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Following the good officers post, what do forumites think of the traffic problem in the UK in general, me, I believe driving is becoming a real chore, I have a nice motor, but dont really enjoy travelling that much these days, the problem is simply this, and it really annoy,s me.......there,s too many fucking cars, period.
So, what do we do?, well I would raise the age of driving to 21, get rid of all cars over 15 years old, and have compulsory 10yr driving tests.
What do other 'mites' think, also lets get those bleeding annoying chav types of the road, the ones that drive small hatchbacks with big bore exhausts, you know, the ones you,d like to shoot thru the head, but unfortunatly cant..

Nice idea, but you'd just double the amount of thieving, car-jacking scum. On the plus side, though, they do tend to destroy the cars they pinch.

I'd be in a fix if your law was approved.
On average I drive cars between 20 to 30 years old, simply because I enjoy driving them, am able to service them and repair them myself (I can actually understand how they work, and don't need computers) and if older than 1973 you get free tax which I like, and classic car insurance is very cheap too.
I also enjoy keeping the memories I have of these cars that were on the road years ago, and it also makes other people happy to see these cars kept running
Now what makes you think I should have any less right to drive the cars I enjoy, than you do with your flash motor?

I personally find that most modern cars come in very similar shapes and all the manufacturers just copy off eachother producing plastic covered cars that look like they came out of a similar mould.

I like distinctive shapes, plenty of shining chrome, and individual designs that are instantly recognisable. Tell me in a line of modern cars could you pick out the Kia Mentor from a fair distance?
From a line of 70s cars you'd easily be able to pick out which one was the Opel Ascona or which one was the Ford Cortina because they had individuality.

In Pakistan they hardly have any modern cars at all. I enjoy travelling around watching all the Datsun 120Y, Mazda 929, Toyota Corona and Daihatsu Charmants still going strong. The reason for this is the extortionate import tax on bringing foreign cars into the country. If people want modern cars in Pakistan they have to make do with old ones, because only the very rich can afford to import a car. The only other alternative is to buy locally produced cars, which are limited to Pakistani built Toyotas and Suzukis, but the price tags of these are way out of reach of the majority.

So I think its the goverment allowing the import so cheap of cars into UK that is causing all this problem. If it cost us twice the car's selling price to bring a car into uk would we still be importing so many?
And Austin-Rover would still be churning out modern day equivalents of the Ambassador, Ital and Acclaim and being able to charge a hefty whack for them, because all the cheap Daewoos, Kias, Hyundais, and so on would be far from the reach of most people, keeping the British car industry going.

Then you would think twice about crushing a perfectly decent Montego just because it has rusty arches and a blowing exhaust. No, you'd damn well get on and fix it instead.

Let me know if you agree.

16 is far too young and 21 far too old

18 for mine given that that is when most school leavers will enter the work force,not withstanding part time jobs & tertiary education

You are right there are far too many cars on the road
Probably the fact that the nuclear family now has a Car each as opposed to 1 or 2 in the past is the main difference.Says alot about how the standard of living has risen in western societis but strangely enough to can't say we're any happier with all this increased wealth

cheers
B....OZ

Yes Liz, there are definitely too many cars - or you could look at it another way and say that there are to many people. This is a comparatively small (but wealthy) island, and now that almost everyone can afford a car they all want to feel the excitement, taste the freedom, and feel the self-respect that owning almost any motor can impart. But there are 60 million of us and there's not enough room for us all to do it at once. No one could afford a car when I was a nipper. There was just one on every street (luckily for me, my granddad was one of the few proletarian car owners back in the early 60's) but now we?ve tasted the freedom, the pride and the pleasure of driving our own motors, no one wants to go back there - except a few divi twats like Red Ken. So, what's to be done? Should we look at curtailing that freedom that makes life worth living, or maybe we should look too reducing the population, so that there would be enough room for folks that are here to do what they want and go where they want, without getting in each other's way?

We know which way the middleclass lefties are leaning - they want us all to live near to our factories (in drab grey uniform, but space efficient, apartment blocks, no doubt) so that we can all either leg it, peddle it, or tram it, to and from our tedious, grey, 9-5 existence. Then, maybe once a year, they might allow us a travelling permit to visit Butlins (now state owned) on a train, to let our hair down and chill out watching the camp shows, which will extol the virtues of sustainable communities and eco friendly living.

But fuck that, that's not what I call living. What I want is a big spread, lightly trafficed roads, a garage full of lairy sports cars, 4*4's, a Sunseeker Yacht in the med, and a bevy of intelligent, stylish, top notch call girls and gold diggers ready and willing to smoke mi beef as I down yet another magnum of Krug. But you need room for that kind of lifestyle, so, as I see it, we have to look at the population issue.

