Forum Topic

BEWARE - car tyres being deflated overnight

In East Chiswick SUVs have had their tires deflated with a note on the windscreen from a Group calling themselves The Tyre Extinguishers

Sandra Taylor ● 1660d57 Comments

I've always felt there is an undercurrent of misogyny in these campaigns which target 'SUVs'. How else do you explain why they are the subject of such tactics rather than sports cars or large saloon cars? I've never owned a car like this but when I was at a stage in my life at which I needed a larger car to move small children and all their kit around it was something I considered. A lot of my female contemporaries opted for a four wheel drive car because of the raised driving position as other cars tended to be designed for taller people. As I am above average height I went for an estate car which was no more environmentally friendly than the four wheel drive equivalent and neither would an MPV equivalent have been.So much the anti-SUV rhetoric from men and is about 'school-run mums' and 'women driving to the gym'. To me this seems more about some males resenting that a woman has a nicer car than them. The spite that they display on social media is often disconcerting.Of course any purchase of a motor vehicle should take into account the impact that it will have on the environment but if people need to own a larger car because they need to regularly need to carry more passengers then their buying choice should be respected and seen in context.

Anita Blake ● 1660d

Agree it is perplexing why it is specifically this kind of car that is targeted and your explanation is as good as any I have heard. A digital tyre inflator stored in the boot means it would take longer for the person to deflate your tyre than it does for you to reflate it.

Francis Rowe ● 1659d

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60660711

Catherine Steele ● 1659d

At least they are only deflating the tyres. I had a Range Rover a few years back and had three punctures due to idiots propping 6" nails against the tyres overnight.The annoying thing is that our XC90, although large, is actually ULEZ exempt, does 25mpg and is far cleaner emission wise than most smaller cars. Oh, and we probably only use it once a week tops, preferring to cycle locally.

Chris Blackwell ● 1659d

Does anybody know someone who has had their tyres deflated? It could be that this is just a clever piece of media manipulation in which it is announced that it is happening across the country but only one or two cars have actually been targeted.

Felicity Caborn ● 1659d

I do not own an SUV and I never will and the reality is that the vast majority of people who do own an SUV do not need one - or at least other than a couple of times a year do not need one.The idea that people are getting them because they need a high driving position is also daft. As SUV's now account for nearly 45% of all new car sales that means that over time more and more people will adopt the "high driving position", so come the next car purchase people will want an even higher driving position and so on.But my biggest gripe is with the police or possibly the current state of law.  The police are not even bothering to investigate possibly because they know even if they catch the perps in the act, the act may not be a crime. The relevant section of the Road Traffic Act specifies "A person is guilty of an offence if he intentionally and without lawful authority or reasonable cause ... interferes with a motor vehicle, trailer or cycle."  Letting down someones tyres without their permission is obviously interfering with a motor vehicle but the chances are that the defence would be "reasonable cause" given that SUVs are far more damaging to the environment than much smaller cars, and juries have been willing to accept that sort of defence in similar cases.  Fortunately the new Police Bill revives the old offence of public nuisance which would apply here, but I have some real issues with the breadth of the proposed new legislation.

Justin Stephenson ● 1659d

Justin, you say that the idea that people are getting them is daft but it isn't an idea but what other women have told me about the reason for their choice. This also appears to be confirmed by industry research at least in the states see for instance: https://wanada.org/suvs-now-most-popular-vehicle-with-women/You also say that the 'vast majority' of people don't need these cars but how can you possibly know? An SUV is not the same as a 4x4 but is one of the three options for people along with an MPV or an estate car. Among these three choices there is often little difference between emissions. Of course larger cars tend to use more fuel than smaller cars but are you unprepared to accept that some people might need to buy a larger car for good reasons?If people are actually letting down tyres in upmarket parts of the UK and are going to claim to a judge that they had 'reasonable cause' perhaps she might be inclined to ask them why they walked past Porsche Carreras and Audi TTs (which are mainly driven by men with the justification of wanting to go faster) and targeted SUVs (which are more likely to be driven by women with the justification of needing to transport their family).

