of the smart motorway.

If, as a nation, we’re turning to our cars for purely perfunctory reasons, only using them as needed rather than as wanted, volume of traffic will be lessened, and there may not be the need to squeeze every last bit of road space from our network.

Of course it could be argued that while we may be driving less, the volume of traffic could still increase thanks to the population increasing, but as autonomous vehicles become common place, their ability to manage traffic interaction and avoid collisions could be key to removing the dangerous element of smart motorways – the human.

Smart charging

It could also be argued that smart motorways are just another minor step towards charging motorists per mile; much of the infrastructure needed is already in place, and with a few tweaks to the software, instead of capturing registrations for rule breaking, it would be just as easy to issue a bill for using the motorway.

Technology has an ever-increasing presence on our roads – noise cameras, ‘safety’ cameras, traffic monitoring, speed limiting … surely we’re getting closer to the day where all vehicles are the same, never travelling above the speed limit, with whisper quiet running? Homogeneous motoring is upon us.

Should smart roads dictate our lives? Will there come a day (in the not too distant future) where we’ll all be driving the same ‘vehicle’? Let us know in the comments.

Photo © Copyright Robin Webster and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

All councils

A recent announcement by the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, has made it clear that he’s ready to issue all councils the right to implement and charge for moving traffic violations, previously the remit of the police. Essentially, this is all about those yellow box junctions.

After the Commons transport committee stated that the police were ‘too thinly stretched to enforce everyday traffic violations’, Shapps has placed the responsibility of these minor infringements in the hands of local councils, and will be allowing them to keep any monies ‘earned’ from them.

Road improvements

It would be nice to think that all local councils have an understanding of where their traffic hotspots are, and make improvements to aid the flow of traffic, thereby negating any possible need for box junctions, but cynical as I am, I can’t help feeling that there will only be enough budget to place a previously unseen / unneeded box junction in place of other traffic improvement measures. The fact that they can now make money from them of course won’t influence their decision.

Nicholas Lyes of the RAC thinks that there may be a conflict of interest: “Local authorities know where congestion might require some form of enforcement, particularly in the case of box junctions, so it stands to reason they should be able to improve this through the use of enforcement.”

“However, we remain concerned that cash-strapped authorities may see this as an opportunity to extract more revenue from drivers.”

It’s worth noting that a report by the National Audit Office in 2018 stated that local authorities have had a 49.1% real-terms reduction in government funding between 2010/11 to 2017/18. Northampton County Council have been effectively declared bankrupt, and Norfolk, Surrey, and Lancashire County Councils aren’t too far behind them.

Northampton council have been given special dispensation to raise their council tax by 5% this year.

Between 2017/18, Transport for London collected up to £16 million in fines from drivers who fell foul of a yellow box junction, but nearly 80% of respondents to an RAC poll said that it was purely down to poorly structured traffic management; being forced to stop in the box junction due to poor sequencing of traffic lights beyond the box itself.

Discourteous driving

Box junctions were first introduced back in 1967, so impatient drivers aren’t a new phenomenon, but it does seem that as traffic volume builds, driving standards are falling. With the increase of ‘surveillance’ technology, the crime of ‘failing to supply information as to identity of driver when required’ has skyrocketed – from just 12,056 convictions in 2006 to 82,029 in 2016.

This is clearly an indication as to the proliferation of monitoring devices, and with technology advancing at such a rate, this soon will be outdated and unneeded; the car will automatically monitor and send data where needed, and as we’ve seen, adjust your speed accordingly.

But as with all technology, there will be downsides: Just the same as speed or safety cameras, there will be no discretion, no allowance for external influencing factors, and no escaping the penalty notice. To a degree, these box junction cameras are already at that point – blaming poor road design, or in-built blockages that seem almost designed to stop you in your tracks is no excuse, you will get fined for any indiscretion, minor or otherwise.

Scale of charges

A number of campaigners are suggesting that a warning notice would be an appropriate response for the first-time offender, perhaps with a sliding scale of charges – repeat offenders that are blatantly trying to cheat the system should face severe penalties.

However, if councils invest money from their ‘spend to save’ budgets, you can guarantee that they’ll want to see those savings immediately, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see a softly-softly approach when it comes to revenue generation. The full force of the law will be applied, with no doubt a lengthy, tenuous, and drawn-out appeals process.

Will we see a rise in box junctions with this new legislation? Do you think it will be aimed at creating a solution for traffic congestion? Or just a simple, quick and dirty way of making money? Let us know in the comments.

Photo © Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.