Friday, 13 November 2015

Road laws matter. WAAAH WHY ARE THEY FINING ME!

I've gained just a modicum of grudging respect for Ray Brown at the Cambridge News. A modicum.

He's picked up one of my youtube vids and built a nice little news story around it. This vid here:



I was riding out that way on Monday and I couldn't quite work out what had caused that kind of damage - a car or van must have rolled over or through the tree somehow, clipped the fence, hit a fence post (a big, solid, brick pillar affair) and come to a stop on a muddy verge. Must have been going at a hell of a lick - and it struck me as odd that it wasn't in the news so I uploaded a video asking what had happened. Turns out there'd been a police chase which ended thus - quite a dramatic event and I'd have thought newsworthy in the bloated fenland village of Cambridge.

And best of all its a simple, clear exemplification of why having rules on our road matters - there's a bus stop not far away on the other side of the road, and had it not been for a tree and a solid brick post the van could have ended up in a house - not all the homes along Mere Way are as well protected as this one was.

Rules on our road matter. I'm not saying slavishly follow every letter of every regulation, but the lesson here is very simple - motorised vehicles pack a hell of a wallop and handling them is a huge responsibility requiring attention to the detail of the rules.

But right next to that story in Cambridge News is this one. Its a bog standard 'cameras catch thousands of motorists blatantly, knowingly breaking the law and fine them for it, isn't it all so unjust 'affair. Claims that the 46,000 drivers who've hurled £700,000 in fines down the bog aren't throwing themselves like lemmings down the bus lane or are just making mistakes and not trying to queue jump the traffic are absurd - its well sign posted and its very easy to avoid these fines by not driving in the bus lane. I suspect many motorists there decide they'll chance the fine because they want to get where they're going a bit faster. 

Same journalist, two consecutive stories, one giving a graphic demonstration of what happens when motorists don't obey the rules followed by a exemplification of motorists breaking the rules - and this is tens of thousands of times - which has a very blatant 'its so unfair' slant. 

Same journalist. Same paper. Consecutive articles.

Raymond old chap, I've misjudged you. You've got brass. But I do wish you'd apply some more brain power to this - can you not see that the slant you put on article (b) is part of the problem that leads to the problems portrayed in article (a)? Or do you understand this, and you don't care?

2 comments:

  1. If it is Raymond, you'll have to do a Freedom of Information request to get a response. Always wanted to do an FOI request to Cambs police and council along the lines of "How much have you spent responding to pointless FOI requests from Raymond"

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  2. Not only that but what's the betting Raymond will be doing a nice article slamming #badlyparkedbikes and really going to town on them?

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