[thechat] Traffic Light Cameras

[Lauri Väin]

Martin, 

> Yup, where 'city'='london' at present. It only covers the 
> very centre, 
> north of the Thames, which was utterly choked with traffic, screwing 
> the environment, public transport and didn't help tourists 
> have A Good Time.

Ok, so the charge has affected London positively? I guess you have
better public transport and parking outside the congested zone than we
do - the city officials recently did a stupid move here, which only
shifted the parking problem by a few streets zone of the city and did
not solve anything in the city centre. 

> You're exempt if you drive a dual-fuel hybrid btw.

Hmmm, that's cool. So if you drive a Toyota Prius, for instance, then
you don't have to pay the fee? Or what? 

Isn't Toyota Prius just hype? 
I'm just looking at the webpage and it says that Toyota Prius is all fun
and totally revolutionary. That it uses less fuel that almost any other
car and has 89% fewer combined CO2 emissions than an average car. 

When I open the technical specification page, however, it says that
Toyota Prius uses 4.2 liters of gas per 100 km driven and that the
emissions are 104g/km (!!). Now, when I go to Honda's webpage and look
at the data of a Civic, which is a car of roughly the same weight, I see
that the 1.6 model uses 5.5 liters of gas per 100 km driven and that the
emissions are 154 g/km (!!). 

Looking at the data, I don't see it as being all that revolutionary!! 

The Toyota Prius only has a third less emissions when compared to a car
that has approximately its own weight. The difference between fuel
consumption in the city is larger, but the Civic's fuel consumption in
the city, a few Civic models back, was edging very near the fuel
efficiency that the Prius gives in the city. 

Plus the Civic gives you better acceleration (by 1.5 seconds from 0-100
and a higher top speed). 

That Prius has 89% less emissions than the average car seems to be a
piece of twisted information. Granted, the Prius has a bit less
emissions, but only by 30 percent. And it does not sound to be that much
when you look at it in absolute numbers and compare both of these cars
to larger cars. Also granted, the Prius has lower fuel consumption (but
not really by that much when compared to another car fairly). 

Now, I don't really see a reason for it to be exempt. 

It does only a LITTLE more for the environment than other cars and it
does nothing to reduce the congestion. Like - nothing at all. So where
is the advantage? Apart from boosting the hype and by convincing people
to buy cars that are 40% more expensive? 

> > Sorry,
> > never been to the UK - not much of a clue, how it works 
> there. Seems to suck big time, though :)
> 
> Well yes, if you're the sort of person who just *has* to 
> drive into the 
> central tourist & government area, and can't possibly use public 
> transport.

Oh, doesn't sound that bad at all when you put it like that... and I
assume from the way you said it that you have good parking facilities
and good public transport. 

> Top Gear isn't exactly an unbiased source. It's the kind of program 

No kidding - even a guest said it in the last show "Jeremy, you are the
only person I know that confuses his own opinion with FACT!" :) 
The show is good fun, though! 

> that revels in Clarkson having bought a car whose range (about 70 
> miles. Yes, seriously) is 4 miles short of his daily drive into the 
> office.

Yeah, the Ford GT. But if you listened to it carefully and thought about
it, then that's what they said but it was not really true. It did 4
miles per gallon when he was *really* trashing it around the track. But
it does 12 miles per gallon on the highway. So he will be able to go
something around 200 miles per tank of fuel on public roads (when mainly
driving out of the city). Top Gear is a show where you have to listen in
carefully and think about everything twice before you even consider
about accepting it as the truth :) And probably even then you will be
tricked by careful wordplay. But that's why it's a good show (the reason
is similar to the reason why I liked the West Wing show). 

Cheers, 
Lauri