SimonBlog

It has been suggested to me that if a police driver accidentally kills someone this deserves a long prison sentence and a £10 billion fine. I think this is unreasonable, not least because motoring is difficult and accidents, sometimes tragically fatal, happen, and motoring is much more dangerous and complicated than train driving or airliner flying. I therefore make a modest proposal, as follows: the road network will be divided into streets, on which pedestrians are allowed (with or without separate pavements but they will be allowed in the walkway) and motor-roads (on which pedestrians are not allowed) (motorways are unaffected and would continue as now) the speed limit on streets will be 20 mph or less  the speed limit on motor-roads will be as now alternative routes for pedestrians and cyclists, including free cycle lifts if necessary, will be provided to bypass motor-roads emergency services vehicles while using lights and sirens, and railed vehicles, will be exempt Driving at 20

Part of the current industrial dispute between the RMT in particular and the railway companies is the apparent insistence that, in the name of “modernisation”, that ticket offices and train guards need to remain. I am not going to comment on the whys and wherefores of the other aspects of the dispute (pay, hours, rostering, compulsory Sundays etc). But I must defend the need to retain both ticket offices and train guards. Train guards of course play a safety critical role the way flight attendants and ferry staff do (and no-one is proposing eliminating them), particularly in terms of assisting with emergency evacuation and in ensuring that all doors are closed (DOO is inadequate for this as the driver’s view is very limited, as Diamond Geezer pointed out:  https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2022/12/yet-more-london-transport-news.html ). But there is also the customer service role. Lots of people don’t feel comfortable with buying tickets from machines or online, and there are lots of t