Car Free Week makes poor start
Tuesday 21st September 2010, 2:29PM BST.
Lindy Piggott, pictured leaving her car on North Beach yesterday, did not know it was Car Free Week – and even if she had, it would not have stopped her from driving. (Picture by Aimee Le Cocq, 1030608)
IT IS Car Free Week, but motorists seem none the wiser.
Yesterday, the Environment Department began its initiative to encourage islanders to leave their car at home and take the bus, walk or cycle.
It even let people travel for free on Leapfrog or Islands’ Insurance-branded buses.
But drivers at North Beach said they had no idea of the bid to persuade them to leave their car at home.
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I knew this car free week was coming up but I didn’t know when
I bring a work mate in to work with me every morning so I still would of used my car. If I was to use a bus I would have to walk a while to catch it not that I mind walking but when you have bags/shopping with you why walk?
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Sraah. The reason you and your workmate should walk to the bus stop ( without having to carry shopping) and then carry your shopping when you come back by bus ( perhaps sensibly using a pack-back for your shopping)is because car exhaust (yours included) is destroying our planet. Guernsey is one of the worlds worst offenders with a high volume of cars on such a small piece of rock and you even moreso should be a part of the solution, not a part of the continuing and worsening problem. Or have you not heard about ‘polution and our dying planet’??
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Gosh Expat80, that’s a little harsh! Did you not see the part where Sraah mentions the fact that they carpool? they take their friend to work every morning – taking one extra car off the road.
Also, Sraah has the right to use their car whenever they want, and should not have to be subject to your judgement.
Before you jump down my neck, I cycle to work every morning.
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Clearly “Expat80″ has strong views on polution but perhaps has been suckered by the misleading “80,000 Registered vehicles on Guernsey” reports of late.
I’m sure it’s true to say that at times there are a lot of cars on our roads but how many people have actually bothered to make comparisons with how many cars drive into, lets say Exeter or Plymouth every morning at rush hour so we can make a judgement as to whether our volumes are high or not.
In my opinion, “our dying planet” is affected more by the outpourings from heavy industry in the so called developing nations, China for one, who’s very high emissions as a result of increasing industrialisation is driven by the developed worlds’ insatiable appetite for cheaper consumer goods.
One thing is for sure, everyone has a view on how to cut polution whether it is here or elsewhere.
Its a shame the Environment Dept. perhaps couldn’t put more effort into publicising the event, or is that “non event”
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I had to laugh yesterday. The Environment minister was on Gsy Radio promoting car free day,
The interviewer said, “I noticed you drove here today”, his reply, “Yes but I need my car”.
Summed it up nicely there Peter.
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Jimmy and Steve
Well put
A question to the anti-car group. How much fuel did all the aircraft who took part in the recent Battle of Britain display, including flying here and back, consume compared with local vehicle fuel usage?
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so… 80,000 cars on our roads…. That includes work vans, the family car, the weekend car and probably a few project cars aswell. Pretty sure all these cars arent used at once, therefore problem solved :)
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Sorry to sound so cynical but this whole thing is a complete fiasco.
For starters hardly anyone knew about it. Then (if Steve is accurate) we had the Environment Minister’s performance on Radio Guernsey – with advertising like that they would’ve have been better off not to publicise it at all!
These events are nothing more than gimmicks used by governments to “prove that we’re doing something about the environment” when the reality is they achieve pretty much nothing.
The facts are that the majority of people simply ignore them whilst those who really are serious about cutting down car use will most likely have already have taken appropriate measures.
I can’t believe anyone actually falls for them. If the States are really serious about getting people out of their cars they need to stop faffing around and realise that the only way they will succeed is to legislate. Whether that’s something the people of Guernsey want however is a different matter altogether.
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Now there’s a thought….not only the aircraft once a year for the display but what about the seemingly growing trend for aging (and otherwise) bikers to take to the roads for a rideout for any charity event that they care to support.
