Damned Spammers!

We've all been hit by them... whether it be adverts for penis enhancements, Viagara, slimming supplements or sites where women do interesting things for nothing more than your credit card number, and the debate about what is spam and what should and shouldn't be allowed has been going on for so long that this post will merely be a small fish in a large ocean. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to vent my spleen!

What set me off? Look at my previous post on Road Safety and you'll see a comment which, in my mind, is blatant Spam. If you follow the link you get to some hosting company's home page (in Spanish? I can't tell!) that has nothing to do with the post. I've had another one like that too... and I've said the same in response to both. I don't like Spam, I don't do business with Spammers and will urge others to follow my lead.

Why do I take this stand? It's easy really. I am a great fan of the Internet and the freedom it gives me to communicate with people around the world. It's a fantastic place for sharing ideas (and the odd rant!). It's largely without boundaries which makes it hard to censor. Ok, so we see more than our fair share of nut jobs on-line too but then they have as much right to free speech as the rest of us. Some might say that "Internet Marketing" is nothing more than free speech - but a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Putting banner ads on web pages might sometimes look messy, but then somebody has to pay for the servers, the routers, the cables and the software that runs the Internet. We can choose whether or not to visit those web pages though. It's like the adverts on TV... we don't pay any extra for them, in fact they actually pay for the programmes we watch. Or even billboard advertising... it might sometimes look messy but it doesn't cost us anything and doesn't get in the way of life.

Spam is more intrusive though... but very hard to define. Junk mail is, in effect, Spam. It arrives on your door mat with the regular mail and you sometimes have to be careful not to throw away something important. Unless you throw away the phone or credit card bill it's not going to cost you anything though. Email Spam is, on the other hand, different. I pay for my Internet connection so when I receive an email I am the one who pays for it. Why should this be allowed? The USA have a junk-fax law which prohibits the sending of unsolicited advertising via fax because the recipient has to pay for the paper... so why can't the same thing be true of the Internet? Doesn't it just make you mad.

As mentioned, "freedom of speech" is the mantra of the Internet marketers... but spam, pop-ups on web pages and people who post comments on blogs saying "come and visit my web site" are, in my mind, crossing the line. It's as if somebody has let themselves into my house and stuck their advertising messages to my living room wall or are standing in the garden shouting their messages with a megaphone. It's encroaching on my space... I didn't invite them to do so, it's invading my privacy... and I have zero tollerance for anybody who does that (just ask the Jehovas Witnesses who called around yesterday!).

What can we do about it though? Well, if you haven't heard about it already read about the Boulder Pledge. It's quite simple really... if somebody Spams you, don't do business with them. Never reply to an unsolicited email (except perhaps to complain to the sender's Internet Service Provider) and certainly never buy the product they're advertising. Also, be wary of where you leave your email address... ok, so you might want to know about the special offers from your local DIY store, but that doesn't automatically give them the right to give your email address to other companies... if that happens, complain once and if they don't respond or stop, then treat them the same way (and tell them so... B&Q have recently done this to me and so will no longer be getting my business, shame since they're so much better than Focus!).

Like those tacky stories in the Tabloids that "nobody wants to see", Spam only continues because people are stupid enough to buy into it. If we all stopped it might just go away... but people are just naturally curious so it will probably never stop!

Road safety

Perhaps it's my age, but in the last year or so I've seen myself become more active in campaigns that I support and have finally gotten around to paying for membership of groups who are campaigning for those things... Republic (campaigning for a monarchy-free democracy in the UK), the UK Metric Association and the Association of British Drivers to name just three.

It's the last of these three which is my focus today. I'm no "petrol head" but I enjoy driving, I enjoy my car and I enjoy the freedom to be able t0 go where and when I want without having to rely on others, but this is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive here in the UK as various pressure groups seem all the time to get better at unnecessarily clogging up our roads with lower speed limits, speed bumps and cameras and other congestion-causing factors, all in the name of road safety or the environment (or increasingly both).

Don't get me wrong. As well as a car owner I'm also a parent... but even before I had children I was ever aware of road safety issues. I do slow down where necessary such as in poor visibility or on residential streets when children are likely to be about; I turn my fog lights off when I'm not driving in fog; I even use public transport when it's practical and possible! So why, like so many other British drivers, am I getting more and more frustrated?

Drive outside of the UK regularly like I do and you start to get the picture. Most European countries have higher speed limits than the UK on their motorways and those motorways are, on the whole, better maintained and less congested. Get off the motorways and you will still find driving to be a pleasant experience; roads surfaces are generally good, direction and speed limit signs are clean and well-placed, and although still expensive by North American standards fuel is cheaper than it is in the UK (and lasts longer thanks to less time stuck in traffic jams). Recently I've found that I feel quite relaxed right until the moment I come off the Eurotunnel service and drive onto the M2 in Kent... at which point I feel my whole body tensing up as the quality of roads and driving seems suddenly to deteriorate.

