Discussion
Got this earlier today. Not sure what I was supposed to do with it 
quote:
about the bicycle. OK, so it''s probably anathema to most of your red meat and leather jacket Marlboro type readers, but for anyone really and truly obsessed with speed the bicycle is the only answer, in London, that is (anyone in any doubt about this is invited to watch me try to break a. my neck and b. my current record of 31.5 mph on the embankment on my home; try doing that in a Tuscan Don''t get me wrong, I love cars in most of their guises (there''s a Virage an alpine, a 325i and two 500sec''s in the family garage at the moment) but the bottom line is that getting from Chelsea to the city at 8 am takes over an hour in a car, 40 mins on the tube and (currently) 21 mins on a knackered old Raleigh push bike (offers of a canondale racer for comparison will be gratefully accepted). The problem? Well apart from the god-awful pollution from buses and cabs, it''s frankly bloody dangerous. If anyone has statistics on the accident/miles of pushbike couriers in London I''d be interested in them; Cycle lanes? A complete joke. Aside from the obvious problems of people parking in them they seem to have been painted on the roads at the whim of the council, with no reference to the real world (viz. traffic calming anyone?) and as often as not just disappear when you need them most (junctions especially). The roads are overcrowded; public transport is unreliable, polluting, and expensive. Private transport is prohibited by parking (20p for three minutes!) petrol and simply getting from A to B. Pushbikes are the way ahead, but we need something done (not a full ''Hollandising'' but SOMETHING!). Any suggestions for an integrated transport policy, anyone? I mean, how hard can it be...
The Answer ?
Raise car tax to an exorbitant level to stop poor people owning cars. That would sort it out.
This is proven to work, even when we had much less road. In the past cars cost a lost to buy own and run for the average person, therefore there were less cars, less accidents and you didn't need speed limits.
Perfect.
maybe that might raise some debate?
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