Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Multiple choice justifications

A chap has posed the question: Why pick on us?

Well, for one reason they can. And for another, in many ways they should. But from that point on I'm mostly on board.

It's not so much for what's being done, but the hamfisted way it is being done and, worse, sold.

Just in this piece alone look at the justifications for these actions that are given, starting with 'a new pollution tax that has nothing to do with congestion'. Which is it (though I recognise that more congestion equals greater pollution. Which rather begs the question as to why the roads are permanently made to create jams). And I can't quite get my head around the sense of imposing on a car that will be stopped most of the day just because four of the wheels are powered, vs. being fine with another one buzzing about all day emitting away because it has a slightly better mileage.

And then it becomes about killing innocent pedestrians. That makes some sense, but then the guilty designs should simply be banned, full stop. Along with other slab-fronted entities, such as vans and buses. The "Also, I wouldn’t encounter so many jams on my drive to the civic centre” quote is a true peach, thank you for sharing (I hope that it is accurate).

So I really don't have much of a clue what the basis for this ban is, though most logic dictates the environment is not as high on the list as is claimed.

But to solve it, whilst admitting to no longer being an inhabitant of the 'Smoke, I would say that the best move, and one which maybe be a tad more democratic, would still be to decide it at the voting booth.

1 comment:

Emma said...

Not too sure what this has to do with the original post, which is about London C zone, but I'll welcome a new poster and their comment anyway. The linked site seems a worthy addition.

It's also worth looking around here as the impact of ozone has been discussed, in particular by Dave, a afir bit here too.