In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I wrote a Rant on the subject for "Recumbent UK" around 1997
> or 98 which, true to form, I do not have an electronic copy.
Actually, this is Not True, as I have found a copy deep in the, er,
depths of this 'ere Babbage-Engine. It's dated June 1999, but may have
been written earlier. Anyway:
It doesn't seem that long ago since New Labour=3F swept to victory on a
tidal wave of optimism. Were you still up for Portillo? We were.
Perhaps now there would be some real action on transport issues, though
six months later, Mike Burrows was heard to announce his intention to
flay verbally Glenda Jackson MP at the opening of the Design Museum's
Bicycle exhibition, apparently for failing to mention either Bicycles or
Socialism in the Government's transport proposals.
Since then, Vehicle Excise Duty has been reduced for sub-1100cc cars.
HGV operators have been taxed all the way to Belgium. One of Johnny-
Two-Jags ministerial motors now runs on LPG. The Author has replaced
his Road Monster with a small hatchback. And Mr. Tony Blair has a
people-carrier with a 3.3 litre V6, only I wasn't supposed to mention
that. So it would seem that things are looking up for Green transport,
then?
Well, Sainsbury's operate a fleet of Seat of the Pants Pickups in
Islington. Red Star Parcels' HPV fleet, running out of their Paddington
depot and including Anthrotech trikes and Brox quadricycles, are a
frequent sight around London. Including Soho and Covent Garden. And
Tower Hamlets council are proposing a cycle rickshaw fleet to transport
tourists from the Tower of London to some of the Borough's other
attractions, such as Spitalfields and Brick Lane. All well and good.
Now consider the case of Simon Lane. Up until last year, Mr. Lane ran a
cycle rickshaw business in Cambridge. At which point a combination of
the local council and a High Court judge with less common sense under
his wig than in it ruled that Mr. Lane's machines were actually TAXIS,
and must perforce comply with all the regulations pertaining thereto.
After spending £25000 trying to save his business, Lane gave up on
Cambridge and established the London Pedicab Project. In spite of
having had one of his machines stolen, operations in the Covent Garden
and Soho areas seemed to be going OK=3F until, according to "Time Out",
Scotland Yard's Cab Law Enforcement Office stepped in. Apparently,
"[they have] generated a large amount of complaints and don't comply
with the laws governing Hackney Carriages", says PC Eamon Cadden.
Unlike the average black cab, which as we all know must carry a bale of
hay for the horse, and whose drivers are legally obligated to ask all
prospective fares if they are suffering from a notifiable disease. And
they do, don't they? Moreover, according to Plod, the pedicabs are "a
serious nuisance to other traffic and are operating totally illegally"
(I.e. the riders haven't done the Knowledge). The gross and net result
of which is yet another court case.
Were Constable Cadden to Proceed, as police officers are wont to do, no
more than five minutes by well-polished size tens from the locales
wherein Mr. Lane's pedicabs are allegedly causing so much trouble, he
would find a profusion of tourist coaches creating ten times as much
congestion as any pedicab. And I find it difficult to believe that the
average speed of Soho and Covent Garden traffic is any faster than the
14 mph achievable by these machines. It isn't during the hours of
daylight, anyway.
Simon Lane is not alone in being clobbered by brain-dead councils; Erica
Steinhauer fought a five-year battle with Oxford city council to obtain
a licence to run a summer-only rickshaw business in that city. Adam
Samson was denied permission to operate a single machine along the sea
front in Bridlington because, get this, a train service already runs
along the promenade. According to "The Guardian", "projects are running
throughout the West, in places such as America, Canada, France, Holland
and Southern Ireland, but Britain is the only place, according to
Steinhauer, where plans can be blocked at a local level." So isn't it
about time that someone in Parliament stopped paying lip service to
"environmental" transport issues and started to DO something? And isn't
it also about time that the police started to devote their attention to
catching REAL criminals? I 'ad that Marco Pantani in the back of my cab
once=3Fbloody minicabs=3F'anging's too good for 'em=3F (at which point the
Author metamorphosed into a London cabbie, and was last seen doing an
unsignalled U-turn in Shaftesbury Avenue).
--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
Ha ha, you fool! You've fallen victim to one of the classic blunders!
The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"
