Personal Carbon Credits

Despite being the most amazing hoax ever, saving the planet by reducing carbon continues to produce crack-pot ideas. The latest is by The Environmental Audit Committee in the UK. They are seriously suggesting that a scheme of personal carbon credits would "be more effective than taxes for cutting carbon emissions".

There is a word that a friend uses a lot, it is also to be found in the writings of a well know author and I think it perfectly describes the Environmental Audit Committee, Fuckwits.

The committee is not trying to save the Earth, they are living on another planet.

Let's assume that they actually think this idea could work, which frighteningly they do, how would it be administered. I assume that the rich with their huge houses, personal jets and holidays every other week will be given a massive amount of these new credits and the rest of us will get just enough to survive as long as we don't put the heating up in winter and never drive more than 5miles a week.

The committee suggests that "those who need more can buy more and those who use less can sell them" but overall there will be a fixed amount of carbon credits each year. That looks like a win for the rich yet again.

Apparently when we buy petrol, gas, electricity, flights, etc we will spend money and the new carbon credits. So there I am at the petrol pump, I have just put in £500 of petrol (about 10 litres by then) and I suddenly think "oh hell I am out of credits. No problem I wander around the forecourt waving some cash asking "anyone sell me some carbon credits", and hope dodgy Joe is there with his black market supply?

Just for a moment I will play along with there game and make a useful suggestion, when this scheme comes in this is what Carbon Credits might look like:

Or maybe this is more what they have in mind:-

New speed limits to save lives - Yeah Right!

Several years ago the government of the day, who we are still suffering under, introduced measures to save lives on the roads of the UK. The "initiative" would reduce fatal and serious injury accidents and locations would be "targeted" with speed cameras, road improvements etc.

Some years on and the number of fatal road crashes in not reducing, although because of the reduction in traffic police the number of injury accidents recorded by the police and Home Office has reduces. Strange but the number recorded by the hospitals has increased. Um.

Anyway, the point of this blog is not to look back on failure but to look forward to success.

This week the government has announced that it has an initiative to cut fatal and serious injury road accidents, yawn. The great idea this time is to have loads of 20mph speed limits all over the place. The good bit is that there won't be any new road humps it will all be done with signs and lots of average speed detection cameras. I smell a rat, this is not to save lives its all about fines and money.

The whole misguided idea on this is that at 30 mph so many people are killed when hit by a car, at 20mph it drops to less. Although they probably end up sat in a chair as a vegetable for the rest of their lives.

I have a better plan, instead of saying hit people at a slower speed with your car, lets get radical, don't bloody hit them at all.
You never know it might just work!

Rule Britannia - Well maybe not

There have been a couple of military parades this week that got me thinking and made me realise why Britain is such a soft touch for anyone who fancies coming here illegally.

The first was a military parade in London at which 3 fighter planes flew past, some say it was the entire RAF, and a load of men on horses went through the streets showing the might of the British Army.

The second was a parade in Russia showing their power to the word and saying "hey look not only do we have most of the worlds gas supplies but we also have quite a lot of tanks too".
So here you are British power
And then the Russian version


I know which country I'd go to as an illegal.

Car Tax

I have droned on before about Carbon and the con of "green taxes" but one of the latest attempts is just pure revenue grabbing.

You may have heard in the last budget that car tax is to go up huge amounts, maybe like many you though its OK it is for new cars, well oops sorry no, it is for all cars registered since March 2001. God only knows how they decided on that date but there you are.

So I for one will be looking at £300 next year for my car tax. But that's OK it will save the planet, wont it?

Well actually no. I do about 4000-5000 miles a year in my car which is very little compared to Ronny the rep who has a small car and does 60,000 miles a year but only has to pay £100 for his tax. But hold on one darn minute, he is producing tons more CO2 than me.

Next time the Chancellor decides to work out car tax groups maybe he will do it on the height of the driver. It makes as much sense.

Speed Limits

Have you had an accident in the last 3 years that was not your fault?

If so perhaps it was caused because you were distracted by the latest fad hitting the roads of the UK. Millions of unnecessary road signs. They are popping up everywhere and some are fantastically good at distracting you from the one important thing about driving. Watching what is happening on the road.

By far the worst of these new signs must be the LED speed limit signs. These solar powered signs register your speed then flash the speed limit at you. Maybe its me, but surely if you are going faster than the speed limit the last thing you need is something distracting you so that you don't see little Chavney running into the road ahead of you.

And the ones even worse are those that tell you "slow down" and give you your speed. Firstly your instinct is to look at this flashing sign the second is to look at your speedo to see that , yes, the sign is wrong.

I was driving in a queue of traffic through a 30 limit the other day. We were all about 75 feet apart (see what I have done there) and the front car was, according to the sign, doing 28, so was the next and the next, then suddenly "SLOW DOWN" 42 flashed on the sign. Interesting how I can do 42 in a line of cars doing 28. What is more worrying is that the technology is the same as used in speed detection for prosecutions.

On another road there are 3 metre square signs every few hundred metres saying "SLOW DOWN its 50 for a reason" with the 50 being a huge so speed limit sign. The signs say this to every motorist, even the one I was stuck behind doing 40. What is this mystical reason for it being 50. Probably to take away the pleasure of driving along another road, because as far as I could see it would have been just as safe for me to drive along the road at 60 or even 90 as 50. Or just maybe its so that the sign manufacturers can make a killing selling unnecessary road signs to the local councils.

Next time your out driving try to read and understand every road sign you pass. Don't miss any remember to act on the prohibitions and comprehend the informative ones, don't miss any of the little brown ones or the unnecessary reminders, check all the road markings and be aware of the date of the next boot sale.

But before you do make a note of this number 0800 884 0060. Its Claims Direct. I am guessing you will need it.