UK a democracy? Hah!

Over the last few weeks there has been a lot in the UK press about the possibility of change in the leadership of the Labour Party... and hence our prime-minister. For some time it's been said that Tony Blair would be suceeded by Gordon Brown in this role, but in recent days some people within the party have been questioning wether or not this should happen without a democratic election.

"Democratic election". Now there's an interesting phrase coming from this particular political party, a group who have traditionally used a block-vote from the unions to decide their leader. However if you look outside the party too you'll see that the use of the word "democratic" really doesn't mean what many here in the UK seem to think it does.

The first thing to do is to look at our system of government. A quick glance at the CIA World Factbook shows that "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (to give it the correct title) is a "Constitutional Monarchy". In simple terms this means that the reigning monarch (in our case Queen Elizabeth the Second) is the ultimate power in this country and anything else that happens does so because she is happy for that to happen. It is the monarch who appoints our "elected" leader and who also has the power to fire him. Any laws created by our elected officials must have the signature of our monarch before they become law. Add to this that we who live in this country are not citizens, we're subjects! We have no written constitution or bill of rights in this country. Basically, what we have in this country only has the illusion of being a democracy and this can stop at any time, at the whim of the reigning monarch.

So, why are we in this situation. Well, back in the 1600's there was a revolution and many know the name Oliver Cromwell... but what they don't realise that this man did nothing more than replace the royal family with a religious zealot. I'm being very simplistic here but you could compare what happened with recent events in Afghanistan and the Talliban. However in our case when Oliver died his son decided it would be a good idea to re-instate the monarchy and so, after a brief period as a Republic, things returned to normal. Since then the powers that be have done a very good job of seemingly giving more power to the people while maintaining overall control at the very highest level.

The funny thing is that, as I've already mentioned, most people in the UK don't seem to recognise this. My fellow countrymen will often speak out rejecting Metrication, the European Union and the Euro as things that, because they are not British, undermine our democratic system and our soverignty. The crazy thing is that we actually have more rights as EU citizens than we do as British Subjects. The reason why we seem to put up with this situation is because those in control of our country do everything to stop us from thinking about it in a logical and sensible way. The newspaper that seems to do the best job of telling us that foreigners are bad (i.e. The Sun) is owned by an Australian man with US citizenship. The people in government who tell us that we don't need a single European currency in the UK are those who stand to loose a cushy little job in Whitehall if it happens (and are probably shareholders in the banks that charge us an arm and a leg every time we make a purchase in something other than Pound Sterling!).

The scary thing about all of this is that in the near future our current monarch will die and will be replaced. We have no choice in this matter and Prince Charles (unless he is outlived by his mother) will become king. This is a man who insists on being politically active and who it seems is quite likely to break with current tradition and get involved in the day-to-day running of the country if (oops I mean when) given the opertuniuty. Perhaps only then will people realise that we do not live in a democracy.

The only question is, what will happen next. Interestingly the last British king who was overthrown was called Charles!

Give them an inch and they'll take 1.609km

If you've read my first few posts you'll already know that British road safety policy is something that gets me wound up. Well, the other thing is the metric system... specifically the fact that in 1965 the British government decided (for the nth time) that we'd become a metric country and since then progress has crawled at the usual British pace.

Well, it's on the back of this week's changes to British road safety laws that I come onto our use of metric. I was surprised, shocked and annoyed on seeing TV coverage over the last weekend telling how the British public is confused and mis-informed at new rules that will force many children back into child-seats. I'm already enraged by our government's lack of official advertising on this particular issue as we should not have to rely on the BBC and Halfords to tell us the law is changing. I was a little peeved at the usual "Blame the EU" attitude taken by some. But what really got my goat is the BBC reporting that the law applied to "children under the age of 12 and less that 4 foot 5 inches in height". Let me explain: what the law actually says is 135cm. Yes folks 135cm, otherwise known as 1.35m or 1350mm. What the law does NOT say is 4 foot 5 inches - now, if the law actually said 134.6cm then I'd have to accept this.

So, why is the extra 4mm important? It's indicative of the stupidity of the system of measurement we operate in this country and however much people might complain that completing metrication might be expensive and dangerous, it is more expensive and dangerous not to convert. Apart from the USA (and even they are starting to use metric), the UK is the ONLY country on this planet which is not using metric in all areas of life and is certainly the only one where it is possible to get confused.

