The tax raised by cameras is negligible. Even if it wasn't I'm all in favour of speeding idiots subsidising the law abiding majority. Aren't you?
Speeding in built up areas, or outside schools/anywhere where there is a high concentration of pedestrians, yes. Driving like a loony in fog or other adverse weather conditions, yes. Other than those situations, no. Speed by itself does not kill:
inappropriate use of it is the problem.
Yes I would like noisy motor bikes banned wouldn't you?
No.
Imagine if the whole population rode them - we'd all be deaf by now.
Oh puhleez, ifs and ands and pots and pans. There are plenty of other sources of noise, far more intrusive and potentially damaging, than the odd bike blatting past with loud cans. I like the noise of my cans so much, I don't even wear earplugs these days, just so I can revel in the noise they make
. And I'm not deaf...did someone say something??
Why should some uncaring egotist be allowed to barrel down the road making noise pollution for no good reason? If there is a good reason - let's have it - we'll all take our car exhausts off to celebrate.
Having been smashed off my bike and badly busted up by a prat in a car, with my lights on and a race can - and she
still apparently didn't hear or see me - no, I don't have a problem with them and never have done. To me and many others, there's nothing like the sound of a bike and the louder the better; heyho, each to their own, eh? There's nothing egotistical at all about it: if at least one dozy car driver hears you, when otherwise they wouldn't have and would had had you off, then that's a big plus in my view. Personally, I don't have a problem with loud exhausts on cars either (sauce for the goose and all that); conversely, bloody lawnmowers on a sunny Sunday afternoon, car stereos banging out a monotonous beat and yapping dogs **** me off greatly. We are all different. Thank f**k.
If car drivers weren't generally such complete pillocks, cocooned in their safety cages, with the stereo on, looking at satnav, chatting and doing everything but concentrating on their driving, then bikers wouldn't have the excuse of loud cans as a potential safety aid to fall back on.
Before you accuse me of being some obnoxious uncaring hooligan on a bike with a tiny numberplate and illegal cans, I am also a car driver and have passed both the IAM and ROSPA advanced driving tests and I don't ride like a loony. Just fast, when I consider it safe enough, both to myself and other road users, to do so. Just like the vast majority of bikers, really.
I just happen to like biking. A lot - and a lot more than being sat in my car in horrendous queues invariably caused by underfunding of the road infrastructure - despite the gross percentage of all our motoring costs that go to the Treasury - when I can just breeze past the lot of you, with a big smile on my face. Am I causing congestion and the consequential pollution that that brings with it on my bike - err no.
And yes, common sense says restrict manufacturers on engine size and performance.
And "common sense" would no doubt say why have motorbikes at all, why put yourself at any risk whatsoever?
Oil is running out - what mountain top do you live on?
Yep, oil is running out and...here in the sticks, there is no other alternative. I work from home, so I don't commute to work, thus I feel justified in taking my bike out for a blat - occasionally, I even use it for work, wahey. Best of all, it's owned by the company and I got the VAT back on it. Which paid for the Termis..
So it's up to you. Cut services - or raise taxes. Lets fine the idiots to subsidise the rest.
That would wash if we didn't have the amount of bottom feeders that we do in parliament, feathering their own nests and spouting "don't do as I do, do as I say". There would also be slightly more credence if they managed to bring the tax burden down. Let's take Spain for an example: four times the land mass, less than 2/3 the population, no rfl and fuel 2/3 the price that it is here. Yet they manage to build roads, maintain them, make new ones. How so? And it's not by personal taxation levels being higher, either, it's broadly the same as it is here.