Anita Blake ● 1659d

Anita,Of course it should also be considered that car manufacturers make more profit from SUVs than conventional cars.Like all marketing, the car manufacturers are trying to convince purchasers that SUVs address a need or solve a problem that their prospective customers may or may not realise they had. No different from Apple pushing the latest iPhone.So I think the point is whether the users of these products are paying an appropriate price for the disbenefits they create for everyone else: pollution, greater size both parked and when driving, more dangerous to other road users.The cost of the SUV itself goes towards the car manufacturers profit, not towards addressing the issues they create.So examples of things that maybe could be considered are differential CPZ charges based upon the size and weight of the vehicle.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

Michael - what's the source for motor manufacturers making more from SUVs that other cars?While I would generally be sympathetic to the principle of more polluting vehicles should pay more I think we have to recognise that is already happening in spades now with the rapid acceleration of fuel prices.It might satisfy the socially envious to pile further expense on those that drive large expensive cars but, as has been pointed out, most people will buy a large car because of a legitimate practical need and they may already be seeing a substantial disposable income squeeze due to rising fuel costs. Extra charges based on size and weight of cars are a blunt tool which will mean nothing to the very wealthy but will hit the less well off hard.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1659d

Just google 'SUV profitability' or similar phrase and there are lots of articles:"Ford becoming an SUV brand as it focuses on profit over volume""Hyundai returns to profit as SUV sales boost margins""BMW's stronger SUV sales help new CEO deliver profit lift""SEAT to base its profitability on its new SUVs"+ many more.  No surprise that the manufacturers focus on marketing the products they make the most money from.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

When I Googled this most of the examples seemed to come from the US and in other cases the SUVs being referred to were electric. In any market a product in a competitive market is unlikely to remain unusually profitable on a sustained basis as higher margins just attract more supply and new entrants. If some manufacturers are seeing unusually high margins on SUVs right now that won't last.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1659d

The barriers for new entrants to the car market are huge.Many manufacturers have a portfolio of products so they are focussing on selling SUVs as they are more profitable than the other products.  Hardly controversial.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

I suppose you are right about the barriers to entry when talking about fossil fuel powered cars but if all manufacturers focus on selling the same product it won't remain more profitable for long.The danger with the notion that you tax car manufacturers more for the profits they are currently making on SUVs is that they can easily transfer price to depress margins and margins will fall if the current surge of demand isn't sustained (which at current levels it seems very unlikely that it will be). You then be left with a system in which other types of cars, which may be more environmentally friendly, were taxed higher than SUVs.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1659d

"The barriers for new entrants to the car market are huge."Maybe so, but it didn't stop Tesla or Grenadier.

Richard Greenhough ● 1659d

It is irrelevant if profits fall.  The fact that they are focussing on selling SUVs and not other types of less profitable vehicle means that the market share of SUVs will increase.  More profitable vehicles will then just be bigger SUVs.It will be difficult to tax global companies headquartered in other countries on profits.  A better solution would be the user of the products to pay more for the disbenefit they create through, maybe, methods like CPZ charges or road pricing.  So 'polluter pays' but also 'large size and weight pays' and 'higher rate of injuries to other road users' pays.If these charges mean the vehicles are less attractive to consumers then so be it.  The consumers aren't paying the full cost of the disbenefits at the moment.Maybe then the manufacturers will change their designs so they have less disbenefits.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

Then, Michael, wouldn't it make more sense to target these profiteers as opposed to those who drive them? It's punishing the wrong sector. I heard an interview on the radio this morning with a guy who advocated for deflating tires. He didn't have a valid answer (as if there is one) for what would happen in case of an emergency and someone were unable to use their car to get someone in distress to a hospital. He stood behind inconveniencing those in peril. Something dreadfully wrong with that mind set given they seem to be angry they are being sold at all. But, as ever, they go after the soft target and generate nothing but ill will instead of the support they so desperately want/need.

