SOAPBOX: Road congestion

Here i am on my soapbox - i am allowed to do that since its MY blog...lol... My topic is the road toll, road congestion and general road usage. I have thought of a way to lessen the road toll and ease city congestion - it would cost NOTHING, ZERO, ZIP, NIL, NADA...but it may have some people up in arms.

My solution is this....ban all vehicles weighing more than 1 tonne from using the roads between 7am-7pm. Their road usage would only be allowed from 7pm to 7am in the morning.

My reasons to believe this would work are:

- trucks go slowly up hill and fast down hill, thus on highways it is difficult to pass safely since uphill passing can be troublesome if there is not a clear passage. Downhill is hard to pass as they go so FAST, much faster than the allowed speed limit of 100km/hr. In fact, on my last journey at Easter most trucks were whizzing past me and I was doing 100km/hr.

- without trucks on the highways for 12 hours per day accidents will still happen but perhaps without so many fatalies. How many times do you hear the newsreaders say "... and the driver of the truck walked away with minor injuries"

- long distance truck drivers would also be forced to have a 12 hours rest period, thus also reducing the road toll and accidents due to sleepy drivers, or drivers affected by pills to keep them awake.

- in the city trucks slow the traffic down as they take off from a stopped position, and then they hurtle down the hills, they are BIG, take up more than the lane they are allowed and also take the space of at least 3 cars in length, so without them traffic would be eased. Instead of having 1 truck and 10 cars in line = 13 cars, you would have only 10 cars.

- stop trucks making deliveries are clogging up the city and shopping centres, causing problems for drivers and pedestrians alike. they often park illegally, over laneways and on footpaths. If deliveries were forced to be done from 7pm at night, this would assist with current problems.

- it would also prevent people weaving in and out of lanes to avoid trucks thus avoiding accidents. There is a big sign on the motorway at times saying WEAVING CAUSES ACCIDENTS. Get rid of the trucks the weaving would be reduced.

Now i know this wont be a popular view amongst truck drivers and families of truck drivers, it would cause disruption and rearrangement of peoples schedules, but if it was YOUR life that was taken by an accident involving a truck would you really mind all that much?

REMEMBER THAT THIS MOVE WOULD COST THE TAX PAYER NOTHING!

[[while i am on this soapbox i also think Peter Beattie needs to stop those useless advertising vehicles that circle around and around the city clogging up the traffic. Usually there is 2 or 3 of them following each other, making a nuisance of themselves and generally wasting space. If they were young guys in cars endlessly circling i am SURE something would be done about it. Perhaps making a toll to drive into the city that is prohibitive so everytime they circle they have to pay and their cost escalations would hopefully prevent them in doing so. Better still, class them as bloody nuisances and just say NO!]]