Is this really the only and best way they can come up with to raise money? Hardly imaginative (although commendable). Maybe go for something a little more original and environmentally friendly next time?
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Pyer,
Fair point on the air show, but car free day is also about reducing congestion and health promotion. I for one would prefer limited car use year-round and a once yearly air show, than the current free-for-all car use and ceasing the Battle of Britain display.
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pyer, Steve et al,
I think you’d probably have me down as a member of what pyer calls the ‘anti-car group’ but I have to admit I was also turning purple listening to Monday’s BBC Guernsey interview with Deputy Sirett. I can quite understand people feeling it’s hypocritical for him to turn up in his car at his interview to the launch of Car Free Week, in order to lecture us on the importance of individual action to reduce car use!
I expect to most people his spiel comes across as follows: ‘The States has spent the last 6 years doing less than f-all to help boost viable alternatives to the car – so now you all just need to get your lazy glutes out of your pride and joy and onto the extra buses we promised but never delivered (though even if they did exist, they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without getting snarled up in traffic). Of course I will have to drive still – this is because my car journeys are necessary, whereas yours aren’t.’ Environment’s promotion of Car Free Week has been a catastrophe even in the eyes of those of us who want action to reduce traffic, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes people even less inclined to change their habits.
I don’t think the issue of Guernsey’s car addiction is really a global environmental issue (as Expat80, Jimmy and pyer have suggested). I’d love to be proved wrong, but I doubt buses in Guernsey are going to be able to transport people with much lower CO2 emissions than if they drove cars, at least while they run on diesel.
The problem is that the car has a habit of suffocating the alternatives, nullifying them as a realistic option. Buses get stuck in the same queues, pedestrians start to lose the refuge of the pavement, cycling becomes an extreme sport. Pressure builds to develop in places where amenities would be unviable without a car-based population, and developments are increasingly designed around the assumption that every visitor will arrive in a 1 ton metal box. In return this means eventually car ownership becomes necessary in order to participate actively in society, and the cycle feeds back – once you own and insure a car, the incremental cost of using it is very small, so the alternatives become even less viable.
So the hypocrisy is not simply that Deputy Sirett drove his car to tell us that we should stop driving. It’s that he’s also lecturing us about individual action when he knows full well that circumstances have rendered us all powerless to make any real difference by that means. Our individual responsibility is not to cripple our families, our careers and our social lives by dumping our cars, it is to campaign for meaningful government action to deal with the core problem. That is why in 2003, a clear majority (60%) of respondents carried out that responsibility by supporting the Traffic Strategy.
The States has spent the subsequent 6 years refusing to implement it, weaselling out of their responsibilities to mitigate the impact of traffic on society and urban amenity. However, they are still all too happy to trot out the old canard that ‘individual action is going to be the key to solving the issue’ because it makes it sounds like they they’re doing something when they are actually doing nothing.
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ChrisJ.
Excellent excellent post. Suburban development in Guernsey has been enabled and encouraged by the almost universal car ownership. It was always bound to end in tears.
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The majority of this current adult population just couldn’t care less about the destructive effect over use of our cars is having – sad but true. Just try a quick straw poll at the office and see how that goes. Most of us can’t stray more than a few hundred feet from ‘the car’ without feeling lost!
The best way to establish ingrained and lasting respect for our environment is to start ‘em young and do your best to lead by example (unlike some!).
I’m really encouraged by the environmental awareness our kids and their friends have at such a young age and a good deal of that has come from their primary school teachers. Environment Dept should focus future efforts right there – you know how kids love to nag their parents too.
Future generations have a chance to put things right but with so few people of driving age actually giving a damn right now, it’s too late for us lot to make much of a difference.
If not there’s always denial to fall back on, again.
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Chris and Rosie
Imagine you were King and Queen of Guernsey. You have a year to improve the road transport system and by statute discourage car use and therefore ownership. Short- to medium-term view is to reduce car use by say 20%?
I’m intrigued what would you do immediately (costed please to the closest million) to enable that to happen?
