Page 1 of Light the blue touchpaper Mr Mitchell

This article by David Mitchell is going to upset a lot of people.
I can see where he`s coming from and personally I agree in principle to what he says. Having said that, I`m just going to leave this link here and see what happens...

Wow, touched a raw nerve there, didn`t he? I`m with you, Ivan, agreeing in principle to what he says but then I`m a lifelong passenger and rider of Shank`s Pony. Obviously exposure to petrochemical fumes erodes the sense of humour as quite a number of responses to that column border on the rabid.

Of course, all of this has its roots in the British cultural reaction to motoring dating back to the turn of the 20th Century. Motoring started out as the plaything of the rich (also read upper classes); it took years for the sport to come under proper control backed up by law. And of course anything deemed a "sport" by the British is automatically immune from the laws of the land. Right up to the 1980s whenever new technologies were introduced to combat road crimes (the breathalyser, the radar gun), even the reaction of the judiciary was that these things weren`t "playing fair". The spirit of Toad lives on and is at the heart of the British love-affair with the internal combustion engine. Poop-poop!!

J Mark Oates

I drive, and I agree with what he says.

He`s wrong here though:

Quote:
There`s still a chance the camera will save a life - it won`t cost one -

They are sometimes dangerous because people slam their brakes on when they see them, often even if they are doing less than the speed limit.
This will one day cause a pile up on a motorway or someone swerve into oncoming traffic/the pavement etc (it may even have hapened already)

And although it`s an old argument, constantly monitoring your speed to stay below the limit means you are not concentrating on the road itself 100%.


why take life so seriously..its not like you are going to make it out alive

Quote:
I don`t drive a car... So perhaps I don`t have the right perspective to understand someone`s fury on receiving a speeding ticket,
I think he nailed it pretty succinctly. One of the major gripes, I feel, is that the fine isn`t immediate - it arrives a day or 2 later in the post, meaning the feeling of unease you got when you ripped past that camera yesterday just got a whole lot worse.

One thing that annoys me is those that harp on about how they got a ticket for doing a few miles an hour over the limit. But the answer is right there; `Over the Limit`. It really isn`t that difficult to drive a little slower, all you have to do is not press down on the pedal so hard. Go on, try it today, you might be 20 soconds later then you wanted to be, but at least you won`t be 3 points and £60 worse off.

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Curse this infernal alcohol...


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Daft idea that, although he may have said it for comic effect.

A speed tax.

On the other hand I do so the attraction, pay your fees up front, and then play Carmageddon.

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Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

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