David Lesniak ● 1659d

As I've already pointed out this is a blunt instrument. While 'polluter pays' is a very good principle, it is already operating in sharply higher fuel prices which very directly targets vehicles responsible for more emissions. Your desire to layer more costs on top of this are likely to lead to measures which are less well targeted and will have the greatest impact on people struggling to make ends meet who may have legitimate and unavoidable reasons for owning a larger vehicle. Now is not the time to be thinking of ways to increase the cost of living for people in an indiscriminate fashion.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1659d

There used to be lots of estate cars in particular Volvos which took up a lot more space than many SUVs do.  Constantly buying new cars can't be good either.  I'd like to think that many families have now decided to reduce their car use and to become one car rather than two car families.  You can't fit grandparents + children + parents + dog + pushchair +bikes easily into a small car.

Philippa Bond ● 1659d

The people most struggling to make ends meet don't own cars in the first place, certainly not £80k Range Rovers.  The increase in car ownership with increased income is clear.I note you don't have any other proposals.  CPZ charges are way below market price.  Just compare the cost of a CPZ permit with what people are renting out on websites like justpark. e.g. someone is renting out a days parking on Barrowgate Rd for £22.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

An interesting point that people are mising here is the introduction of the Electric SUV. No emissions whatsoever yet equally as large as the big SUVs, will they have their tyres let down too?We are a one car / 4 bike family, albeit our one car is a 7 seater Volvo XC90. Our XC90 has a petrol engine and as I stated earlier is ULEZ exempt meaning we pay half the normal road tax due to the low emissions. We tend to use it once or twice a week for ferrying stuff / family / dogs around. I don't think it's abnormal these days for a family to have one large car rather than 2 or three smaller ones, in fact pre children we always used to have two cars, Range Rover and Golf.

Chris Blackwell ● 1659d

Michael is quite right about car manufacturers pushing SUV's (and other large, expensive vehicles), because these are where they make their profits, including in Europe.As the article below demonstrates, EU emissions regulations mean that manufacturers now have to fit expensive environmental features to all cars, which is no longer justifiable profit-wise, for small vehicles, since they can't easily pass on the extra costs. Which is why they no longer make any profit on this part of their range, and why they are pushing larger, expensive vehicles more than ever.More here: https://europe.autonews.com/sales-segment/automakers-fight-rescue-small-cars-extinction-eu-rules-bite

Richard Cathcart ● 1659d

Two further thoughts on these vehicles.One of the reasons most often cited by people who buy SUV's is that they are "safer". Which may be true for the driver and other occupants. But what they don't consider is that with SUV's also being so much heavier than regular cars, when they do have a collision, whether with other vehicles, bikes or pedestrians, they cause far greater injury and more deaths to the people they hit, as well as greater damage to their vehicles.While a second thing which really bugs me is that buyers are paying extra for 4WD - a must-have for negotiating the torturous twists and vertiginous climbs of the Chiswick Alps, no doubt.I should be interested to know how many drivers ever use 4WD, in fact how many even know how to use it.

Richard Cathcart ● 1659d

I think it is more complicated because not all SUVs are 4WDs.

Philippa Bond ● 1659d

That's an excellent point Richard and thanks for the extra insight. What it suggests is that rather than seeking to tax larger cars even more heavily, incentives should be given to people, who need to own cars, to buy smaller ones. It also serves as a warning that ill-thought out policies designed to protect the environment can be counterproductive.Michael, the logic of your argument is that some car owners are rich therefore we should not be concerned about the economic impact of measures on all car owners which is frankly quite callous. I'm not sure why you are requiring me to come up with alternative measures at the moment. You seem to have missed the main point I was making that, right now, when there has been a significant increase in driving costs due to rising fuel prices at the same time there has been general increase in the cost of living combined with significant tax increase, further less well targeted policies that increase costs for motorists are not necessary and would be grossly unfair.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1659d

Electric cars are also much heavier - should we be avoiding them for safety reasons?