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Deputy Sirett has given up, doesn’t have a clue what to do anymore and has come back in the guise of Neil seeking advice on what on earth to do next! :-p
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This issue seems so important perhaps someone should run with it as their sole agenda in the next elections. I think that the vast majority of car users would like less cars on the road, if someone could come up with a very good case on how to reduce car numbers and get people back into walking cycling etc I think that they would get a healthy return of votes. Sadly Deputy Sirett hasn’t done a very good job in this instance. A token gesture scuppered by the very fact that he took his car. Its shoot yourself in the foot politicking. Something Guernsey Deputies seem to excel at. They always seem to voted back in though which says something about the voters as well unfortunately. Is there a pressure group in Guernsey to try and influence something positive and strategic?
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“The States has spent the subsequent 6 years refusing to implement it, weaselling out of their responsibilities to mitigate the impact of traffic on society and urban amenity”
Utter rubbish.
The weaselly anti-car brigade spent years lobbying and lobbying, and successive populist politicians wishing to appease the greenies spent years bringing reqetes and sliming their way onto committees. Wisher and her apologists, including Gollop (who probably can’t drive) are experts at getting publicity in an otherwise empty press. Eventually the loonies get lucky and win a vote because half the chamber are on holiday or something, and of the rest some are starting to worry about the voters worrying about the polar bears and some are just fed up to the back teeth with the lobbyists and throw them a sop to keep them quiet. Accidentally, the thing gets through the states. Pragmatism steps in, and subsequent committees rightly can’t be bothered to implement the nutters charter. Roffey has go after go to get paid parking in, yet won’t charge his BOH staff or hospital customers for parking. All civil servants and states members still get free parking. It’s no wonder that the spokesperson needs his car as his journeys are evidently essential. Always. Like mine.
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Solutions can be simple enough.
Longer periods “off the road” for traffic offences; raise the driving age by a month a year until it’s at twenty-one. Chop off the licence at seventy-five or eighty, say.
Make it a stipulation for housing licences and work permits that the immigrants are to surrender their driving licence upon arrival and they are to bus/walk/taxi everywhere. Maybe let them have a scooter licence. Car licence to be returned for renewal or off-island travel or emigration. Heck, that might stop them from bringing in young families and cluttering up the schools.
Not anti car, but anti new driver; anti bad driver; anti new to Guernsey driver; anti old git driver.
A fair start, which disadvantages no-one unnecessarily. Immigrants don’t have to come. The young local would still eventually get a licence, and no-one would have a sudden change thrust upon them.
Visiting cars could be counted in and counted out again (or reconciled as imported) from cargo manifests, and visiting drivers accepted for up to two weeks, say, on special licence. Tourism hardly affected.
Open market dwellers can afford chauffeurs and taxis anyway, and are here for the love of the place, so we are told.
Cost? probably a couple of milion to alter some computer systems, otherwise eveything else can be charged for – special licences, the lot.
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I would be quite willing to SELL my licence back to the states of Guernsey and never drive again. They would have to give me a good price, say £20,000
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Bob,
That’s a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened. The Traffic Strategy consultation had 4000 respondents. Everyone in the island had the opportunity to respond in favour or against. In the event, those in favour outnumbered those against 3 to 1.
And your characterising of the lobbying that goes on in these matters is way off the mark. Wisher, Gollop, Roffey et al will certainly use the media to engage in high-profile lobbying because their cause evidently has considerable public sympathy. I would hope you would join me in wholeheartedly supporting their right to petition for a change they passionately believe in, just as I will support the right of the GMTA and and petrol retailers to lobby deputies, whether through the paper or behind closed doors, to protect their members’ immense financial interests?
Incidentally I think BOH staff and civil servants should have their parking rights in their contract as a taxable benefit, which would give them the option to cash it out if they chose to get rid of their cars.