Hey, never mind about the chav cars Liz, lets just get rid of the excess chavs. You could accomplish this quite humanly ? like they do in China. Just cut chav social security benefits and handouts ? which just encourage and reward chavism. And then, have a licensing system for everyone who wants a nipper. They would have to prove they are worthy ? i.e. solvent enough to afford the considerable cost of bringing a child up properly, committed to the child, and not least, ?of good breeding stock?. This would make expensive institutions like social services redundant within a generation. Imagine all the wad we would save as a nation? Imagine and end to the heartache of burglaries and car thefts, of having your grandma beaten up and robbed as she collects her pension. Hmmm. Sound like Utopia? Probably not, but still much nicer than where we are now.

Besides, chavs are already redundant in our society. In bygone days they would have been the cannon fodder of war and colonial expansion. They would have been the manual labour of the industrial revolution and 20th century heavy industry. But that?s all gone now. China does all that for us. What we need now are thinkers ? chavs don?t fit that bill. We have no use for them any longer. They?re just hanging about causing bollocks.


Officer Dibble ? rambling on again

I like to see a bit of diversity on the roads and I always experience the warm glow of nostalgia when I see an immaculate example of Cortina Mk2's and Mk3's, Capri?s, or anything old that has obviously had a lot of love and care lavished on it. Wouldn't want to swap mi new Beemer back for one, like, but I do enjoy seeing them on the road. And I always feel a sense of respect for their owners - committed people, they've put money, effort, and love into their motor. Nothing wrong with well maintained classic cars. I, for one, approve.

I think what Liz was having a go at rather than old cars is the folks who tend to drive them. He was probably thinking of the chavs in the white 1990 Vauxhall Astra 1600L. You know the one. The one that screeches round the estate at night - dented wing, Halfords 'alloy' wheel trims, big bore exhaust and the legend 'Darren & Tracy' writ large at the top of the window screen.


Officer Dibble

Not your kind of thing, of course, nor Dibble's, but your fellow-motorists should consider my solution:
1. I don't live in the UK.
2. I don't own a car.

And yes, I am very middle-class!

Steven, you are so right on this one.
Mind you, I would say that, I love old cars and have plenty of them.
And besides, clearing the roads of cars over 15 years would solve absolutely nothing - there are hardly any left. The value of old cars has declined to the point where perfectly good cars are getting binned, and the rise of "Yes car credit" and their ilk has made it almost impossible to judge a prince from a pauper anyway - all the drones are driving 2-3 year old Meganes, 206's, Zafira's etc etc, regardless of whether they earn 12k a year in a call centre or are sales managers. There are too many cars, this is because the manufacturers are guilty of over-supply and the idiot public are all too keen to spend their over-taxed income "keeping-up-with-the jones'" with some plastic look-a-like blandmobile. There's nothing a new Vectra will do that a well-maintained 1990 Cavalier won't, other than offer a few more hard-to-repair electric gizmo's. How can it be envirmentally sound to churn out new product (coupled with all the pollution of manufacture) to simply discard cars that have at least 5 years of reliable service left? This is what are clogging up the roads, the days when people ran bangers until the wheels fell off are long-gone.
Watch a commercial tv station for evidence - there are too many cars, too many cars being produced, too much credit being offered and too much brainwashing of the masses, making them think that they are no-one if they don't drive what everyone else drives.
A well-looked-after old car, be it 15 years old, 30 years or 50 years old, is something to be admired. Clowns who think they are saving the world by purchasing a used Citroen Picasso on tick from some production-line retard "salesperson" at Dixons/Vardy etc etc are the fools, and it is they who are the problem. Witness also, many of these folk have lost the ability to make their own decisions and this comes accross in their driving!

Not too many cars - just too many cars for the km of road, the lack of expressways and a piss poor and expensive public transport system to blame. All cars clog up town roads and you can't get a bus because it's full of chavs and local trains are near to non existant outside the SE.

ROAD
UK - 371,913 km (including 3,358 km of expressways)
Germany - 230,735 km (including 11,515 km of expressways)
France - 894,000 km (including 11,500 km of expressways)
Italy - 479,688 km (including 6,621 km of expressways)

RAIL
UK - 16,726 km 1.435-m gauge (5,243 km electrified)
Germany - 46,039 km (20,100 km electrified)
France - 32,008 km 1.435-m gauge (14,320 km electrified)
Italy - 19,507 km (11,651 km electrified)

I,m actually trying to think of a system, where the roads are not as fucked up as they are today, you can have 20 classic cars as far as I,m concerned, as long as there not all on the road at once, a car over 15 years old, that is maintained in great condition is a joy to see, on the other hand a allegro with more stickers and rust than paint isn,t, anyway as Steven points out, he looks after his cars, so good for him...

"Then you would think twice about crushing a perfectly decent Montego just because it has rusty arches and a blowing exhaust. No, you'd damn well get on and fix it instead".

Er, well no actually, I,d cut the thing in half myself, and make a water feature out of it.