Ban the car!!

[CatmanV2]

Similarly our office building in central London has a *huge* car park. Which is almost completely empty. Of course, roads around here are still choked with parked cars, but I'm sure there's something to be learned somewhere

C

 

[MrMickS]

All purpose autonomous cars are much further away than is generally thought. Its not just around the corner its 20+ years away.

Restricted autonomous cars, driving in controlled, well mapped, environments are here but operate under very strict conditions.

This pipe dream of traffic moving so much faster because the autonomous cars will be so much safer is just that, a dream. It will take many generations of software, and many billions more computer driven miles, before they surpass humans. The rider on this is true, sentient AI. If there is a break through in that realm then all bets are off.

The recent Uber and Tesla incidents have shown just how far away we are. A big thing is being made about the number of cars Waymo (Google) are buying from FCA and Jaguar. Its still peanuts compared to non-autonomous cars though.

We will see more driver assistance. It will become mandatory, from and insurance and safety point of view too, but true general purpose autonomous driving. Nah.

 

[Wack61]

I watched an item on tv where they were trialing an electric tug to push the planes off the stand at Heathrow

Instead of 5 staff and a diesel tug it was 2 men and a radio controlled tug, the emphasis was on the environmental benefit which is a joke when you consider the load it was moving

As usual environment used as the excuse to lose some jobs

 

[alfatwo]

On the news last night, the government has forced Birmingham city council into a clean air zone consultation

Could be in force in18 months, anything Euro 5 backwards diesel or petrol, its £10 a day

If Birmingham gets it, I'll be coming to a town near you soon after!

Dave

 

[Wack61]

£££ is all it's about , is it France where you can only drive on certain days, that's doing something about it, this ******** is just pricing poorer people out of their cars , they don't want everybody on public transport it can't cope now , it'd be knackered in a day if everybody took the bus or train

 

[D Walker]

[QUOTE

If Birmingham gets it, I'll be coming to a town near you soon after!

Dave[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the warning, what will you be driving?

 

[keith]

Read an article today in Autocar. Various city mayors are lobbying the government to ban all ICE cars from 2030, ten years earlier than originally planned. The mayor of London being particularly anti car.
As I said to start this thread electric cars won't be far behind, but the way this is panning out, car ownership will become something for only the very rich who will happily pay all the charges knowing they can get around without all the 'ordinary' people clogging up the roads with their 'ordinary' cars!
Central London is well on the way already. With the ULEZ starting in April it could cost drivers some £25.00 per day in charges to use the roads in the week, and if they dare to want to park, that will be another £50.00.
I wonder if these costs have something to do with most cars in the West End being Bentleys Roll's Ferrari Lambo etc etc.
Like so much else in the UK, and without sounding socialist like the London mayor, the rich an poor divide is alive and well and getting ever bigger.

 

[alfatwo]

[QUOTE

If Birmingham gets it, I'll be coming to a town near you soon after!

Dave

Thanks for the warning, what will you be driving?[/QUOTE]

Well, the Fiat 500 is Euro 5 spec so that's ok at the moment, but the old 3200GT is Euro 3 and will never attain an historic passport

If you can't get out of town for a run without paying every time, you might as well set fire to it and claim the money back on the insurance!

Dave

 

[MrMickS]

Read an article today in Autocar. Various city mayors are lobbying the government to ban all ICE cars from 2030, ten years earlier than originally planned. The mayor of London being particularly anti car.
As I said to start this thread electric cars won't be far behind, but the way this is panning out, car ownership will become something for only the very rich who will happily pay all the charges knowing they can get around without all the 'ordinary' people clogging up the roads with their 'ordinary' cars!
Central London is well on the way already. With the ULEZ starting in April it could cost drivers some £25.00 per day in charges to use the roads in the week, and if they dare to want to park, that will be another £50.00.
I wonder if these costs have something to do with most cars in the West End being Bentleys Roll's Ferrari Lambo etc etc.
Like so much else in the UK, and without sounding socialist like the London mayor, the rich an poor divide is alive and well and getting ever bigger.