Francis Rowe ● 1659d

Well your argument seems to be that some car drivers are poor therefore nothing should be done.The incentive to buy smaller cars is disincentivising the purchase of larger ones. There hasn’t been an increase in fuel duty for 12 years. Over  this time there has been consistent increases in bus and rail fares.  The cost of driving over the last 10 years has increased less than public transport and the cost of living.  So drivers really haven’t been paying their way particularly when considering the disbenefits of private cars compared to other modes of transport.

Michael Robinson ● 1659d

FR: "Electric cars are also much heavier - should we be avoiding them for safety reasons?"No, because there's a trade-off, with anti-climate change measures taking priority.While the "danger" inherent in gas guzzling SUV's is not just confined to impact damage. Fossil fuels also contribute to climate warming, as well as producing toxic fumes which pollute our air. This problem is much less pronounced with electric vehicles.

Richard Cathcart ● 1659d

Yes in my street. EVERY SUV had tyres deflated

Sandra Taylor ● 1659d

"So drivers really haven’t been paying their way particularly when considering the disbenefits of private cars compared to other modes of transport."First, I'd like to point out the benefits of private cars (and other vehicles) to the productivity of the UK economy.  Anyone who spent 2 hours travelling from Surrey to Chiswick today on the train, as I did, will appreciate that. (And to counter the obvious response, with waiting on platforms and 3 changes, you don't actually get much work done.) Productivity and the effect on our economy are things that fantasists like Michael, Steve Curran, Katherine Dunne, Guy Lambert and Hanif Khan conveniently ignore - for almost 200 years the world has grown richer and peoples' lives have improved by doing things more efficiently - more profit = more investment = more medicines etc.... In the last 20 years productivity in the UK has declined - travelling at 15mph when you could complete a journey at 30mph contributes to that. Like it or not. Cycling is not productive. It might make the nation healthier (though one can also choose other forms of exercise), but it is also making the nation poorer - that means less money for cancer drugs in the future.Second, let's have a look at the facts in your claim there, Michael, "drivers really haven’t been paying their way"....Fuel duty and vehicle excise duty £35bn. Entire DfT department expenditure £31.8bn. The DfT spend includes only £10.1bn on "roads, places and environment", which presumably includes Michael's precious cycle lanes, and those wooden decks that they put in place of parking spaces which after a week or two look like an ashtray with beer cans squeezed in, because a) that's obviously what would happen and b) councils haven't allocated any budget for maintenance because they're skint.  Short-sighted ideology.Further from the DfT's expenditure:Aviation, Maritime, International, Security (Grant Schapps is a keen flyer): £661mRail Strategy and Services £4.3bn Rail Infrastructure £10,9bn High Speed Rail £5.4bnCorporate Delivery (that'll be consultants like Michael) £488m "kerching!"So, the numbers suggest that road users are more than "paying their way" as Michael puts it.It would be nice if Michael, and his best mate Paul C, said "thank you" for funding their new, 600 yard, £3 million cyclelane (yes, three million pounds, more tax than you might pay in your lifetime, all spent on somewhat a vanity project), and subsidising the rail transport (should they pop home on it when they get a puncture, or when one of those vigilantes lets their tyres down).https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-transport-outcome-delivery-plan/dft-outcome-delivery-plan-2021-to-2022#a-executive-summary

Amanda Smith ● 1659d

See above. This is a crime. We are fortunate at this time to live in a democracy where everyone is equal in front of the law, including the opinionated timewasters who are doing this.  Society's answer will be to waste there time with a very long period of community service.

Amanda Smith ● 1659d

Good post Amanda but I would just like to correct you on one point.The cycle lane strip was budgeted 3.3m not 3m which will almost certainly end up much nearer 4m.

Adrian Irving ● 1658d

"You can't fit grandparents + children + parents + dog + pushchair +bikes easily into a small car"Nor can you fit them in a cargo bike.