Why is this though? For years the British have deemed themselves the best drivers in the world... sadly this seems to be a side effect of being British though since, as a nation, we seem to think we're better than everybody else anyway. As far as we're concerned Jonny Foreigner isn't capable of most simple tasks and never has a good idea (hence we still use spend the pound in our shops, weigh ourselves in stones and have to show our passports at the borders). The British aren't the best drivers in the world though... not by far. We're not the worst, from personal experience the Belgians are probably the worst in Europe (though give me Brussels over Rome any day!) and from a North American perspective the Californians are right up on my lunatic list, but we're lacking in one vital area - the ability to think and I blame this on the current government's road safety policies.

I've always believed that learning is a lifelong experience. What I learned in school was just to start me out on my long path and my driving lessons were much the same. I learned the basic safety skills required to get through the test... but from then I've continued to learn. We learn how to drive at speed on the motorways, how different cars cope under certain conditions, we experience things we never could in all our driving lessons such as fog, ice, snow and the other idiots on the road. We learn to read the road and as years go on we gain more experience, we learn how to cope with new situations. However we're being told on an almost daily basis that one single thing is causing all our accidents - speed. On that basis people now believe that slowing down the traffic is the one single thing we should do to cut accident rates. Excuse me for this, but that is pure bullshit!

Over the last 10 years speed limits have been lowered on many British roads. Some have been justified, many aren't. Then up go the speed cameras... as if it's bad enough we have to drive at 40 mph (65 km/h) on long, straight empty dual carriageways we now have to do so constantly watching our speedometers. To make matters worse many younger drivers (and quite a few older ones too) are so paranoid about losing their licenses that they drive more slowly past cameras - 20 mph in a 30 mph limit and 40 when the limit is 60. There are some drivers who now habitually drive at no faster than 40 mph on any road with a limit above 30. These actions alone cause frustration in even the most experienced of drivers... but it's the less experienced who then take their chances by passing and often narrowly avoid head-on collisions. These avoided collisions are, of course, never recorded in official statistics but on the same basis they probably wouldn't happen if speed limits were set properly and people weren't so scared of those big yellow boxes on poles!

Then we add the speed bump. Over the years the "sleeping policeman" as they used to be known have been used quite effectively in arresting the speed of motorists in places where high speed is clearly inappropriate - hospital and supermarket car parks and the like. In some cases I can see where they are still useful such as the entrance to residential cul-de-sacs, but like the speed camera they're popping up everywhere - even on main roads. These menaces are nothing more than inverted pot-holes. They force drivers' attention away from the roads, they create additional wear and tear on brake and suspension components on vehicles (making them more unsafe in the longer term) and regardless of what the UK government say they do cause health problems (just try driving over one with a bad back or bruised ribs!).

We're told though that these measures work. A recent article in the Corby Evening Telegraph told local residents that fatalities in the county have come down by 25%... but this is based on statistics collected in the last 4-5 years. What we don't see is the longer term statistics that show that in the last 5 years fatalities in the county were consistently higher than in the years 1993-1997 and with the exception of a statistical blip in the year 2000 have been consistently higher than before speed cameras were introduced. So, accident rates have not fallen at all... but the number of drivers prosecuted for speeding in the county has rocketed as has the money collected in fines.

Looking further afield I managed to find international accident statistics and was pleased to see figures in the UK had been going down since the late 1980's... but this stopped about 1998 and then in 2001 the figures started to go up again. Once again, this seems to have corresponded with the introduction of speed cameras and the Safety Camera Partnerships (those quangos set up specifically to manage speed cameras and collect the funds they generate).

If you can't see the pattern that is emerging here, you're clearly not reading this properly (or you work for one of those Safety Camera partnerships and are concerned that if the public find out you'll loose your cushy job).

So, what is the answer? Look closer at accident statistics and you notice a couple of things. First, accident rates are lower on motorways than on other roads; the conclusion from this is that a good, free-flowing road with good visibility and strict rules will always be safest. Second, younger drivers are more likely to have accidents; you don't need to be a brain surgeon to figure this one out, safety comes from experience. Taking these factors we can come up with the following plan.

1. Speed limits on all roads should be set (or at the very least checked) by qualified road safety experts. Politicians and pressure groups should not be setting speed limits.

2. Speed cameras and bumps should be removed and only installed where necessary and appropriate. Outside schools would be appropriate. Money collected from cameras should be earmarked for road improvements and not used to by more cameras. All other road enforcement should be left to the police.

3. Roads that do have safety problems should be properly investigated and the problem corrected. For example, if a residential road suffers from high traffic levels putting in bumps isn't the answer, improving the surrounding main roads is. Look at the reason why people are speeding or using "rat runs", don't just plug them up and hope the problem goes away!

4. Reverse the changes in junctions on motorways across the UK. In particular junction "improvements" such as the M40 J10 and M1 J15 need to be re-visited as they cause more problems than they solve. The A14 needs to be improved, particularly where it meets the M1/M6 in Northamptonshire.

5. Finally, do something with public transport. If the French can manage it, so can we. Build new high-speed lines between the major cities. Work with train operators and bus companies to provide routes and timetables that are actually of use to potential passengers. Stop using these daft "guided bus" things and lose the M4 bus lane (if it really must be there, make it a car pool lane instead).

I'd also like to see a stop to members of the public being given speed cameras... and I'd like to see the day that our children aren't used as part of the road safety propaganda. A return to proper traffic policing would be nice too... perhaps a UK Highway Patrol would be a good idea?