The other divide is town and country. If you live in the cities chances are that you've got decent public transport and taxis will be relatively cheap if, like me, you live 10 miles outside the nearest city, you're screwed. Public transport is practically non-existent and consequently taxis are expensive. So the only option is to drive a car.

If cities ban cars from entering what will happen? Will people just not go? I see that Leeds are going to introduce a congestion/clean air charge for entering the city. Great, one place less to go visit.

I predict that within a couple of years of the introduction of these charges there a reports about retail numbers being down. City centre shopping is on a knife edge as it is, what with malls, high rates, and the Internet. If you make it more expensive to shop in the city centre then they won't do it. London is a special case, in so many ways, public transport is plentiful and well resourced. The rest of the country less so.

As these bans and charges are introduced countrywide I'll look to invest in delivery companies and online retailers. They will be the real winners.

 

[keith]

Very astute observation...
In London there is an ever increasing apathy particularly amongst young people as to car ownership.
I was speaking with a friend yesterday evening, who could not be happier at the Siddiq Kahn approach to banning the car. Whilst she has a car at the moment she is planning on selling it, as living close into London public transport and Uber etc is much more convenient, whilst her husband gets around on a Scooter. When I intimated that if she wasn't a woman she could get a scooter, she got strangely angry!!
Seriously however, riding anything with only two wheels, particularly in central London is akin to a danger sport, and as regards private car ownership, we will see overwhelming changes.
Car rental schemes will increasingly become the future for those living in a city. As my friend went on to say, if she or her husband need to travel any distance they can just rent a car of there choice. Even something big or sporty that they would never otherwise own.
All in all I'm not sure it's all that positive for those who like their cars!

 

[CatmanV2]

I've ridden through central London on many occasions. And that's quite enough for me, thanks very much!

I'm older, and allegedly wiser.

C

 

[montravia]

The other divide is town and country. If you live in the cities chances are that you've got decent public transport and taxis will be relatively cheap if, like me, you live 10 miles outside the nearest city, you're screwed. Public transport is practically non-existent and consequently taxis are expensive. So the only option is to drive a car.

If cities ban cars from entering what will happen? Will people just not go? I see that Leeds are going to introduce a congestion/clean air charge for entering the city. Great, one place less to go visit.

I predict that within a couple of years of the introduction of these charges there a reports about retail numbers being down. City centre shopping is on a knife edge as it is, what with malls, high rates, and the Internet. If you make it more expensive to shop in the city centre then they won't do it. London is a special case, in so many ways, public transport is plentiful and well resourced. The rest of the country less so.

As these bans and charges are introduced countrywide I'll look to invest in delivery companies and online retailers. They will be the real winners.

Eloquently put. 7 miles to the nearest major settlement (Stow on the Wold/Broadway), neither served by public transport.

My choice though

 

[CatmanV2]

My choice though

Also eloquently put!

C

 

[mattjevans]

Very astute observation...
In London there is an ever increasing apathy particularly amongst young people as to car ownership.
I was speaking with a friend yesterday evening, who could not be happier at the Siddiq Kahn approach to banning the car. Whilst she has a car at the moment she is planning on selling it, as living close into London public transport and Uber etc is much more convenient, whilst her husband gets around on a Scooter. When I intimated that if she wasn't a woman she could get a scooter, she got strangely angry!!
Seriously however, riding anything with only two wheels, particularly in central London is akin to a danger sport, and as regards private car ownership, we will see overwhelming changes.
Car rental schemes will increasingly become the future for those living in a city. As my friend went on to say, if she or her husband need to travel any distance they can just rent a car of there choice. Even something big or sporty that they would never otherwise own.
All in all I'm not sure it's all that positive for those who like their cars!