Starting at birth the midwife will weigh and measure a baby in metric and make a record of this information for future use, yet the proud parents will announce the weight in pounds and ounces. When the child goes to school they will be educated in the use of metres, grammes and litres, but when they get home they will take a pint bottle of milk out of the fridge and listen to mum complain about how many pounds she's put on and dad talk about how many miles per hour faster his car goes than somebody elses. This goes on throughout life.

Every time you go to the petrol station you'll put perhaps 40-50 litres of petrol in your car without thinking about it yet you'll work out how economical it in in Miles per Gallon. No matter that the size of a gallon in the only other country in the world who does this differs in size by over 3/4 of a litre! And on the basis that we don't understand what a litre is, we're still forced to buy beer and milk in pints (even though spirits can only be sold in metric units and in the supermarkets a pint of milk must by law be marked as 0.568 litres). We're forced by holiday companies and radio DJ's to listen to en-promtu weather forcasts in Farenheit!

Not many people realise we do more in metric than they're led to believe by the loony-tabloid-press. A4 paper is metric. Measurement of electricity using watts, volts and amps is all metric. Your 35mm camera is metric. Measure a CD and you will find that it's exactly 12cm across. But can we, in this modern and forward thinking nation of ours, convert to using metric? No. Why? Because it's too hard for people to undestand it.

Even our roads use metric. Where? I hear you ask. Everywhere. All engineering is in metric. Roadsigns are made according to metric specifications. Lines and markings on the roads are specified in metric. Even the positioning of the road signs. If you read the laws and guidelines on how roadsigns are errected they state specifically that distances between signs are in metres. If you see a roadworks sign even though it states "n yards" the law regarding it's positioning states "n metres". It is deemed that 100 metres and 100 yards are close enough on the roads that they are equivalent, yet the same laws state that distances cannot be shown on the sign itself in metric. It is assumed that the British people are too stupid to understand the difference (even if we had it explained using little words in big writing).

Think now of international travellers. Not only those coming to this country on both business and pleasure, but those of us doing the opposite. We're used to seeing signs that give a width limit of 6"6' but this means nothing to people from most other countries (well it does, it means 6 minutes 6 seconds!!!). Even the owners manual to my Vauxhall Zafira doesn't give me measurements in this manner, it tells me my car is 1999mm wide (just a little under 2m for those of you who refuse to understand). Using this country's habit of using inches in this way am I supposed to presume that the gap is wide enough for my car? Well, 6 foot 6 inches is actually 1981mm which is 19mm less and I'm afraid that IS enough that I'm not going to take a chance so please excuse me if I reverse back up that narrow lane because my car is too wide. Spare a thought though for those thousands of European drivers who don't know how to convert. How many low bridges have to get hit by German lorries before we put things right. The law allows us to put both metric and imperial on weight and height warnings so why don't we? Why don't we change roadwork signs to read metres AND yards in the same way as Welsh signs show both languages? This would really be too easy.

I recently spent 2 weeks driving my German made car around western Europe and couldn't properly read the km/h markings on the speedometer. Would this have been a defense if I'd have got a speeding ticket? I think not!

Incidentally, weight limits on British roads are shown in metric Tonnes (except that I know a road sign in Cambridgeshire which shows two weight limits, one in tonnes the other in tons! Unsurprisingly Cambridgeshire County Council have to date ignored my request to know why this is the case).

British industry and government must be wasting millions of pounds (thats money folks!) every year on pointless conversion and education. Surely this money would be better spent on improving our hospitals, schools and other public services.

All I can say is, if the Austalians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Indians and most recently the Irish can convert, why can't we?

Road safety advice: Speed limits kill!

For some years now the UK governent have been running a road safety campaign entitled "Think!". As part of this campaign we're regularly fed new slogans, including "Speed Kills".

Before I go any further with this post I have to point out that I am not writing this to hurt the feelings of anybody who has lost somebody or has themselves been injured in a serious crash, on the contrary I want to provoke people into doing what the advertising campaign suggests we should do, but seems to encourage us not to do: Think.

