Don’t pander to the ordinary bloke’s addiction to cars

Are cars the new beer and fags? I ask because while this government is bold when criticising the old comforts of smoking and drinking, it shies away from challenging an addiction that impacts more directly on the quality of our daily lives: the ordinary bloke’s addiction to cars, to driving and even to driving dangerously.

This may seem harsh. Among many promises for a safer world made in the Queen’s speech, was one for improved road safety. The new bill, we are told, will toughen up laws on dangerous driving. It includes a measure which will do the opposite, introducing graduated fines for speeding. This will not mean increasing the number of penalty points as the speeding gets greater, but reduce penalty points for breaking speed limits by smaller amounts.

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/nov/25/queensspeech2004.uk