The governor of the Bank of England, Mervin King wrote a letter to the Chancellor last week outlining the current rate of inflation and the causes of it. He stated that inflation was running at 1.2% above the target of 3%. Of the 1.2% increase 1.1%, in his opinion, has been caused by the rising cost of three things. Fuel, food and domestic household energy.

The price of food has been compounded by increased transport costs due to the highest fuel prices the world has ever seen. Mervin outlined that since December 07 the cost if fuel has risen a whopping 20%.

It seems that this sharp rise in inflation has sparked many shock waves through the government, and it’s so called leader, Gordon Brown. It does appear that the government are struggling with a basic concept of prioritisation. While the vast bulk of the rise in inflation can be attributed to three factors New Labour have instead decided to concentrate on other factors, presumably the ones accounting for the other 0.1%.

Public and private sector pay rises are to blame it seems, Chancellor Alistaire Darling has suggested a plan of limited or no pay rises for public sector workers as his cure for inflation. While other labour ministers have pointed out that those hardest hit by the huge price increases should get more tax credits.

Yet the glaringly obvious course of action is being quietly ignored: Slash the price of fuel, unlike other economic factors fuel is the one Alistair and Gordon have the most control over. Despite the current price of a barrel of oil over 60% of the cost of our fuel in the UK is still tax! Yet it seems the government are unable to swallow their pride and acknowledge that it’s the cost of fuel that is now ruining our economy to the brink of desperation.

Since coming to power in 1997 Labour have launched repeated offensives on the driver of the private car, from speed cameras, parking fines, gargantuan road tax increases and increases in fuel duty. The time has come to ask, what are their real motivations behind this desperate bid to rid society of private motoring? By slashing the duty on fuel the economy would improve, businesses would be able to come up for air and the working people of Britain would be able to stave off the repossession order on their houses. Yet it seems Labour is prepared to take the economic risk rather that deviate from their long term offensive on the motorist.

Filed under: The Cost of Motoring | No Comments »

Drivers in Lanchashire who have lied on speeding fine paperwork are looking over their shoulders this week. A team of officers have been investigating people for perverting the course of justice over alleged cases of point passing.

The situation of recieiving the dreaded letter through the post is all too familiar to many of us. In the last eleven years speed enforcement has grown beyond all proportion and millions of drivers have been caught and fined.

Many people who have relied on their driving licence for work have abused the postal prosecution system by naming a spouse or family member on the forms. A typical situation might be a sales rep covering many miles per year who passes the points to his wife so he can keep working.

Technically this practice falls under the offence of perverting the course of justice. Indeed in 2007 two people were used as examples and given prison sentences for lying on speed camera forms.

Ch Insp Terry Woods of Lanchashire police said: “This operation should demonstrate our determination to take firm action against anyone suspected of dishonestly avoiding liability for speed camera offences. He said passing speed camera endorsements on to another person was “a serious criminal offence”.

There is a level of public opinion that is very unhappy about this sort of police activity. The over enforcement of speed in the face of evidence that it does nothing to improve road safety has lead to apathy from the British motorist. Further enforcement in relation to the offences is unlikely to repair the relationship between the law abiding motorist and the police.

Filed under: Traffic enforcement | No Comments »

On March 31st 2008 the Traffic Management Act of 2004 came into force in relation to decriminalised parking enforcement. Those with a good memory might recall some statements made by the government in 2007 about plans to stamp out the social menace of rogue traffic wardens. Then something rather odd happened, Gordon Brown called off any plans for an election and by some strange coincidence all talk about the rogue wardens fell silent.

A few months later the Traffic Management Act became law giving wardens and councils even more powers to enforce parking and traffic violations. One of the most significant powers was the enforcement of parking via CCTV. Instead of an O-level drop out sticking the parking ticket to your windscreen a CCTV operator watches cars from afar and issues tickets through the post for even the most minor of offences. Stopping on a double yellow line to drop your wife off at the tube station all of a sudden became rather expensive.

While there seems to be endless complaints from members of the public about crime, antisocial behaviour, littering, graffiti, noisy neighbours and other social menaces it seems these concerns go ignored. Yet when have you ever overheard a conversation between two people moaning like the clappers about people parking their cars on the side of the road? It seems the only people who actually take offence to this practice are those that run our local councils.

Of course the £1,000,000s worth of revenue that enforcing this unoffensive act generates might have something to do with the fact that while your council stands by and watches the area go to rack and ruin you can rest assured that those overstaying their parking by 5 minutes will be punished without fail. Imagine how safe you would feel if each of the 100 + parking wardens in your area were replaced with a PCSO or police officer?

A recent BBC news article highlighted that huge numbers of parking tickets are issued illegally with councils using a ‘ticket now think later’ approach in order to maximise revenue. Alan Stanton Labour councillor in Haringey was quoted as saying “We have taken £120,000 from people we had no right to take,” with regards to illegal fines the council levied against innocent motorists. There continues to be very few checks and balances for local authorities in relation to their profit based parking enforcement systems. While this continues motorists can expect to be hit hard by unfair, unreasonable and illegal parking fines all over the UK.

Filed under: Parking Tickets | No Comments »

This is the first post on driveblogger running wordpress 2.5.1

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »