Safe Speed Forums

If only there was one

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

The bloke opposite me in work shells out around 500 a month on fixing his Frontera, and his blood pressure is about 100 psi.

Worried about cost? I bought an old banger back in '03 for a few hundred. It lasted 4 years. I fitted a second hand rad myself, and it needed a couple of small jobs doing to get it through the test, and a new exhaust. I needed tires once.

I don't bother with dealers. Buy old but good cars that have no cat, no computer, no lambda sensor, no fuel injection, no immobilizer. I try to get them from old folks, as they drive slow. Kids (e.g. blokes under 50) thrash their cars, so forget them. Then find a good back street garage. Run the cars into the ground. Never maintain them (apart from oil, tires, lights, brakes ...), as it is not cost effective these days. Be in the AA. Get rid when they start to cost anything much (or just before!)

Main advantage: no need to care about dings and knocks from behind. Gloat at hire purchase mugs zooming by.

Press Alt, then F, then X. No more irritations.

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Paul Smith: a legend.

"The freedom provided by the motor vehicle is not universally applauded, however: there are those who resent the loss of state control over individual choice that the car represents. Such people rarely admit their prejudices openly; instead, they make false or exaggerated claims about the adverse effects of road transport in order to justify calls for higher taxation or restrictions on mobility." (Conservative Way Forward: Stop The War Against Drivers)

Is that before or after inflation? Is it 10% less in "real terms", as they say?

Oops, sorry, just back tracked to see the link.

Yes, in real terms, I see. Why has the cost of motoring gone down only 10% after 30 years of progress? That’s a very poor record, given the amount of automation introduced into car production. Perhaps it’s gone down so little because the government has soaked up the savings with stealth tax? It's odd that a Labour government should want only posh people to run cars!

Not really. Why should the only important people in the country have to be held up on the roads by a load of oiks driving cheap production crap ?

You have all these REALLY important government ministers in their non-standard, armoured, high-powered and chauffer-driven limosines and they are forced to wait in traffic composed of Mr and Mrs Joe/Josephine Average driving a load of jap-crap.

All the m/ways and duals should have the outside lane reserved for the important people to drive in.

Why else would they insist on ordinary people having pay rises lower than [artificially low] inflation and decide "they" need 10% + (after awarding the police less than 2%....I do hope they get burgled....the response time should be measured in days I expect)

Indeed, that's how Soviet Russia used to work. And policies such as the London Congestion Charge and making it extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming to gain a driving licence are obviously designed to get the poor off the roads.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Yes, but let's say (for a moment) that the data is right, and let's use it against glaikie to dispose of his arguments cleanly.

That rabidly right-wing organ, the Guardian, reckoned yesterday that Britain’s wealth has tripled over the last 50 years. Let’s cut glaikie some slack and say it’s doubled over the 30 year period of his “Hansard” report. This means that, on average, things have become half as expensive in real terms as they were 30 years ago. Motoring is a stark exception that that improvement. Costs are down a mere 10% over the period. Someone, somewhere, has his hand in our pocket.

And who do you suppose is soaking up that huge difference – could it be those stealth taxes, again? Of course – huge investments have been made in automation, and the costs of cars have fallen in real terms. Yet, instead of halving like everything else, glaikie tells us that the cost of motoring is down by a mere tenth. As a corollary, of course, this means that the “real, real” cost of motoring must be dramatically up when compared with the rest of the economy! Thanks for confirming our suspicions, glaikie (what a guy, eh?). Meanwhile, those fat faced sadists in Downing Street spend our own money on dreaming up new punishments for us!

There’s no case to answer here. glaikie has used some out of context information based on data mostly from another era and presented it as fact without analysis. He’s just bored over Christmas and wants to make a fuss.

So have a happy new year, all!

Oh my giddy aunt, I've just read this whole thread; haven't seen so much garbage since the MLM thread died. "Artificially suppressed", that's good.....

Presumably "artificially suppressed" by VED, fuel duty, VAT on fuel duty, MOTs, tax on car insurance, VAT on new cars.....

I'd love to know what glaikie calls a proper tax

If you care to run through THIS you will see the [biased] view of the total subsidy to the road (car) user. In the green view. Look at the subsidy paid to the PRIVATE public transport providers and you get another view. Note that the greens see the provision of carparking space as a subsidy, as they also see the provision of out-of-town homes and factories.