David Lesniak ● 1658d

There is no doubt that SUVs are worse environmentally.  If you need a large car, then fine, but a Volvo XC90 is around a quarter of a tonne heavier than a large 7 seater like a Seat Alhambra or Ford Galaxy. That extra weight is totally unnecessary, and affects the amount of fuel it uses, and the amount of CO2 it puts out.People shouldn't be letting tyres down, but the government should be taking action.  The obvious one is to tax cars by weight.  Have a sliding scale, so if you have a small car you pay very little, but very high taxes on these great big monsters.Big 7 seaters like the Ford Galaxy weigh less than 1.8 tonnes, so there is no need for anything to be heavier than 1.8 tonnes.  Add £1 per kg over 1.8 tonnes to the road tax.  To some of the people driving these monsters, an extra £300 on road tax might not put them off in itself, but to the more cost conscious people buying them second hand, they wouldn't be an option.  Resale value on them would be hit very badly.  Losing another £15k because there is no demand when they trade it in would make them think twice.Taxing cars by weight would also make manufacturers a lot more conscious of weight in their deisgn process, which would be a good thing.

Al Webber ● 1658d

No -  you can't fit the whole family in a cargo bike!  Well not unless you are a very small family.That is why I would think it is logical to choose the car to take everyone for travelling further and as most people don't need to drive all the time you then choose bikes for the more frequent shorter journeys.  Wouldn't road charging then be the answer to discourage journeys  - or even better to have some sort of easier to use and better public transport eg DRT.

Philippa Bond ● 1658d

I note that you haven't disputed that the cost of driving has risen slower than the cost of living and the cost of public transport.  The point still stands that drivers haven't been paying their way.Your claim that improving people's health somehow "makes the nation poorer" shows just how risible your argument is.And some news - you can't travel along Chiswick High Rd at 30mph.  Best and fastest way is by bike.

Michael Robinson ● 1658d

Yes, and Climate Change is an Inconvenient Truth too!https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2017/10/kiribati-the-angry-sea-will-kill-us-all/It needs to be something you also think about.

Philippa Bond ● 1658d

Cars already face higher VED dependant on their emissions and their purchase cost. Ditto more expensive SUVs, for example, generate higher VAT receipts. Does that not fill your criteria? As someone mentioned, EVs are generally significantly heavier than comparable cars and we are encouraging those So your weight argument doesn't really was its face.  Why shouldn't someone be able to choose if they want an XC90 or a Ford galaxy? Maybe we should all have maximum house sizes and temperatures we can run our heating at. Maximum 3 hot showers a week? Maybe a weekly meat allowance too as cow's fart a lot. All for the greater good, right. 

Rob Reynolds ● 1658d

I've Googled a random selection of car weights and while you are right a Volvo SUV is heavier than a Seat MPV by about 15% , a Nissan Qashqai, which I understand is currently the top selling SUV is 20% lighter than the SEAT. It may well be that an SUV on average is heavier than an MPV or an estate car but many models won't be so to tar them as an entire car class seems unwarranted. Even when they are heavier there may be mitigations in terms of engine performance. A simplistic hostility to SUVs is clearly wrong headed.Cars are already effectively taxed quite heavily by weight because of the cost of fuel. I'd agree with those saying that this is the wrong time to be considering extra taxes but if your idea did go ahead it might have more unintended consequences. For instance would manufacturers 'make the weight' by compromising on safety with flimsier bodies and how would you classify light commercial vehicles? If they are exempt then you might find that what happens is that more people use them for private use including ferrying their family around.

Francis Rowe ● 1658d

The Qashqai is in a completely different class.  The Alhambra is a seven seater, with big enough rear seats to be able to fit adults without breaking their legs.I used that as an example because various people had been using needing a big car as a reason for "needing" an SUV.As for the weight of electric cars, we should be encouraging manufacturers to make lighter electric cars.  We have to start taxing electic cars eventually, so doing it by weight is a good way to do it.

Al Webber ● 1658d

Ok, if you have quite a few extra billion dollars to hand, then please donate to the EV industry to come up technology for lighter batteries. They are the sole reason why the cars are so much heavier. 

