A traveller's tale
Discussion
I had to go to a meeting up in London this morning so I trudged up to Leatherhead station from my office to catch the train to Waterloo.
"Sorry" said the Fat Controller, 09:25 to Waterloo is cancelled.
"Oh dear (consults timetable) not to worry, I can just make my meeting if I get the 09:39"
"No you can't" said the Fat Controller, "that one's cancelled too. In fact they're all cancelled because the railway is broken at Clandon and all the train thingies are on the other side"
I thought for a minute. "Never mind, if I get the 09:35 to Victoria I can still get across town and only be a few minutes late."
"Well you could" he said thoughtfully, "if the 09:35 wasn't running late."
Some time later I arrive at Victoria and as I fight my way onto the tube platform a train pulls in. At last my luck has changed?
Er, no. "This train will be held at this station for a while. This is in order to maintain the nice even spacing of the trains"
I got to my meeting (fortunately internal, no clients involved) half an hour late. And these f**kers in Westminster with their chauffeur driven Jags tell me to use public transport. Give me a f*****g break
"Sorry" said the Fat Controller, 09:25 to Waterloo is cancelled.
"Oh dear (consults timetable) not to worry, I can just make my meeting if I get the 09:39"
"No you can't" said the Fat Controller, "that one's cancelled too. In fact they're all cancelled because the railway is broken at Clandon and all the train thingies are on the other side"
I thought for a minute. "Never mind, if I get the 09:35 to Victoria I can still get across town and only be a few minutes late."
"Well you could" he said thoughtfully, "if the 09:35 wasn't running late."
Some time later I arrive at Victoria and as I fight my way onto the tube platform a train pulls in. At last my luck has changed?
Er, no. "This train will be held at this station for a while. This is in order to maintain the nice even spacing of the trains"
I got to my meeting (fortunately internal, no clients involved) half an hour late. And these f**kers in Westminster with their chauffeur driven Jags tell me to use public transport. Give me a f*****g break
but a summary (polite version) was "yes the trains are often delayed and cancelled" You have my sympathy. I used to do similar journey. Ended up having to move back to London.
My favourite piece of perverse govt thinking is "congestion charges".
The problem they're supposed to be solving, surely, is that it is a painful experience to be using your car in the cities. And everyone who owns a car should be equally entitled to use the roads.
So what do they do? They levy a charge which adds to the drivers pain. And they make it so painful, that some drivers are forced off the road altogether.
Fine. There are fewer drivers on the road so the traffic flows more freely.
But the total amount of pain suffered by the people who want to use their cars has been driven UP!!!
So the problem has actually been made worse.
Tossers.
My favourite piece of perverse govt thinking is "congestion charges".
The problem they're supposed to be solving, surely, is that it is a painful experience to be using your car in the cities. And everyone who owns a car should be equally entitled to use the roads.
So what do they do? They levy a charge which adds to the drivers pain. And they make it so painful, that some drivers are forced off the road altogether.
Fine. There are fewer drivers on the road so the traffic flows more freely.
But the total amount of pain suffered by the people who want to use their cars has been driven UP!!!
So the problem has actually been made worse.
Tossers.
"So what do they do? They levy a charge which adds to the drivers pain. And they make it so painful, that some drivers are forced off the road altogether. "
Yeah - and not one of the politicians has suggested staggering working hours or having employees work from home for x days of the week.
Why haven't they thought of this ? Probably because they cant get stealth taxes off of us that way. When the schools are on holiday my journey to work is cut by 45 minutes. If you had employees working 9-5 10-6 etc the improvement would be obvious. A great deal of people can work from home these days. Why don't they suggest that.
Meantime there busy charging us to drive into to he town centre, even though we already pay car tax and council tax etc etc .
Stephen Byers sneaked some more road proposals out during the recent media death. Charges for motorways etc. I think we should march on London. If all those country folk can organise a march , all the frustrated drivers, petrol campaigners etc should get together and have a big demonstration.
Charging to enter towns and use motorways is not going to solve any traffic problems. It just means poor people wont be able to drive and the rest of the population will become increasingly annoyed.
Id rather sit in a four hour traffic jam than commute to London on the trains again.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Thanks for letting me have that rant.
quote:
If you have to do that regularly, get a motorbike. I did and the difference it made to my day was well in excess of the time saved. I hadn't realised how stressed out I was by public transport.
Great in theory however in practise you evntually end up not half an hour but six weeks late for the meeting because you've been in traction where some blind dozy tosser winged you !
quote:
Great in theory however in practise you evntually end up not half an hour but six weeks late for the meeting because you've been in traction where some blind dozy tosser winged you !
That's where judgment and luck come into keeping your skin in one piece. In 16 months since doing DAS, I've had one off where I was lucky enough to see the car in time to brake - not that you expect a car to be cutting back against three lanes of ONE WAY TRAFFIC to go into a No Entry road. I still lost the front end and slid along for a bit, but at least I didn't barrel into her at 25-30 mph.
Defensive riding with some aggressive road positioning seems to work for me, always remember to look waaay ahead and check for blind spots, funny gaps in traffic etc.