"It has been estimated that the minimum total area devoted to car parking is 590 square kilometres, an area of land twice the size of Birmingham. (8) Land is a valuable commodity. Every time a vehicle is parked on land not owned by the vehicle owner a cost is applicable to the use of that land, even though seldom applied. For cars parked on the roadside or in a layby, the cost of parking is essentially part of the total cost of providing the road network. Each time a car is left on someone else's property without charge results in effect a subsidy to the car use by the owner of the land if no similar value offer is made towards public transport use"

Which is, in part, (a large part) where you get the distorted subsidy from....

It also ignores things like the [somewhat hidden] subsidy for the provison of new, or overhauled, engines for diesel buses.

TLDR, but I'm guessing that all the costs of road construction and maintenance are being attributed to private motoring, without considering that the same network is used by public transport and wealth-generating business. Not to mention government agencies and other public bodies.

Cycle paths with tolls ??

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Maintainance sir, is much cheaper than deprecation.

I don't HAVE to maintain my car, but as it used on public roads the law expects certain minimum standards, a fully functioning exhaust system being one of them. I didn't have to buy a genuine one, and perhaps wished I handn't. However my getting old car gives me the same reliablity as a new one, with out the £3k a year drop in value.

Any lowering of the relative costs of new cars is down to the way the free market operates which dictates to the manufacturer that if they don't wish to supply me with a more reliable car with more specification that is ok, but I can just buy something else. They have risen to this challenge. However a new car this year will cost more than the same model last year.

Unfortuanatly there is no free market for public services, so I have to my more tax each year in what ever guise.

Before you tell me again how the roads I run my car on are subsidised by the 6 people in the country that don't drive please explain exactly how the 5th or 6th biggest economy in the world would function without a comprehensive road network open to the public. Feel free to run an inventory on every single item you own and tell me which ones haven't been on the road at some point.

Why shouldn't road transport get cheaper each year? We should earn slightly more money each year because as a nation of workers we get more skilled and add value to our work so why should we keep spending the same proportion of our income on transport? Should our utility bill increase in real terms each year?

they won't ride on the roads when they are free, so why would they when there are tolls to pay?

It should. The Romans built the A1, Telford built the A5 nearly 200 years ago, the Mersey Tunnel was dug in the 30's and the M6 dates from the 60's. All of that stuff was bought and paid for by our _ancestors_. We pay for an upgraded surface now and again and the very occasional new road. The rest are in place and have been for donkey's years.

So yes, it's mostly bought and paid for already so the cost should drop quickly for us from here on in, due to the hard work of our grandparents and parents. But those stealth taxes soak up the difference every time, Adam L - they need the money to pay for gross incompetence in the councils and government. In a sense, the taxes our grandparents paid their whole lives are paying for the inflation-proofed pensions of a bunch of ineffective bureaucrats. Makes ya sick, don’t it?

I genuinely think there is too much made of this "rising costs of motoring". Sure I've just had a good old moan about paying £500 following a simple puncture but that's less to do with the general costs of motoring and more to do with not realising you can't fit generic tyres to Porsches which need their own pre-approved type.

The general costs of motoring are quite reasonable if you're realistic about what you afford within your budget. As mentioned, buy a decent second hand motor that's had the sting taken out of the depriciation, find a decent independent garage, try to combine/share journeys where possible etc. I think this "I want this and I want it now" culture means people just jump in the car without thinking. For example I had to visist PC World recently, what was more sensible, getting in the car there and then and making a 24 mile journey? Or waiting 2 days and visiting on my way home from work creating a 0.5mile journey? Fair enough some times things ARE urgent, but I'm sure you can see the point I am making here.

I remember growing up when the ordinary man in the street had an unreliable, poorly equipped old banger. Now for the same money in real terms(or even less, perhaps) most people are driving very nice, safe, well equipped and reliable motors. Sure the annual servicing and repairs are more expensive with cars becoming more technical but I bet trips to the garage are much less frequent. And think of the other benefits. I read Jeremy Clarkson's column the other day who commented how years ago, a cold damp morning would see the whole street echo to the sound of whirring starter motors and caughing engines. Okay so that's a bit of exaggeration, but that just doesn't happen anymore. Rarely do you have your head stuck under the bonnet fiddling and spraying WD40 trying desperately to get the car going. That may not be a monetary benefit, but it's a real human benefit not freezing your balls off when all you want to do is get to work.