Rob Reynolds ● 1658d

I think all of this is arbitrary.  Do all the people letting down SUV car tyres not own/use a car? Who decides which tyres to let down?  A plug in SUV? A small SUV? A mobile home?Reading between the lines, it sounds like Ed has a large motorbike.  Should they all be banned unless they are used for work?  Or if you do ‘need’ a motorbike, should they be restricted to 100cc as I think they are much lighter? We have had the discussion about our carbon footprints before.  We could all do better, but most of the time we do what we can afford and is most convenient. Are we all giving up holidays/working/delivering abroad so we don’t have to use air transport?  Or maybe we could all jump in the SUV and drive instead?  Now where is that hand pump?

Kieran Fox ● 1658d

That's the trouble isn't it?  How long do you keep a car for?  Is it better to lease so you can change your car more easily?  They always lost so much value as soon as you'd bought them.  Once upon a time many of us used to keep our cars until they could no longer be fixed... 

Philippa Bond ● 1658d

And keeping cars, washing machines, fridges, ovens etc until they can no longer be fixed was a major contributor in the past to pollution and excess energy usage, due to their inefficiency compared to newer products. All of these things need updating periodically to benefit from improved technologies that will benefit our environment and ultimately save money over the longer term.  As to how long that period is, not sure, but leasing won't save you money, however long you do it for...

Rob Reynolds ● 1658d

Environmentally, it's better to keep an old car running than make a new one.  It uses a huge amount of energy to make a car.Local pollution concerns in big cities like London are an issue, but outside of big cities, it's better to keep an old car running than buy a new one.Electric cars won't magically fix everything either.  As I've said repeatedly before, I'm pretty sure that brake and tyre dust is a bigger source of particulate emissions than exhausts.  Electric cars will reduce particulates from brakes, but won't eliminate them completely.  Brake pads can last a longer if cars are driven well, but with a lot of the aggressive driving styles in London, the conventional brakes will still get a lot of use.As for tyre particulates, electric cars are heavier, so will generate more of them.  Given their fast acceleration, that will be exacerbated if they are driven aggressively.It also takes more energy to move a heavier car, which offsets some of the benefits of electric cars, especially when we are daft enough to generate a large proportion of our electricity from gas.

Al Webber ● 1658d

'Well your argument seems to be that some car drivers are poor therefore nothing should be done.'Michael, I clearly am not saying that as any objective person would recognise. To repeat - there has been a significant rise in costs recently at a time when people's disposable incomes are being squeezed in a multiple ways. Your airily patrician views are possible from the privileged based of regular car use not being a necessity for you but millions of people do not have that luxury.Obviously we do need to look at ways of reducing car use and  encouraging people to own different type of cars but, right now a huge rise in fuel prices will be doing that. Loading on top of that some badly thought out and ineffective measures will cause more harm than good.Any benefits from improved air quality would be almost immeasurable but the impact on people's incomes won't be. What the available data shows us very clearly is that areas with poor air quality but higher incomes have higher life expectancy and areas with good air quality but low incomes have lower life expectancy. If you want to kill more people in this country making them poorer is a quick and effective way to go about it.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1658d

I think other points are that EVs take up the same space (or maybe slightly more) as conventional cars so don't do anything for congestion, particular when the vast majority of cars on the road are being driven with only one person in them.Also when a, say, 2000kg EV is being used to transport a 75kg person with 5kg of groceries, 96% of the energy is essentially wasted on moving the EV itself.  Only 4% of the energy is used for transporting something useful, the person and the groceries.

Michael Robinson ● 1658d

Sorry Al, "Environmentally, it's better to keep an old car running than make a new one.  It uses a huge amount of energy to make a car." That's only correct if you only do low annual mileage. 