First of all I'd like to take issue with the statement itself. "Speed Kills". Ok, but you can replace Speed with lots of things. Guns, Knives, Cars, Planes, Buses, Televisions - yes, if one was dropped on you from a high building you would be killed. I've also read several times that in the USA that more people are killed by doctors than by guns. I don't know the source of this information but can well believe it to be true but do we want to ban doctors? Don't be silly, people want to ban guns instead! The real issue here is that most things in the wrong hands can become an instrument of death and the real answer is to ensure that anybody using the more clearly lethal of these items is properly trained and responsible, hence why pilots, drivers, doctors (and even those who use firearms!) are required to have training and hold licenses. If speed is a problem then there is either a problem with the way we're being trained, or there is a problem with what we're learning once our training has ended and our licenses have been granted.

Moving on, let's have a little history lesson. Many years ago our motorways had no speed limits, and then, after a spate of serious accidents in fog, a temporary 70mph limit was imposed. Since most cars could not exceed this speed at the time it probably didn't actually do anything to make the motorways safer, but it wasn't questioned at the time and in 1967 was made permenant by then Transport Minister Barbara Castle (a non-driver!). Since then cars have clearly got faster, but in-car safety systems have also improved considerably since then and as a result the number of deaths and serious injuries has fell. Many other countries (including the ultra-conservative USA) have higher motorway speed limits than the UK and experience shows that this does not actually make the roads more dangerous.

Although the number of deaths and serious injuries is much lower now (based on percentage/number of motorists) there are a lot more cars on the road now and information is a lot more accessable to the general public and as a consequence there is a growing road safety movement who seem to be hell bent on trying to bring the number of casualties down to zero. Let's be honest though, that is never going to happen how hard we try. Even if we make driving 100% safe and foolproof somebody is going to have a heart-attack while driving and there will still be death on the road. I'm not entirely convinced that the road safety thing is entirely what it seems though and it seems that it is being hijacked by environmentalists who want to stop us from driving at all costs anyway, regardless of how fast we're going.

Now the thing that really made me want to say something on this subject was a news report I saw several days ago on the BBC News Website. The report in question (which can be found here) was about resurfacing work due to commence on the A14 in Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. The main point of the report was that the new surface would improve safety on the road, but the thing that I picked up on was the last paragraph which reads "Recent figures from the Highways Agency showed a sharp increase in road worker deaths across England during 2005". Now this I found most interesting because during 2005 us motorists have seen a sharp increase in 40mph speed limits in motorway roadworks, often accompanied by speed cameras, both of which we are told "to protect the workforce". So how many other people can see the correlation here? Clearly somebody needs to take a serious look at how lower limits and speed cameras have had an effect!

So, what is my point? Basically, the real problem with road safety isn't the fact that we're driving too fast, it's actually a combination of things.

• Speed is only a factor in road safety if combined with road conditions and driver experience. Doing 30mph in heavy fog is dangerous even though the speed limit is 30mph and on the same basis 30mph is dangerous on the motorway on a clear road in good conditions!
• The way road safety is being enforced is making drivers complacent. People are starting to believe that if the sign says 50 then that is the safe speed. Cameras don't catch people going too fast in rain and fog so people start believing they don't have to slow down.
• On the same basis as above, cameras don't encourage good driving. Overtaking in the wrong lane, not wearing seatbelts, tailgating and lack of concentration are all things that speed cameras do not catch. Well trained Traffic Officers can catch these things, but police forces are scrapping traffic units and instead spending money on cameras so the actual standard of driving on our roads is actually dropping as a result.
• People are getting so paranoid about being caught speeding that it is becoming their single concern when driving. Many motorists are driving slower than the speed limit on open roads causing delays and causing impatience. Many motorists drive through known speed cameras gazing at their speedometers, hence not watching the road. Many motorists do not fully understand the way speed limits work on British roads and often brake sharply to 10-20mph below the speed limit on seeing cameras and camera vans, even when they are already within the speed limit.
• Local authorities are coming under more pressure from "safety" groups to lower speed limits to points where they are far too low for the prevaling conditions and as a consequence many more experienced (and hence safer) motorists are losing confidence in the speed limits and the authorities that set them.

Many governments are currently involved in developing black-boxes for our cars which could potentially take control of our cars and limit the speed we can drive. Many believe this is dangerous in itself as the only thing we would have left to do is steer. Speed limiters are already being used in goods vehicles throughout Europe and as a consequence accident rates within this group of extremely experienced and well trained drivers is actually increasing; usually because these usually alert drivers are becoming bored with becoming little more than passengers in these large and heavy vehicles. I personally will do everything I can to avoid such a device being installed in my own car!

If the UK government wants to make the roads safer what they really need to do is encouraging both drivers AND policy makers to do what their campaign is saying. Think!