The government announces a trial whereby existing trucks (not bigger ones) might be able to fill up more capacity to carry more freight! What a travesty, time to wide up Sue Kedgley and have her spew forth a press release of absolute brainless emotive nonsense.
Give me strength! The same woman who constantly claimed the two-lane one way street in Wellington called the Inner City Bypass would be a “motorway”, now claims that letting existing trucks carry 50 tonnes instead of 44 tonnes (when their design weight allows it) will be juggernauts (they are the same trucks as we use now you dizzy bitch) and “endanger lives”.
According to the government's own study in 2003, 5.5% of road accidents are the fault of trucks, a rather more relevant figure than Kedgley’s unsourced claim that they are involved in 23% of crashes.
She claims that you have less chance surviving a 50 tonne truck crash than 44, well Sue much like you have less chance surviving a bus hitting you than a car, but it doesn’t stop you promoting buses does it? However, trucks baaad, trains good.
The proposal is simply a trial existing trucks that are designed to handle heavier loads filling up their capacity to carry 50 tonnes instead of 44. In other words the truck will be more fuel efficient, and more productive, but it’s a truck – and in the faith based world of Green transport policy trucks are baaaadd like brainless sheeple worshipping a religion.
She bleets out the discredited “rail is five times more fuel efficient” piece of history ignoring the fact that rail and road freight have similar environmental impacts on average per tonne km, because it doesn’t suit her creed of truck baaaaad, train good. She then argues that "We need to get freight off our roads and onto rail where it belongs, and invest in building more track to places not currently serviced." What Sue? All freight? Why does it belong on rail, what would YOU know, you don't consign freight, you don't operate any sort of business involving goods or trading? What the fuck do you know about transport in the real world instead of your maniacal ramblings like some sort of fundamentalist worshipping at the side of a railway track? When was the last time you consigned 100 tonnes worth of goods?
According to the government's own study in 2003, 5.5% of road accidents are the fault of trucks, a rather more relevant figure than Kedgley’s unsourced claim that they are involved in 23% of crashes.
She claims that you have less chance surviving a 50 tonne truck crash than 44, well Sue much like you have less chance surviving a bus hitting you than a car, but it doesn’t stop you promoting buses does it? However, trucks baaad, trains good.
The proposal is simply a trial existing trucks that are designed to handle heavier loads filling up their capacity to carry 50 tonnes instead of 44. In other words the truck will be more fuel efficient, and more productive, but it’s a truck – and in the faith based world of Green transport policy trucks are baaaadd like brainless sheeple worshipping a religion.
She bleets out the discredited “rail is five times more fuel efficient” piece of history ignoring the fact that rail and road freight have similar environmental impacts on average per tonne km, because it doesn’t suit her creed of truck baaaaad, train good. She then argues that "We need to get freight off our roads and onto rail where it belongs, and invest in building more track to places not currently serviced." What Sue? All freight? Why does it belong on rail, what would YOU know, you don't consign freight, you don't operate any sort of business involving goods or trading? What the fuck do you know about transport in the real world instead of your maniacal ramblings like some sort of fundamentalist worshipping at the side of a railway track? When was the last time you consigned 100 tonnes worth of goods?
What's this abuse of the term "invest in more track to places not currently serviced"? What everywhere? Nelson, Kaitaia, Waimate, Queenstown, Taupo, Havelock North, Raetihi, Akaroa, Te Anau, Roxburgh, Alexandra, Murchison, Opunake, Foxton, Miramar, Takapuna, Kerikeri? You mean like roads?
She is either seriously unhinged, or just a purveyor of manipulative hysteria, trying to scare families into thinking enormous trucks are going to bear down on their children? Either way, she ought not to be in Parliament -
4 comments:
How many people die at rail crossings every year?
Most of them are deliberate. That argument wont work sean, as rail crossings are simply intersections, with the rail line having right of way. Can't blame trains for that, many railway lines have been around longer than the roads crossing them.
Rail has its place, I just wish people would leave it all up to the market, including roads.
A typically shrill knee jerk reaction from the dominant "Watermelon" wing of the Green Party.
I could be considered a socialist, but I have absolutely no problem with road transport or toll roads as long as they are run in the interests of those that are paying for them. I strenuously object Public/Private Partnerships as they are a form of corporate profiteering where a corporation colludes with Big Government and takes advantage of its relationship to gouge money from their captive market.
I prefer something along the lines of this proposal.
"What is the alternative? One possible solution is to turn each state road system into a non-profit corporation funded entirely from tolls not taxes. The stockholders in the corporation would be the road users. They elect a board to run the roads and determine road spending and tolls. Funds can not be diverted to other vanity projects since all funding belongs only to the road corporation. And the only source for funding would be the tolls not taxes subject to political control."
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/08/politics-bridges-and-one-possible.html
Personally, I don't mind having fifty tonne trucks on the roads; so long as our dear state ramps up the charges on them. As it is, trucking only pays 58% of its costs (rail is 77%, IIRC, I know it is near the 80% level); so why not give them what they want and at the same time, ensure that they pay for their costs.
Of course, I must also object to the Green Party's suggestions that the national rail network should be expanded at any rapid rate; while there are some routes that would be worth constructing (Marsden Point springs to mind), funds would be far better spent on existing lines that need improvement, such as Auckland (Westfield and Southdown) to Hamilton (Te Rapa), which sees 274 trains every week use some or all of it.
Just for your interest; I have been told by some people with reasonable knowledge of logistics that if Road User Charges for trucks were increased; it would have significant effects on the trucking industry and possibly see a sharp increase in the level of rail freight.
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