Rob Reynolds ● 1658d

"I note that you haven't disputed that the cost of driving has risen slower than the cost of living and the cost of public transport.  The point still stands that drivers haven't been paying their way."No I haven't Michael, since unlike you I don't make assertions based on what I want to believe, but instead I consider the data first, and I hadn't looked at the cost of driving. Some call that analysis, some call it integrity, some call it honesty.Since it is very unlikely that you looked at the data either, I decided to save you the effort. The RAC Foundation's "Motoring Price Index" shows the cost of "All motoring" (ie purchase/depreciation, maintenance, fuel/consumables, tax and insurance) to have increased by 27% in the 5 years between end 2016 and end 2021. In comparison, the ONS's preferred measure of inflation (CPIH) has risen from 102.2 to 114,7 over the same period, which is 12%.  For your benefit, this means that the cost of motoring has risen faster (at over twice the pace) than the cost of living over the last 5 years.I then looked at rail fares. Over the last 5 years these rose by about 10%, so that's less than the cost of motoring, too.You are right (but if you make enough guesses you will be eventually) that the cost of bus and coach fares has risen faster over the period (c.40%) than the cost of motoring. Interestingly, however, fare inflation was virtually identical to that of motoring until the start of 2020 when prices were hiked substantially. Maybe you need to ask your friend Sadiq Khan what's going on there.So, I think overall, we can conclude that drivers have been paying their way, and as my earlier post showed, they have been heavily subsidising other forms of transport. Like your £3m cycle lane used by only about 1000 people a day (which Adrian tells me is likely to cost nearer £4m, which seems more than likely as they haven't even costed the part from Heathfield Terrace to Chiswick Lane yet).So, thanks for your original post. I just hope I don't have to drive my Volvo over any bridge reliant on your engineering expertise to hold itself up, since your analysis seems not to stand up to even the most straightforward scrutiny.

Amanda Smith ● 1658d

I think you will find that Govt insisted that TfL put fares up.

Philippa Bond ● 1657d

To keep an old car running and legal you are obliged by law to maintain it.  That doesn't happen with so many household machines although they'd last longer, work better - economically and environmentally - and be safer.  The not emptying of the lint out of dryers is a particular fire hazard and bugbear especially when and where carers are involved! 

Philippa Bond ● 1656d

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220307162011.htmWe've moved on petrolwise but there's a disturbing legacy.

Philippa Bond ● 1656d

No, not really. Sorry to go back to poor old black cabs as an example, but a 30 year old London taxi may be maintained and legal, but it is no where near as economic or environmentally friendly or safe as a 2 year old one..... Same goes for fridges, ovens, boilers etc even if they meet some sort of minimum safety standard akin to an MOT, they would still be worse than new kit for your 3 parameters.  Keeping old stuff running years past its sell by date is a false economy and bad for the environment. 

Rob Reynolds ● 1656d

Sorry Rob but what about this?https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/product-recalls/2019/12/hotpoint-and-indesit-washing-machines/https://washingmachinerecall.whirlpool.co.uk/We don't necessarily have safety in new machines and the recall system isn't that good.  There aren't the same regulations for stuff that is bought online and that often doesn't meet our safety regulations.  It is also likely to have been made in conditions that would not be acceptable here.https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/stop-the-sale-of-dangerous-electrical-goods-on-online-marketplaces/

Philippa Bond ● 1656d

The masterminds that came up with the idea of letting down car tyres obviously failed to notice a major flaw in their plan. Getting the tyres pumped up again means a call to the garage who would send round a (usually diesel) truck or van to pump them up again which actually causes MORE pollution.

Chris Blackwell ● 1656d

Did that include paying money to the ferry company with no ferries?The big problem is the ideological one of not increasing the right taxes so that we have fair taxes here instead of just increasing ones which will hurt those who are in lower wage brackets.  Other countries have greater subsidised public transport.  Here the dogma is that it should be privatised to save money (and then we have to pay all over again as private companies are bailed out) again and again - with our public taxpayers' money of course.

Philippa Bond ● 1656d

I think it was you that raised the issue of safety requirements in cars i..e MOT, So i was merely referencing the fact that even if old appliances are 'safe' it doesn't mean they are efficient or not contributing to ones carbon footprint.  Not sure what whirlpool recall or buying stuff online has anything to do, well with anything on this thread. On a like for like basis (e.g. a 30yr old Miele vs new Miele washing machine etc) the difference in power usage, water etc is immense.

Rob Reynolds ● 1654d

Not if you carry your own air pump.

Richard Greenhough ● 1654d