Neil,
I’m not ignoring you, but the answer to that sort of question normally takes teams of civil servants months to come up with, so could I at least have the weekend? :-)
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Bob – what a stupid and disgusting post. Ageist to young and old and racist, and all in one post! you must be a lovely human being!
Maybe we should take your licence away on account of you being an imbecile and with views like yours you can’t possibly have the intelligence to operate a motor vehicle.
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Ex-Pat 80: Your air miles by travelling off Island to your place of paradise has damaged the environment more than my daily round trip to Town from the Vale.
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Bob for Chief Minister
Not quite sure about the old git driver though
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What a shining expample our Enviroment minister set by DRIVING to his radio interview. Jersey’s Transport minister got it right. He left his car home for the day and cycled to work.
Also the increased bus fare was a stroke of genius. Not. Hardly likely to encourage bus use.
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Chris – nope – that’s pretty much as it happened.
3000 out of 65000, then? Hardly a shining example of democracy, but it underlines the worry deputies felt about 3000 voters fretting over polar bears, eh? That’s 3 times the number that voted for the current CM as deputy.
Everyone on the island has the opportunity not to own a car, and not to drive. Everyone could ride a bike or use a bus. Democratically, 900000 of us own motor vehicles and are hell-bent on using them, so put that in your democracy pipe and contribute to global warming by smoking it. There is no overwhelming support for the anti-car brigade, paid parking or any of it. Tell you what – put a voluntary collection box at each car park and see how much gets collected. Then all those that want paid parking can get on with it, eh? Those that want to ride buses already can, yet they are mostly empty.
Missy – What’s racist or ageist about it? I do not even mention race. Jerseymen, Latvians, Madeirans Englishmen of whatsoever race creed or colour that are already here wouldn’t be affected any more or less that anyone else. Returning locals could well be hacked off at not getting a licence, and certainly I don’t propose to make a case for them to get one automatically.
Is the current policy of not giving out licences at birth ageist? Would you also allow people to continue to drive well into their centenary years?
Currently there is a presumtion of unfitness from 75 after which medical evidence of fitness is required every five years in order to renew the licence. That ageist too?
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Eh? Huh? What are you talking about TRICYCLE? Are you mixing me up with someone else? I said nothing in my post of a couple of days ago about ‘airmiles’ or ‘travelling to paradise’. What are you on? Is Guernsey growing new ‘crops’ these days……?
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Bob, 900,000 of us choose to drive cars? Which Island do you live on, Hong Kong?
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It is an absolute disgrace that vehicle use and ownership has not been compulsorily curbed in this small island.
Heavy vehicle use in Guernsey and the necessary infrastructure that results is yet another example of the inappropriate adaptation of the island when instead we should be adapting to the island.
And if the States are not going to do anything about vehicle numbers then the very least they should be doing is taking measures to improve our quality of life by tigthening the law on noisy engines/exhausts and introducing something similar to an “MOT test” in order to keep vehicle emissions in check – such easy things to do which would make the island more peaceful and less fumy.
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Still gob smacked that Deputy Peter Sirett drove to the radio station to talk about no-car day.
Almost sounds like a wind up sketch from the Ali-G Show.
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@ Paul le Page
Totally agree with your comments, the whole badly “organised” event was a fiasco. I rather think that the whole idea of a car free zone will fall on stony ground, where workers are concerned; nothing really to do with people sharing transport, parking early, to obtain a ten hour spot, doing crosswords, catching up with their texting, etc.I think it is more to do with us having two main arteries, which most of us workers will negotiate on our daily voyages into the town areas. Who is going to leap out of their car, to board a bus, at the top of Valle de Terre,for example, or take their cycle from their boot, when the majority of us can see, where they need to be?
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Tricycle
I believe the radio interview took place at North Beach. The reporter had turned up in the BBC Radio car
If I have read the phone book correctly Deputy Sirett lives in the Forest parish. He explained to the reporter that straight after the North Beach interview he had to collect his wife from the airport then attend two separate committee meetings
Walk?..Cycle?.. Bus? Which would you choose?
