Tag: cars
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Zoe
We have taken a plunge into the dark side and after nearly 7 years of living car-free we are now the owners of an electric Renault Zoe. Yes, I’m almost ashamed to say it: we are now evil car owners. It was not a decision made lightly. We have loved living without a car and […]
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Engine idling and nobody in London needs an SUV
As regular readers of my blog will know, one of my pet peeves is when people sit in their cars with the engine running. This happens a lot outside primary school gates where children gather and inhale the fumes. Pollution from motor vehicles is especially harmful to children because they are smaller and absorb more […]
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Motorist hits cat and doesn’t stop
As we were walking to school this morning we saw a motorist run over a cat. The motorist didn’t stop and the cat was screaming in agony in the middle of the road. We gently picked her up and went door-knocking to find the owner. She was badly injured but still alive. A cyclist also […]
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Prince Philip is setting a bad example
Last week Prince Philip was involved in a car crash after pulling out of the Sandringham estate in his Land Rover and onto the A149. He’s received a lot of criticism for driving at 97 years old and many people are calling for him to relinquish his licence. The whole affair has outraged me but […]
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We need cars to escape the destruction caused by cars
A friend recently pointed out this 1973 essay on cars – The social ideology of the motorcar. It’s a little bit socialist but if you ignore those bits, the points it makes about cars are even more relevant today than they were back in 1973. The author André Gorz, starts by explaining how cars are […]
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Killing machines
I want to demonstrate a similarity I’ve noticed between racism and bias against cyclists. Have you ever noticed our unconscious bias towards minority groups like Black British people or African Americans means that if one member of the group does something wrong, the entire group is tarnished? If one African American commits a crime then […]
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Pollution from cars is harmful to children
Air pollution from motor vehicles is harmful to humans but especially harmful to children. We know it can damage the growth of their lungs, raise the risk of asthma and allergies, affect brain development and intelligence, raise the risk of heart disease and cancer, and it even affects unborn children in their mother’s womb. But […]
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But I once saw a cyclist go through a red light …
Why do people feel the need to tell me this? It’s not my job to defend cyclists who go through red lights just as it’s not my job to defend motorists who go through red lights. Or motorists who drink and drive. Or motorists who speed. Or motorists who go the wrong way down a […]
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Worst invention ever
I’ve heard designers say the customer is not always right because if Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted they’d have replied with, “A faster horse.” I disagree. The car is the worst invention in the history of all humankind. Some 3,287 people die every day in road crashes and more than half […]
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Shared spaces
I want to write about shared spaces. These are road spaces that everyone shares – pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, buses, and taxis. Rather than segregating users into their own space, all signalling and road markings are removed and everyone is thrown in together. The theory is that if you remove all the road markings, traffic lights, […]
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Living without a family car
It has been three years since we dispensed with the family car and I don’t regret it, not even a little bit. Car ownership is governed by the same law that rules chocolate: when there’s chocolate in the fridge it will be eaten and when there’s a car in the garage it will be driven, […]
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Goodbye goody two-shoes
Yesterday I did everything in my power to kill myself accidentally. It’s fortunate I survived because today is my birthday and I’m now the meaning of life, 42. I’m a bit of a goody two-shoes but this is only because I don’t like getting into trouble. This makes it doubly painful when I do the […]
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Haddo House and Country Park
Things didn’t go quite according to plan today. We booked the nearest car-club car this morning but it had a flat battery. We’ve been members of the car club for two years now and this is only the second time this has happened. Fortunately there was another car-club car nearby and so they switched our booking […]
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What Traffic Fumes Do to Our Children
I copied the following factsheet from George Monbiot’s blog, Car Sick. He is encouraging people to share it: I've written a simple factsheet for schools and parents on what traffic pollution does to children. Please share: https://t.co/DFSDmUIQUX — GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) March 6, 2017 I shared it with our local primary school on Twitter in the hope […]
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A rant … feeling better already
I have just read the most extraordinary articles and need to have another rant to calm myself down. A friend of mine in Christchurch hinted that there had been some objections to building bicycle paths in the city and so I searched to find out more. Big mistake that was! I should not have read […]
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Cycling in the rain: BRING IT ON!
I got completely drenched cycling the kids to school this morning. But as I was peddling along and struggling to see through the curtain of rain battering my face the glass half full part of me was happy about one thing: the fresh, clean air. I, and all the other people in the city, have to inhale the […]
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Evil cyclists
An article appeared in the Guardian on boxing day which I somehow missed and just read this morning. The author recounts a recent event where she was crossing the road on foot when a cyclist mowed her down, knocking her to the ground. The cyclist didn’t stop while motorists in cars who were stopped got out […]
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Another rant
I just read that a wealthy Aberdeen oil tycoon and his wife have donated £10 million to the hospital in Aberdeen for a new car park. Apparently the wife went to visit friends at the hospital and had problems finding a park. Here’s how I feel about this: Car parking is not a good investment for the […]
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Star Wars and cycling
We took the kids to see Star Wars today. On the cycle ride home I had to dash across four lanes of traffic to get across a bridge that has no crossing for pedestrians or cyclists. I did the same thing yesterday only yesterday a gallant young man stood in the middle of the road […]
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The Bullitt Cargo Bike
Yesterday I went into town because it’s Elizabeth’s birthday on New Year’s Eve and I had to get her a present. She wants a skipping rope which was easy and didn’t break the bank. I got her a few other things too. As I was loading the loot into Busby another cargo bike pulled up […]
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