OT: Here's a good idea

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They've had those for at least 20 years.

[Martin]

The jet of air method is used for measuring internal eye pressure in glaucoma tests among other things.

[Andrew]

Your'e a typical head-in-the-sand socialist who only cares about buying votes to get through the next election.

If you had bothered to pay attention during the run up to the

2010 election, when Gordon Browns *deficit* had exceeded the annual cost of the 'free' NHS, you might have heard reference to the 'structural deficit'.

This is the amount of impossible growth that the economy would need to achieve to remove that deficit. Hence the the so-called 'cuts', which aren't cuts at all. Hardly anything has been cut. You need to see what Healey was forced to do in 1976 after the IMF bailed us out to understand what 'cuts' means. That will happen again.

The basic rate of tax would have to be 40% to get rid of that deficit. Try plugging that into the treasury model to see the effect on the economy.

And of course such tax increases would not be paid by the 20 Million people living off the Labour partys gerrymandering handouts like Housing Benefit, 'free' NHS 'free' prescriptions; 'free' motability cars, 'free' child benefit with no upper limit and of course pensions.

On a recent BBC R4 World at one someone from Ffylde was being interviewed about the so-called NHS 'crisis'. He said the just 3% of the local population are responsible for 50% of their costs. many of them repeat 'offenders' with weight problems, type2 diabetis and all the ensuing complications, and of course substance abusers and LOL's blocking beds.

[Indy Jess John]

You might be right, but front wheel drive doesn't really explain wear and tear away from corners and junctions.

My theory is slightly different. Before we joined the Common Market, the legislated standard road weight limit was 24 tons [1] (apart from overweight loads, which had to have a police escort) and the roads were built with the expectation that the number of occasions where they had to carry more than 24 tons were few and far between. Heavier loads were routinely carried by rail. Those rail routes were decimated by Beeching's axe because Beeching worked for a man who owned a road building company and wanted to spend the money on motorways instead.

After we joined the Common Market, we were not allowed to impose our standards on anyone else, but we had to adopt theirs. At that time the default for most of the Common Market was 38 tons. Our weight limit was revoked, but no special work was carried out on British roads to make their foundations prepared for increased weight; that only happened when new roads were built or existing roads were overhauled. Meanwhile the transport industry stopped buying the home grown Bedford, Guy and Commer lorries designed for 24 tons, and started buying Scania, Iveco, Daf, Volvo etc which were bigger then, and got even bigger later, and now we have lorries routinely weighing 48 tons on our roads some of which are still designed for half that weight, along with bendy-buses which break up the road surface at every bus stop they use.

Meanwhile, local authorities try to skimp on repairs by patching the top surface when ideally it is the road foundations that need to be strengthened.

No wonder our roads are falling to pieces.

[1] The road haulage lobby asked for this limit originally, to halt the incursions into their business model of (eg Foden) steam lorries which could haul huge loads at low speeds.

Jim

[ARW]

But regardless of that you can walk down the street without carrying any ID.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That is no way to refer to the recently departed Mr Cameron. Or even Ms May.

As the national debt has risen sharply since both of those took power.

It is now at approximately three times the amount it was at before the banking crash.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Look at any motorway. The majority of the wear takes place in the inside lane of three. Not much used by cars of any configuration.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd just love to see you pay individually for all the shared services you use.

BTW, were the kings of old who taxed the population socialists? Or are you just one of those who talks through their arse?

[Martin]

They were full of potholes like in Sheffield.

Snow and heavy rain also fall in Greece plus Greece has summer temperatures far higher than Sheffield gets.

but much more significant is Sheffield does very little road maintenance.

[Martin]

The benefit of that is for criminals

[Roger Hayter]

It is esxensively used by those car drivers who have taken a driving test since 1960 and know how to drive competently and considerately on a multi-lane road.

[Roger Hayter]

Quite so. You can blame New Labour for deficit spending in the first ten years of their government *if* that was what they were doing, but the general view is that it was the *right* thing to do after 2008.

[Max Demian]

The benefit for me, if I want to attend a crowded event, such as Notting Hill Carnival, is that I'll be less of a target for pickpockets and muggers: I can go carrying house keys, return train ticket, a roll of notes, and that's all.

[Max Demian]

Same with the test I described; I don't know which is better. Sometimes my optician uses one; sometimes the other.

[Woody]

Beeching was a Physicist and worked from the early 50's for ICI. He was never involved with road building.

Also ITYWF that the truck weight limit for UK roads is 44 tonnes provided it has a minimum of six axles, and not 48.

[Martin]

More Sheffield frost damage?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

As I said. Not much used by any cars.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Easy enough to find details of the national debt while the last labour government was in office and up to current.

Makes very interesting reading.

[NY]

Depends how busy the motorway is. If there is plenty of space ahead in Lane

1 and you won't need to overtake anything in Lane 1 for some distance ahead (to be defined) then you should be in Lane 1. You should only move into Lane 2 to overtake things in Lane 1, and after overtaking them, you should return to Lane 1.

That's on a quiet motorway. If there are several cars already in Lane 1 ahead of you and they are all going slower than you, you should stay in Lane

2 until you have overtaken them, and then return to Lane 1.

The mistake people make is to stay in Lane 2 *permanently*, on the grounds that there may be something in Lane 1, at some unspecified time in the future, which will be going slower than they want to go.

In short, Lane 1 should be the default lane, with lanes 2 and 3 being for progressively more unusual conditions when the lane you are currently in is going slower than you and contains many vehicles that are all going at that speed, closely spaced enough that it is not worth nipping back into Lane 1 between one slow vehicle and the next.

That's what the Highway Code says you *should* do. Whether it's what people actually do is another matter :-)

If you abide by that way of working, Lane 1 should get most wear, Lane 2 a bit less and Lane 3 less still. This will be skewed further in that same direction by the fact that lorries cause more wear per vehicle because they are heavier, and they are not allowed in Lane 3.

[Clive George]

In practice the wear caused by lorries is enormously higher than that caused by cars. One number I saw was 9600 times for a 5 axle 36 tonner vs a 1800kg car (this was the US).