Still,mustn’t let the facts get in the way of a good pi** take
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the environment minister is a joke, he’s more interested in his role in the games in india than his paid job in the states.an environmentalist (eg.david delisle) would be a far more sensible choice to run that department. but after the last election they pushed him out, shame about that.
oh, i hope bob is stuck behind me on my bike, i am a polar bear loving, anti-car greenie, so stick that in your pipe.
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I don’t know who dreams up these gimmicky ‘weeks’ or why they bother. If they are serious about reducing car usage perhaps they should try a ‘Proper Bus Service Week’. Amongst other novel features they could include busses running after 6pm and more regularly so we don’t have to hang around in the rain for an hour.
I agree with Saint Marcouf’s comments about reducing the car population by removing stinking old wrecks via MOT testing. Several birds, one stone.
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No idea it was / is Car Free Week.
Have been on a bus at least once a day for every day this year, never saw any mention of it on the buses or at the bus terminus.
Have also cycled most days of the week, never saw any mention of it on the cycle lanes.
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I did my bit, left my car at home all week… took a taxi!
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Ray.
What make Sirret so much better than everyone else that you berate for exactly the same reasons that he gave for needing his car?
Are you now admitting that public transport and cycles are not suitable for everyday needs?
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Steve
Not sure if that is a trick question
What I attempted to say is that because of his’multi task’ day there is no way that the Deputy could have completed those tasks by cycle,bus or on foot
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What counts is not the number of vehicles here but the number of currently valid driving licenses held (One or none per person). Could VLA give us those figures?
I could have 3 licensed vehicles, only a genius could drive them all at once!
I could have a driving license covering 3 categories but that would only be one hit!
Oops, just missed ya giggles
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Ray
I don’t expect Guernsey Deputies to be as media savvy as UK MPs, but the irony of the situation, which appears beyond Sirrett’s and your grasp, is astounding.
So Mr + Mrs Sirrett live in the Forest? Couldn’t Mrs ‘S’ have got a taxi home, or even walked? Why did he plan to drive from his radio interview in Town to the Airport, and back again, to attend some meetings?
Sounds like Deputy Sirrett’s planning skills need addressing anyway – whether it was no car day or not!!
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Tricycle
Oh I do get the irony
Whilst Mrs S could have got a taxi it would still have been one extra car on the road
Perhaps Mr S is like me and does not recognize that the island has a traffic problem (at least between 9am and 4.30pm)
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Hey, TRICYCLE, you still have not answered my question. Perhaps you cannot?
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Simple answer is that there are too many people for the size of the island,reduce the population and the car problem will shrink.If you live in large cities in the UK its possible to live without a car,because public transport is very good,but out of cities a car is vital.
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Why doesn`t everyone just wake up. this planet pollution is a con by all the governments to get more money from us. The forcasts for the end of the world by our esteemed scientists (already discredited) is 2050 and as far as me and a lot of people won`t be alive then so why should we be bothered about it. If you`re younger than me start stockpiling oxygen bottles, water and lots of tinned food but don`t tell ANYONE where you stash it, not even family, because it`ll be nicked. Oh, and buy a really good gas mask to ward off the fumes us oldies create as we drive around not giving a damn.
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Tricycle
Thats a great idea re the taxi,another car on the road. And how do you suggest she gets her luggage home(if she had any)? how about a taxi?.
Savvy,
do you mean like riding your bike and having the car you would normally travel following behind?
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All deputies should have their vehicles removed from their possession for a whole week just to see how they get on.
Might be interesting, we would see Trotty get a cab everywhere.
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Cheerful Charlie – oooooo soooo many oooos.
Still, 90,000 “votes” for motor vehicle ownership and use v 3000 respondents to some survey. I remain underwhelmed.
Nikkers – are you seriously joyous at reducing the efficiency of my car by holding me up, and therefore deliberately contributing to global warming? Evidently I value the polar bears more than you.
