Why is it that the BBC London traffic news people cannot find any better ways of identifying the location of delays on the roads than a reference to a junction nobody who does not pass that way all the time will remember? Yesterday I heard a report about something happening at the "Movers Lane interchange", and I don't remember them mentioning where that is (as it turns out, it's on the A13 in east London). They commonly give references to side roads, when if you're going along a main road and you are not from the area, you won't know the names. For example, I don't know the names of every stretch of the A24 as it runs from Ewell to Clapham Common. I know there's a London Road, a Stonecot Hill, a Merantun Way (that's new), and a Balham High Road - oh, and a bit of Clapham Common - is it east or south side? - but I don't know each bit, let alone every side road. So, if they want to tell us there's a delay, they should tell us relative to landmarks on that road, not to side streets whose names you can't see from a driving seat.
The same station, yesterday, gave us "breaking news", apprently shoving other stories further down the list, which turned out to be that a guy who was found guilty of murder a couple of weeks ago (for hiring two hitmen to kill his wife so he could claim her life insurance and move in with a prostitute) had been given a life sentence. This is not "breaking news" because you know someone will get life when they are found guilty of murder (unless they are juveniles, in which case they get indeterminate sentences); the only thing to decide is the tariff (the actual minimum time inside; whole-life sentences are rare in the UK). I don't want to hang around to hear "breaking news" which I knew two weeks ago.
Finally, whose idea is it to set the speed limits to 30mph on bits of dual carriageway in London where roadworks are being done? On Monday I came off the M3 at Sunbury onto the road it leads into - the A316 - at which point the speed limit came down to 50 (fair enough), and then well before passing over the bridge they were working on, the limit came down to 30. This is really disconcerting for a driver who has just driven straight off a motorway where he had been doing 60 to 70 all the way from Southampton; has nobody ever pointed this out to those who set these speed limits. On motorways it's rare to have speed limits lower than 50 in roadworks; it seems that since 50 was the normal speed limit, someone decided that it had to come down further because there were roadworks. It doesn't make sense, and it makes even less to have the limits come down a long way before you hit the narrowed lanes or other signs of roadworks. My impression coming through those roadworks was that the limit did not need to be lower than 40.
Salaam Alaikum,
I can't comment on the driving stuff, but the whole 'breaking news' thing is just a way of making the news sound more exciting.
That's why I can't bear the rolling news networks (except Euronews and Al Jazeera English), because it's just too much face pulling and rehashing be the presenters.
I don't think there are enough whole life tariffs given out in the U.K, it's my understanding that only about 20 prisoners have them.
As-Salaamu 'alaikum,
Whole-life tariffs are given to the most serious murderers - often serial killers, the most serious sexually-motivated murderers, child killers, some terrorists. The usual figure is 12 years, but I have noticed the tariffs getting bigger recently; there were two Somali youths jailed for shooting dead an innocent young man in London last year and they got more than 20 years minimum.
Salaam Alaikum,
I wonder if those tariffs will stand though. The E.C.H.R, may have something to say about that.
I think we need to have a serious think about crime and punishment in this country. We're imprisoning more people then ever before and the crime rate just keeps on climbing.
I feel like everytime I open up the paper, there's a story about some crime. When I read about the perpetrators, I want to lock them up and throw away the key, but is that really the best solution?
"We're imprisoning more people then ever before and the crime rate just keeps on climbing."
Actually, it doesn't keep on climbing. The reported crime rate- for what it's worth- is going down steadily. However, many crimes are never recorded- every time someone buys illegal drugs both the buyer and the seller commit a crime, but that's very seldom a recorded statistic. A better policy would be to make legal every victimless "crime".
" it makes even less to have the limits come down a long way before you hit the narrowed lanes or other signs of roadworks. My impression coming through those roadworks was that the limit did not need to be lower than 40."
Whether the people who were working on the motorworks a few inches from you as you went past agreed is another question. Motorists always have the impression that speed limits are too low. The reason people are expected to slow down well before they reach the motorworks is to make sure they don't have to slow down abruptly on a crowded and narrow roadway.
"I feel like everytime I open up the paper, there's a story about some crime."
That would have been just as true a hundred or two hundred years ago.