Why can't we all just be happy that motoring is so much better now instead of complaing about the costs because it really isn't as bad as you would believe listening to some people. I have a theory, and it's because the price of petrol is displayed in big numbers so you can see, everytime you go past, how much it has risen(or not). I'm struggling to think of another product that you can see(and remember) the fluctuations so easily. If the costs of your holiday(or whatever) was displayed in this fashion there would just as much complaining I suspect.

I also think the fact people are having to commute further to work now due to high house prices is an issue. That clearly will have a bearing on the cost of motoring, but is that a fair comparison? Really, they should be complaining about a lack of affordable housing closer to where they work.

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In a former life I was Capri2.8

The principle manufacturers have violated is one of engineering independence.

They have taken two systems of components (mechanical and computerized) and combined them in parallel, so that a failure in either makes the whole car fail. In a sense, it's like Christmas lights, where only one has to blow to break the whole circuit. A "trivial" computer/instrument fault ruins the car.

By combining components together in such a way, you massively decrease the overall reliability of the systems as more components are added into the loop. That's why modern cars are all always up on the ramps at the main dealers, instead of being mended by the owners in their drives. It's also why perfectly good cars get scrapped due to "instrument issues" - cars aren't robust enough, and not cost effective to mend.

Manufacturers love planned obsolescence, especially when they can pass it off as a benefit. There is some hope in the future. The expanding third world economies demand simple cars, as they still have no infrastructure to deal with the modern "technical nightmares". Hopefully, some of these maintainable models will seep into the European marketplace? In the meantime, best to buy J reg Toyotas or Fords etc. as long as you can find good ones.

Yes I appriciate the "computer says no" concept, but real world expierence is that modern cars are easier to run and it seems most people enjoy the benefits of that. Modern cars aren't always on the ramps at the dealer, although I agree when they are it's usually more complex and more expensive. I can't believe I am saying this because I still have my Capri and it's been fantastic. There are very few jobs that can't be tackled with a decent tool kit or traditional mechanic but there was no doubting that it requires quite a lot of "looking after". It always has been very reliable, but the effort required to keep it at that level of reliability is much greater than newer cars. Maybe a modern but basic car would appeal to some people, but I think too many enjoy all the toys on new cars.

You say:



Do people even want to do this anymore? Even if they could? I think in the last generation when DIY repairs were no longer the norm the skills haven't been passed down from father to son etc meaning few people have any interest in this anymore.

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In a former life I was Capri2.8

Not when the "computer says no". The old Fords had no computer (nor "lambda sensor!) and never said no. A computer only has to "say no" once on a dark, rainy night, and it's a sad, crap car forever.



Fine, but it was no effort when it was new, if it was like my Cortina. I'm trying to compare "old new cars" with "new new cars", if you can see what I am saying! New new cars are the worst of all - look at that fuel fiasco, where all the lemons were the new ones with the lambda sensors (as usual).



No, but I want "new old" cars, not lemons. That is to say - I want new cars that have the advantages of new new cars (decent heater, CD, air bags … ) with the simplicity and reliability of the old ones, before planned obsolescence won out. If I had to guess, the best were Japanese cars of the late 80's/early 90's. They had it all, just before the computer, lambda sensor and catalytic converter started the big decline to what we have now, i.e. punters paying £600 quid to stop the dash board warning lights!

Some of us do, and there are certainly routine tasks that can be conducted on even the most technologically advanced cars. I am certainly not going to pay some dealership a week's wages to get them to change the oil and filter!

My 1998 japanese hatch back is very reliable, to the point of being rather boring. It requires less maintainance that other cars that I have had, but that maintainance is more costly.

Labour charges are sky high, partly because the people working on the machines and partly because people like me aren't confident enough to take it to an independant. I am comparing like with like though, because all of my cars have been main dealer maintained.

All of the various "environmental charges" or taxes as they are called in my house will have to be paid at an indy also.

I'm not sure that the electrickery is the bad thing that people say it is. Most sensors are quite cheap and they do tell you what is wrong with error codes. The gear I/we use on farms is at times spectacularly complex and people moan about the electrics saying they go wrong all the time, when in reality they don't.

The more money I have to pay getting from A to B, the less money I have to contribute to the economy.