How would anyone using a taxi be helping on car free week??? They are cars and may have a “dead leg” for every fare, doubling the carbon consumption per journey.
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No one seems to get it do they? This sooo simple.
As the minister/deputy responsible for no car day, to ‘play the game’ you do not use your car UNDER ANY circumstances. Get up at 6 am and walk to Town, get a bus timetable, borrow a bike, arrange a car share with a friend.
Sirrett has demonstrated he cannot plan ONE DAY in his life differently to the other 364. What hope have we got?? The ubiquitous word ‘fail’ just does not do Sirrett’s actions justice!
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“Democratically, 900000 of us own motor vehicles and are hell-bent on using them”
Not strictly true, Bob, the 90,000 you mention is the number of registered vehicles on the road.
As you point out yourself Guernsey has a population of 65,000. Also bear in mind that a significant percentage of that number are not old enough to drive a car, then take into consideration that a significant number of vehicles are owned by businesses and the figure is probably somewhat smaller.
Still, poor statistics aside, I agree that a large proportion of Guernsey people are simply not prepared to sacrifice the convenience of car usage unless forced to do so. The car is far too ingrained in local culture for that.
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You cant only blame the amount of cars its the amount of people which is the problem mostly non local, you can only blame the states of guernsey.
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Paul – Poor statistics was entirely my point. 90,000 democratic votes against the strategy. Expensive votes at that. Many are multiple votes cast by the same individuals, and are really votes for all sorts of things, but that isn’t relevant. Some are actually buses, but we won’t go there. The point I make is that the 3000 respondents supposedly “pro” the strategy were probably not; many were very likely multiple representations from groups and societies where underlying members had also made representations; would include those of schoolchildren and even non residents; and are in very many cases not “pro” at all, just accepting of a least worst or compromise option, or even suggesting something other than the status quo.
Overall in an island of 65000 we own 90000 vehicles, and 3000 disparate views are shoehorned into the “pro” strategy pigeonhole. Not very convincing, really.
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Bob,
You are expending a lot of energy vigorously countering a straw-man argument which no one is making! I’m not even sure where you get the figure 3000 from – nobody has mentioned it except you.
A public consulation was done, and the result was 60% of respondents in favour of the Traffic Strategy. The States could still have thrown the whole thing out, and in that case the 60% would have been disappointed. But most would have accepted it as the death of that particular Strategy – losing the occasional battle is a price we pay to be governed by representative democracy and not mob rule.
However, they didn’t throw it out, they endorsed it, and that is why those who support the Strategy are still going on about it.
I don’t quite understand why these facts offend your sensibilities so much, because as far as I am aware, they are not in dispute!
Going back to the topic – in my original post, I argued that you cannot reasonably expect individuals to stop using (or owning) their cars, even if those same people support the principles of the Traffic Strategy – it will cripple them individually while not really improving things for anyone else. In fact it would possibly only delay the wholesale change, the legislative change, which is really needed.
You have made a number of posts now which have just ignored this argument, continued to maintain this flawed position, and concentrated on attacking an argument I don’t think anyone is making.
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Tricycle
How are we supposed to get it when you suggest getting a taxi instead of taking the car? and think thats making a difference.
I think the idea of no car day is if you can within reason do without the car then try it, you are suggesting that just because of who he is he should not use one under any circumstances, why? its not all about him and some PR excersise is it?
Maybe its you that doesen`t get it.
Notice you never mentioned the taxi in your last post.
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bcb,
I’m with Tricycle on this. Yes, because of who he is, and what he was going to say, he shouldn’t have used a car to say it, because it leaves him wide open (rightly or not) to the accusation of hypocrisy.
For goodness sake, he could have done the interview over the phone, saving a journey for both himself and the radio car!
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BcB…….don’t even try getting a civilised answer from Tricycle regarding any answers you seek regarding unexplained comments he has made regarding your posts. He/she did the same to me. He/she seems unable to back-up what he/she has said.
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