Should truck drivers have their licences suspended for using mobile phones?‏

[Mugshot]

[QUOTE 3104170, member: 9609"]since your such a pedantic twat at the best of times looks like it is a compact camera (olympus FE115) 6 years ago, and those effects could have easily been photo-shopped in. - clearly against the highway code, but I don't know if it would be a specific offence.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that's what they did.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104095, member: 45"]It's entirely relevant. When I were't lad there were a lot less Allegros on the road. Traffic behaved very differently and the road furniture was nothing like it is today. Still, our mam had to cross us over t' road at the bottom of our street so that we could walk to school.[/QUOTE]
that just reinforces the irrelevance of my age.

 

[MontyVeda]

Not really. You confessed to being a devotee of Tufty. There have been concerted efforts at particular historical moments to get people out of the way to make way for the motor car.

If i was old enough to have lived before the car... I'd have hoped my parents would have advised me to get out of the way of an approaching horse and carriage... or tyrannosaurus for that matter.

May i ask, what do you say to children with regards to road safety?

 

[Archie_tect]

Depends how big they are.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104396, member: 45"]Except that if you are 30+ you're comparing two very different situations.[/QUOTE]
Really? The Allegro's have been replaced by Punto's... but other than that, it all looks pretty much the same. Every house had a car and still has, and the road furniture, or lack of is exactly the same as it was. They still have a lollipop person helping the kiddies cross the main road to school too... it very much the same.

 

[summerdays]

Really? The Allegro's have been replaced by Punto's... but other than that, it all looks pretty much the same. Every house had a car and still has, and the road furniture, or lack of is exactly the same as it was. They still have a lollipop person helping the kiddies cross the main road to school too... it very much the same.

The road I grew up on, every house had drives and there was never a car parked on the road. Now there are lots and you can no longer see down the road, and the worst offender who parks multiple large vans on the road is also the parent of two kids who ride around the cul-de-sac and across the road without looking. It is worrying driving up their road, knowing that at any second two kids could launch themselves across the road, whereas when we were kids doing something similar you could be seen from the bottom of the cul-de-sac. Lots more cars, and the cars have got bigger. Two was the maximum number of cars associated with a house in the past, whereas around the corner from me is one with at least 4.

 

[Archie_tect]

Ironically, the Highways Agency and DfT research shows that the greater the perceived risks, the more obstructions and the shorter the forward visibility the slower and more carefully people drive, which led to the "Streets for Living" campaign and the rise of shared 'home zones' instead of culs-de-sac off distributor roads. This doesn't account for ignorant drivers who are a danger to themselves and everyone else.
Open roads with parking restrictions, wide forward visibility splays and priority signage positively encourage drivers to drive faster.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104471, member: 45"]It's nothing like the same. Car ownership has changed how since you were a lad? The number of lollipop people has crashed since then, to be replaced by uncontrolled crossings or nothing. Street furniture is massively different.[/QUOTE]
Look... i know what the street i used to live on looked like in the 70's, and I know what it looks like now.... since you're so certain you have a better idea of what a specific area of the north west of England was and is like... please enlighten me. Please show me this uncontrolled crossing outside my old junior school. Please show me the new street furniture that wasn't there when i was a kid.

 

[Tin Pot]

I wonder if @Tin Pot would like to read that post as part of his research into what's wrong with car culture?

Research?

Volume doesn't strike me as a cultural issue.

 

[stowie]

Look... i know what the street i used to live on looked like in the 70's, and I know what it looks like now.... since you're so certain you have a better idea of what a specific area of the north west of England was and is like... please enlighten me. Please show me this uncontrolled crossing outside my old junior school. Please show me the new street furniture that wasn't there when i was a kid.

One thing that has changed in general (I cannot comment on your specific case as I don't know the area) is the amount of traffic on the roads since the 1970's (assume you are referring to the 1970s with Austin Allegros). The quiet residential roads have often been transformed by councils using them as traffic overflow conduits from main roads. In my area local residential roads have been used as a bypass for a traffic junction which had restricted turns - the turns restriction allowed better traffic flow through the junction and the council actively amended the residential roads to accomodate through traffic wanting to make these banned turns. I think this is a big difference between the UK and other European countries - we have viewed every piece of tarmac as a valid passage for private cars and this has made even the minor roads deeply unpleasant for anyone wanting to use them in other ways.

 

[marknotgeorge]

When we moved into our house in the winter of 1983-84, there weren't the problems with parking there are now. Partly this is to do with the Technical College up the road becoming a university, which is why the stunt motorcyclist sign went up, but this is also to do with more cars being on the road. I have a car now - I didn't when I was 11.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104784, member: 45"]According to the RAC foundation, car ownership has risen from 19 million in 1971 to 31 million in 2007. Is there a special byelaw in the area you grew up on which means that massive growth isn't reflected there?[/QUOTE]
Do you have any idea what my actual point was?

 

[Shaun]

@MontyVeda - leave out the personal remarks please.

Thanks, Shaun.

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104838, member: 45"]Yes, I read the post I initially responded to. And in subsequent posts you claim nothing much has changed. In the context of an (off topic) conversation between a number of members about how controlling road traffic is of our lives.[/QUOTE]
I'll take that as a 'no' then... but you're right it was off topic.. as I've pointed out a number of times.

@Shaun ... sorry... my neck is wound in

 

[MontyVeda]

[QUOTE 3104888, member: 45"]It's best to take it as it's written.[/QUOTE]
you claimed i was comparing then and now... I wasn't... you began that by asking how old i was, which as i initially stated, was, and is irrelevant to that post.

But this has nothing to do with truck drivers and mobile phones... I'm sure we both agree on that.