I work in the west end and live approximately 3-miles away. I motorbike about because I hate public transport (apart from the little black buses with the yellow lights on top 
).
Every single journey involves some sort of evasive action being taken by me to stop being hit by another vehicle or running over a pedestrian (usually on a mobile phone).
I've been off twice in 10-years. Once by a red light jumper in a Merc and once on a patch of deisel.
Defensive driving and paranoia are the only ways to stay alive on a bike in London.
Still prefer it to the tube though.
). Every single journey involves some sort of evasive action being taken by me to stop being hit by another vehicle or running over a pedestrian (usually on a mobile phone
). I've been off twice in 10-years. Once by a red light jumper in a Merc and once on a patch of deisel.
Defensive driving and paranoia are the only ways to stay alive on a bike in London.
Still prefer it to the tube though.
quote:
Every single journey involves some sort of evasive action being taken by me to stop being hit by another vehicle or running over a pedestrian (usually on a mobile phone
I almost made a mess of my car yesterday when a numpty pedestrian stepped out into the road whilst lokking at her bloody phone. Fortunately I saw her about to cross the road without observing the Green Cross Code
and was able to slow down before she stepped out but I can imagine someone else expecting pedestrians to stay on the pavement! and making numpty jam. 
>> Edited by mattjbatch on Monday 15th April 12:08
I work in South London, 'er indoors works in North London and we live on the river pretty much.
My journey is about 4 miles each way and hers is about 10 miles each way, she rides a bike and I drive. Its actually cheaper for me to drive a 4.5 litre car than it is to get the tube & bus and it costs me bird a weeks petrol if she takes the train both ways in a day.
Added to which, cars arent late, they are not smelly (on the inside), they are not full of drunks and rubbish (well not commuting anyway) and after 'er indoors got attacked on the tube, they seem to be much safer as well.
It is an absolute disgrace to suggest to the nations public that the car is not a valid form of transport for the masses when the alternative is even less valid.
If that egocentric big eared hypocritcal oaf sat down and actually thought for a minute he may see that if the public transport was improved then people may use it, because it may be convenient and if it was quite, clean and well policed then I may even consider using it but as it stands now the pointless group of mates that we call a government are alienating people left right and centre due to lack of common sense.
W*nkers.
Matt.
My journey is about 4 miles each way and hers is about 10 miles each way, she rides a bike and I drive. Its actually cheaper for me to drive a 4.5 litre car than it is to get the tube & bus and it costs me bird a weeks petrol if she takes the train both ways in a day.
Added to which, cars arent late, they are not smelly (on the inside), they are not full of drunks and rubbish (well not commuting anyway) and after 'er indoors got attacked on the tube, they seem to be much safer as well.
It is an absolute disgrace to suggest to the nations public that the car is not a valid form of transport for the masses when the alternative is even less valid.
If that egocentric big eared hypocritcal oaf sat down and actually thought for a minute he may see that if the public transport was improved then people may use it, because it may be convenient and if it was quite, clean and well policed then I may even consider using it but as it stands now the pointless group of mates that we call a government are alienating people left right and centre due to lack of common sense.
W*nkers.
Matt.
My mate has moved down to London to work, and I was shocked when he told me just how much it costs to commute into London on the train/tube every day, I think he said its nigh on £200/month for a pass. Compare that to less than £40/month for where I live.
Thats bloody disgraceful, and I am not surprised so many people wish to use their cars. He is also one of the men who got stabbed trying to help out a woman who was stabbed to death at Euston station not so long back, the situation seems very grim down there.
I think I have it lucky up here. Even though things are getting worse where I live, its still fairly tolerable. I live 7 miles away from where I work in Newcastle, and it only take 20-30 minutes to drive there, and there are plenty of free places to park on the outskirts of the city. However, up here, even though we are slower to follow on from the rest of the country, things are getting slowly worse up here too, with loads of bus lanes, and more and more car parks being closed for building work. I hate this anti-car government, it gets on my tits. Having visited London just once, I can honestly say that, while anything but perfect, the public transport where I live should be an example to down south. Buses are normally on time, and the Metro system is very reliable (delays only seem to happen when some scrote cuts the power cables or throws bricks through the windows).
Just my 2p
Thats bloody disgraceful, and I am not surprised so many people wish to use their cars. He is also one of the men who got stabbed trying to help out a woman who was stabbed to death at Euston station not so long back, the situation seems very grim down there.
I think I have it lucky up here. Even though things are getting worse where I live, its still fairly tolerable. I live 7 miles away from where I work in Newcastle, and it only take 20-30 minutes to drive there, and there are plenty of free places to park on the outskirts of the city. However, up here, even though we are slower to follow on from the rest of the country, things are getting slowly worse up here too, with loads of bus lanes, and more and more car parks being closed for building work. I hate this anti-car government, it gets on my tits. Having visited London just once, I can honestly say that, while anything but perfect, the public transport where I live should be an example to down south. Buses are normally on time, and the Metro system is very reliable (delays only seem to happen when some scrote cuts the power cables or throws bricks through the windows).
Just my 2p
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