In message , at
08:27:49 on Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Dan Gravell
remarked:
Dave Arquati wrote:

I'm not exactly pro-car but that's a bit of a gross generalisation.
There are sometimes legitimate reasons for driving a private vehicle
into London - carrying heavy/bulky goods being one of them.
However, when it comes to large 4x4s, I'm probably less forgiving.
If it hasn't got mud on it, it probably shouldn't be here...
The stupidity that a less safe car is perceived as more safe by
those who buy these cars should definitely be addressed.


Of course, I understand that. Part of me is wanting to get Roland
going, part of me is thinking of the frustration I have with the
utilisation of road space in London. The car is clearly massively
overused for simple journeys in London, and I just cannot understand
what goes through people's minds when they make the conscious decision
to use one.

Something like 90% of journeys in London are by public transport, so the
remainder who are using their car have obviously got a very good reason.
Often (amongst those I've asked) it's because they have had very bad
experiences with public transport in the past, and feel they need the
extra flexibility that a car provides.

I used to travel to London from Cambridge 3 or 4 days a week, for a
couple of years, and in that time I used the train except for perhaps
half a dozen times when I went by car because I had lots of
luggage/items-to-deliver to cope with. And most of those trips I did on
a Sunday. And one time I knew I was going to be very late and it wasn't
practical to get a train.

Of course, it depends what you call London. Years ago, I would regularly
drive down the M4 and park at Marble Arch (under Hyde Park), or perhaps
at one of the car parks in the squares north of Oxford Street. There was
never very much of a problem, traffic-wise, and as the nearest sensible
railway station to my home in rural Oxfordshire was more than halfway
into London (at the edge of the Metropolitan), a lot of the time it just
felt "right" to carry on, having got that far.
--
Roland Perry