By Paul Homewood

Left wing academics have been trying for years to take our cars away from us.

According to this latest condescending report (faithfully puffed by the BBC) , they don’t even want us to have electric cars either:

Electric cars ‘will not solve transport problem,’ report warns

By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst

Car use will still need to be curbed even when all vehicles are powered by clean electricity, a report has said.

It warns that electrifying cars will not address traffic jams, urban sprawl and wasted space for parking.

The Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) report calls on the government to devise a strategy allowing people to have a good standard of living without needing a car.

The government said it was spending £2bn to promote walking and cycling.

It also says it plans to spend £50bn on improving roads. However, critics accuse the government of not having a serious plan to deal with the social problems associated with mass car ownership.

CREDS is an academic consortium of more than 80 academics across the UK.

“Car use is a massive blind spot on government policy,” Prof Jillian Anable, one of the authors of the report, said.

She added: “For many years ministers have adopted the principle of trying to meet demand by increasing road space.

“They need to reduce demand instead.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48875361

This is a classic example of academics believing that they know best how we ordinary folk should run our lives.

According to them, we are all too fat, so it would do us good to walk miles to work every day. It would also encourage us, they say, to meet the neighbours (translation – get mugged on the way home). It would also free up parking space, which could be used for housing.

This statement shows just how arrogant these people are:

“People are also buying status-symbol SUVs which clog up narrow city streets – the report says banning them from some areas might be a solution.”

We should all be grateful to be allowed to drive Fiat 500s, it seems.

And we can forget about driverless cars too:

“The other great technological change under way on the roads is driverless cars.

The report warns this dream could also turn sour as car owners may choose to live many miles from their workplace, using their car as a mobile office while sitting in traffic jams they have helped to create.”

How dare we drive to work!

The reality is that widespread car ownership has given people the freedom to work where they want, enabling them to develop careers and improve job prospects. It is not long ago that people would leave school and spend all of their working lives at the local factory, a short walk or bus ride away.

The Annables of this world would much rather we all got back in our boxes, stopped being a nuisance, abandoned our suburban utopias, and lived cramped up in city centres so we can walk to work.

Of course, the new rules won’t apply to them.

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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July 7, 2019 at 07:21AM