Saturday, February 24, 2007

Surveys on DriveArchive

Every few months I conduct a survey on my DriveArchive site about motoring related issues.

Here are a few results from recent times:
Near where I live there are several stretches of road where they've dropped the speed limit from a very fair 40 down to a totally stupid 30. You can tell it's daft because (nearly) everyone semi-ignores the new limit, except when the old Bill is about, not because we're law breakers, but because it's plainly daft. You wonder who makes these changes, and why.If today's road tax was collected not by a yearly lump some but by a small percentage on the cost of fuel, wouldn't that be fairer? The more miles you do, the more you contribute to the upkeep of the roads, and if you're a low user, then you contribute less.
Question: There are signs for eveything these days. How about when a speed limit changes, they put up a large sign for a few months explaining themselves?Question:  Wouldn't it be fairer to collect road tax from the price of fuel rather than a yearly sum that everyone pays, regardless of annual mileage?
agree: 58.1%
don't care: 25.6%
disagree: 16.3%
agree: 77.5%
don't care: 3.9%
disagree: 18.6%

Speed cameras. They may be a right pain, but maybe they do sort of work. But the truly galling bit, surely, is where the fine money goes. It goes into the coffers of the coppers, and they spend it on... erm, well, who knows? So, wouldn't it be better if the cash generated from speeding offences went somewhere better?Is it not blindingly obvious (ho ho) that drivers should have regular eyesight tests to maintain their driving license? And that the interval between tests should decrease as age increases, until it's on a yearly basis? It wouldn't require a huge effort to turn up somewhere, read a distant numberplate and be allowed to continue driving. I see so many drivers who clearly cannot see where they're going.
Question: Would it improve the way you feel about the police generally if speeding fines went straight to, say, Children in Need?Question: Should there be a regular eyesight test to maintain your driving license?
agree: 52.8%
don't care: 16.7%
disagree: 30.6%
agree: 82.2%
don't care: 11.1%
disagree: 6.7%

Is it me, or is nearly every white van man and small lorry driver you see these days using his mobile phone as he speeds between jobs or deliveries? I was recently nearly run off the road by a lorry carrying a huge mobile home, where the driver was breezing along with just one hand on the wheel, one holding his phone.I'm not sure about the laws governing making a mess on public highways, but it seems to me that the you ought to be heavily prosecuted for making the surface of a road very slippy and dangerous. Yet in rural areas you are always coming across muddy bits of road which could be, and probably are, lethal - especially given a drop of rain.
Question: Would you like to see even more stringent rules on mobile phone use for people obviously conducting business in this way?Question: Maybe the police would be making driving safer by keeping an eye on road surface abuse rather than getting so picky about speed limits?
agree: 82.9%
don't care: 9.4%
disagree: 7.7%
agree: 66.7%
don't care: 23.3%
disagree: 10.0%

If you want to participate in a survey (no signing up required) then visit here.

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