Is it me? (Light Rant)

[Captain Colonial]

...the government of the day thinks the priorities should be:

> Spending £250,000,000 on picking up bins once a week when the vast majority of people get on just fine with once a fortnight unless they're too lazy to recycle or read the Daily Fail?...

> ...while making 1,000+ people in the navy redundant?...

> ...and trying to set the speed limit at a hard 80 mph (and the cost of enforcing a hard 80) when most people do 80 already because they know they won't get pulled over, costing nothing to enforce unless they do 80+?

Is it me?    

Oh, and is Mr Pickles possibly the most odious-looking fat creature since Jabba The Hut?

[Stuart]

My guess is that it will lead to 80mph speed cameras on motorways.  Government mostly only changes things if they will win votes or raise money for the treasury.  Can't see how this will win votes, ergo they are going to make money out of it.

[Wile E. Coyote]

With the explosion of ANPR they have pretty broad reaching speed averaging capabilities already... if they chose to use it.  

My gut feeling is that if it is a "hard" limit it won't take long for them to do just that.  No need then for more traffic police to enforce.

Of course, that won't stop the cloned plates (+ uninsured vehicles - why stop with just the plates?), but addressing that problem doesn't ever seem to be top of the list.

[Norman Verona]

QUOTE

Oh, and is Mr Pickles possibly the most odious-looking fat creature since Jabba The Hut?

Not seen me then?

[jeff oakley]

It's not you it is the rest of them. Here we are with problems coming from the Euro zone, not of our making, funding Greeks to retire at 50, by us working to 70, convicted terrorists able to travel freely on the tube they helped to blow up and yet the best we can do is this oh and don't forget plastic bags!

We need some focus on the important things like job creation, cutting the red tape, removing charitable stautus from the likes of Brake and CTC who are lobby groups. I could go on but my Dr says I should not let these things get me down we are turning into a laughing stock for our wilingness to accept anything.

[Steven (WE51STE)]

Deep Breath and popcorn at the ready.

It must be you sir :

Bins should be emptied every week.  I'm still paying significantly more local council tax now for half the service I was originally getting for the local councils to take away my rubbish.  Especially in the hot weather fantastic for the flys and maggots ( and possibly fishermen )

Any before you comment / stereotype I've never have and will never read the daily fail and I religiously recycle.

The 70 mph speed limit was set when the roads were full off Morris Minors / Triumph Heralds and 1100's.

Drum Brakes, leaf springs,  bicycle tyres and no seat belts.  The automatic industry has moved on a lot since then.  The maximum speed limit should be revised.  I agree with your counter argument that the skill level of the numpies driving the cars has not improved ( may even of gone down ) so the limit should not be raised.  However, I would counter argue that the test should be made that much more difficult to remove the numpties from the road.  This not only would improve road safety but would decrease congestion / pollution / road accidents and travel time for the non numpties.

You will be please to know that I've no specific point about no reducing the numbers in the Navy although I guess its happening to all the armed forces and we should not forget the Army and Air Force.

As for your comment on Mr. Pickels, I could not possibly comment on the looks of an individual. ( people living in glass houses and all that stone throwing )

Yours looking for the full half hour ;-)

Squadron Leader

[Dibby]

Thing I don't get is how come 2 years ago our council tax paid for weekly bins and recycling, now it doesn't?

How come the price of collecting bins has doubled in price? Something to do with 'competitive' tendering for contracts to private companies, councils don't control the collections any more and any extras like overtime rip us off - eventually these extra ripoffs add up to cost far more than it would have cost if the council picked the bins up and we've ended up with a 'not my job guv' sector of business looking to make a quick buck from nothing.

Personally, good news if the limit goes up to 80 and the 10% + 2/3mph still stands for speeding. Currently have 3 points for speeding dong 83 on the motorway and the camera showed me on my own, no traffic, perfect visibility and weather at 60am on a Sunday morning. £45 fine + £15 victim surcharge - so where was the victim here? It's a swizz I tells ye, a swizz to harvest money from unsuspecting motorists

[Captain Colonial]

How come the price of collecting bins has doubled in price? Something to do with 'competitive' tendering for contracts to private companies, councils don't control the collections any more and any extras like overtime rip us off - eventually these extra ripoffs add up to cost far more than it would have cost if the council picked the bins up and we've ended up with a 'not my job guv' sector of business looking to make a quick buck from nothing.