A trend very much restricted to big cities. I work in Mayfair but live outside the M25. The only people relying on public transport out here also typically live in council housing. If you don't have a car, you (and your kids) pretty much don't have a life. The "oh no the car is dying" noise is way over-played by an overly London-centric (or equivalent in the US) media.

The other point is timeframe. 31 million cars in the UK. Approx 2.5m new cars sold per year. So over 12 years on average for fleet replacement. Autonomous cars are not even within 5 years of being offered at scale. Some of you might be younger but I reckon they'll be on the verge of taking my licence away for general dodderyness before this is really an issue. That said, we've sold or are selling our diesel cars, I think that's a one way trip down dead technology lane.

 

[alfatwo]

Yea right, that's all total bollox then..
If you happen to live in a rural part of the country there's no fuc*ing scooters, and there's no buses to go to work on either....you have to rely totally on your car to get around!

Dave

 

[Navcorr]

Yea right, that's all total bollox then..
If you happen to live in a rural part of the country there's no fuc*ing scooters, and there's no buses to go to work on either....you have to rely totally on your car to get around!

Dave

Not quite "total" bollox - but mostly I'd agree. Although the part about timeframe is probably right. At least I hope so.

 

[rockits]

Just seems to be a big chasm being created between town/city & country. Not just with travel/vehicle use but socially it seems

I like the country with cleaner air, less congestion, less noise, greater property VFM & various other benefits. I have no desire to spend lots of time in an environment of noise, congestion, pollution, aggressive & arrogant driving/people.

Am I missing something?

I understand that drastic measures need & should be taken to lower & resolve our human loathing of massive over consumption, disposable attitudes & lack of thought or care for anyone other themselves as a more common attitude. Emissions nerd to be drastically reduced & efficiencies drastically need to be made. I mean drastic. Zero emissions vehicles in any form will be a massive improvement. I would have one tomorrow for my wife to use for school runs & for our smaller local journeys. The problem is they are just too expensive in most cases. All public transport/taxi's should have been zero emissions years ago.

It seems as often is the case the govt is going about it the wrong way. They need to be more drastic in more creative & more forward thinking ways.

It frustrates me that we know plastic bags & many plastic packagings are terrible for us & our environment. Just ban them & replace them with something better.

Why do we always take so bl00dy long to do anything?! Stop tip toeing around the issues you hopeless govt & doing something about it all & fast.

 

[Wack61]

If cities ban cars from entering what will happen?

They'll never ban cars from entering, they want the money too much, last time I went to London I didn't see deserted streets within the congestion zone, maybe for a few weeks or months at the start but now it's just an accepted daily charge, if Leeds or Liverpool or Birmingham charge £5 to enter a small radius right in the centre eventually for the few times a month people might visit it'll just get paid.

We used to go into the centre of Manchester quite often until they built the trafford centre, closer, same shops,free parking, under cover , because of out of town shopping and the internet large town centre shops will disappear , the only shops likely to survive are those serving the office staff remaining.

 

[daverichardson]

Massive changes being made at the mo driven by the consumer.
The High Streets are being replaced by on line shopping or out of town centres and then there is uproar that the centres are decaying, so we tinker with reduced parking costs and free 2 hour slots etc
Little public transport (to cut costs and meet budgets) as has already been stated. All new build houses should have been solar panelled etc.
The farrago over diesel
The problem is imho, governments.
It seems to me the rationale of a government is to do nothing unless forced to by the electorate eg Brexit.
The last radical government that invoked change was Thatcher and the one before that was Atlee.
Every other administration has maintained status quo broadly speaking.
To invoke change has inherent risks so governments do not

 

[TridentTested]

Car rental schemes will increasingly become the future for those living in a city. !

I was out for drinks with the lads last night and we got onto this topic, it turned out I was the only one in our half dozen group who owns a car. The others, all forty-something professionals with families, use car clubs, rental cars, and Uber. They've done their sums and find it cheaper and more convenient.