Partly yes, but partly no.

> The councils have to pay out a lot of money for extra vehicles and crews to do the recycling (they do make some back selling the recyclable goods, though)

> The price of diesel has gone through the roof

> Landfill Tax is massive, which is why your council wants you to recycle - weekly collection discourages recycling by giving you an empty bin to fill

> Bin men do not work set hours, they "work to task" - in other words, they go home when done.  Most of the time, this means they go home after about 5-6 hours (or less, especially Fridays), but get paid for 8 hours.  It was always thus, but it's still dumb.  You could pick up the same waste with 2/3rd the men and machines if they worked a full shift.

> RCVs are not cheap - about £130k a pop on average

> The rise of convenience and pre-prepared meals, and general consumerism, resulting in massive amounts of packaging waste

Bin collection has not doubled in price, but the amount of general waste and recyclable waste has rocketed.  They are collecting more waste than ever.

[Matt Seabrook]

This could be next with any luck

[housebeautician]

Keep saying it, its being put into place as we speak.

We will be paying by the mile and also average speed cameras along the lenght of motorways to create revenue.

Cabling has been going in for a long time now, Junctions and slip roads closed over a couple of nights so that they can be ready to take camera's, its all happening.

Cars will be for the rich and the rest of us will be on the expensive buses and trains

[Dibby]

TBH I don't care, we've been given a small bin but have a weekly collection and I didn't put it out this morning because there's hardly anything in it. The 2 of us don't generate much rubbish.

Maybe it's the media whipping up their own frenzy to report on by trotting out phrases like "it's a basic right" to have bins collected weekly. Sorry, WT entire F? Freedom of speech, peaceful protest, freedom to follow a religion of your choise are basic rights. Not the right to have your bins collected weekly. I don't get all the unnecessary fuss created over the bins. It's not rocket science to separate recyclables into separate bags but the public are idiots in general and have to be 'enouraged' to recycle and coerced rather than just getting on with it.

[Vinny's Westie]

Where I live we used to have a single lorry do a bin collection weekly, now we have a fortnightly collection so half as often.  But we also have a weekly recycling collection and a weekly food waste collection so that means we now see 1 lorry every fortnight and 2 every week, makes an average of 2.5 per week.  Now think of the environmental consequences of using all that extra fuel, making the lorry, people going to work and more.  It would be more efficient to make all rubbish taken to a central sorting office, that would be better but that is a country wide solution and the local council isn't interested in that.  Totally rubbish to me.  

[Dibby]

Where I live we used to have a single lorry do a bin collection weekly, now we have a fortnightly collection so half as often.  But we also have a weekly recycling collection and a weekly food waste collection so that means we now see 1 lorry every fortnight and 2 every week, makes an average of 2.5 per week.  Now think of the environmental consequences of using all that extra fuel, making the lorry, people going to work and more.  It would be more efficient to make all rubbish taken to a central sorting office, that would be better but that is a country wide solution and the local council isn't interested in that.  Totally rubbish to me.  

Hexactly.

It's the big swizz that is the environmental do-goder hippy movement. There's very little environmental impact from the recycling business, it's a money making oportunity and keeps people in jobs.

But shhh, the public feel good about their recycling while ignoring the root cause of how we're screwing up the planet - over population from having too many kids, all creating too much rubbish and relying on convenience packaging.

[lippydave]

As far as the motorway speed limit goes, it might make more sense to enforce some of the current laws and actively encourage people to move to the left as they legally should once they've overtaken slower moving vehicles....  

Nothing boils my p*ss as quickly as some pompous middle class nimby jobsworth permanently occupying the overtaking lane. at 65.5mph....  

After one flash of headlights to move 'em over fails I'm hypothetically reaching for the foglight mounted rpg launcher....      

As far as bins go, DILLIGAF?      

[housebeautician]

Love the way the word  "Encourage" replaces the word "Forced" these days