GCHQAgent

*comes out of his cryogenic chamber*

[Note: this may well turn into a rant... if it does feel free to stop reading]

When I first heard of the idea almost a year ago I didn't like it and right now I am feeling neutral and while I still don't like the idea I am willing to see how it goes.

Firstly, we (taxpayers) paid to have the roads built. Then local councils decided to assert their right to our roads by charging people to park on them. Now, the Mayor of London is asserting his authority on our roads by charging people to use them. I think Ken forgot much like the government often does that they don't own roads and other infrastructure built and paid for by the public, they are merely trustees of that infrastructure. In my opinion the government as trustees are mismanaging a lot of things but that's an entirely different and political issue.

Anyway, let us take the argument that all 'profits' from congestion charging will be reinvested into improving transport in London. Now that's a good thing, anything to improve transport would be a welcome move. Where exactly will that money be spent in a few years time when the Tube becomes part privatised - will they make a reduction in the £5 charge? I doubt it. So all the money would then be spent on buses. The reason I don't get on buses is because I don't want to be stabbed or otherwise attacked at least while in a car I can lock my doors. I shouldn't have to sit near a seat that's been urinated on and smells. I don't like groups of young thugs giving me piercing looks. I certainly will not use a bus given all of my concerns for which I haven't heard Ken address any of.

In 3 years time there will be a large pot of cash from this congestion charging and they won't know where to put it... that's when we can expect silly 'initiatives' being rolled out and idiotic projects a la The Dome cropping up. Oh and it seems Ken didn't quite realise something else... if everyone who commutes into London by car decided to take the tube or use a bus then the current system would not be able to cope - so we are paying a £5 congestion charge designed to encourage us to use public transport but if we all decided to use public transport we wouldn't be able to... hmm... I feel a pseudo-scam here.

If Ken seriously wants to reduce congestion in London he has to realise that its a problem increasing nationally and is a particular problem in the South East therefore he must work with the government to come up with a solution.

I want to see public services improving before I'm forced to pay increasing taxes to use my vehicle. I want to see a plan for where the money will go, how it will be used, who will have a say in how its spent (don't we live in a democracy or am I dreaming?).

After speaking to a friend who lives in Germany some suggestions for the government to reduce traffic on our roads might be as follows:

1. Charge foreign lorrys for using our roads and limit the amount of foreign lorrys within the UK at any given time. In Germany foreign lorrys will have to apply for a license in order to drive through the country which will cost several thousands of Euros and will be paid yearly. Also there will be a cap on the number of lorrys in the country at a particular time and when that ceiling number has been reached lorrys looking to enter will be blocked at the border and will have to wait until other lorrys have left. This may seem drastic but the fact is big foreign vehicles are destroying roads which we (in the UK) paid for. Other EU countries are doing similar things, Switzerland and Germany for example.

2. Actively encouraging schemes such as car sharing or have days where car users are offered reduced prices on public transport.

3. Demonstrate that public transport is effective. People don't like to use cars going into London, the driving is far from enjoyable. I use a car because public transport is not up to scratch.

4. Do more to prevent strikes (and I don't mean ban strikes by unions). If they were paid half decent salaries in the first place they wouldn't be complaining.

5. A more stringent driving test. A theory test was a good introduction, the new reaction timing test is also good but face it - some people are not meant to drive and they still slip through the net. People complain I'm prejudice against poor drivers (my definition of poor can be found if you watch Britains Worst Drivers on Channel 5) and its true and I feel I have every right to be. Take for example this scenario: some people can't fly commercial aircraft and even if they cry after failing a test they've prepared for for a long time its just tough - they're not allowed to be pilots because they're deemed a danger. In the same way, if someone cannot drive then they should be kept off the road because they are a danger. It is not everyones right to drive. Driving instructors should focus on helping people to be good drivers instead of helping them to pass their next (possible 4th or 5th) test.

*remembers this is a car club and not a forum for this*...

*stops*

For more information on it have a look at http://www.cclondon.com

I can't believe some of those are allowed to stay on the road - its only a matter of time before they kill someone, some had admitted crashing into several cars already!

Just a question... if you're a bad driver and you have lots of accidents how do you even find an insurance company who'll insure you?

This is great. But why do I sometimes get an error message and kick out and have to log in again. but this is quick

The reason that happens is that we've often had to restart the web server to make it load some new settings.

When we do this it makes the board forget who was logged in... a pain really but we won't be restarting the web server as much from now on since we've got all the settings we need.

well we will work on something nice for todays posts.

The whole forum is on new software and a brand new server.

I would like everyone to know that we could not have done all of this without the help of Emrul (GCHQAgent) who has worked on this forums for the last few days and compiled all of the data on his forums since gone 3 am yestarday and must have out over 20 hours of work.

Emrul has worked extrememly hard to save the forum data and I wanted to acknowledge his fine work and how helpful Emrul was.

I did work too  

Thanks for the kind words Steve :)

And yes, everyone, Steve did work too... lots of it and he's one of the coolest ppl to work with... I realised that when I accidently... umm... deleted the forums earlier :o

Anyway, I hope everyone likes the new forums, and like Steve we wanted to get the forums up so quick that all the good features haven't been added yet...<keeps lips sealed about what they are>

Enjoy

Originally posted by dazzab69

Originally posted by Rodders_UK

I have Home Highway - and need to dial point to point to my work server - can I still do that if I go ADSL??

Rodders

No, but most companies are implementing new access systems that use VPNs over the Internet, so ask your IT bods.

Just don't let any company tell you you have to buy a hardware VPN that can cost many thousands of pounds... they're only really useful if either your network admin doesn't know how to set one up or is just lazy ;)

Originally posted by Matthew_McNally

Thats was I was trying to get at with my (probably too long) post.

When are we going to see a clampdown on simply bad driving?

There is an article in the Sunday Mirror today (and I believe a tv program) about bad drivers.

Women who admits she can't drive, passing her test was a fluke, can't reverse, driving straddling two lanes etc. Scared the ***** out of the examiner and reporter in the car with her.

This is in a national newspaper, and not a mention about maybe getting her off the road!:flaming:

Yea its really bad... I was driving along the M40 yesterday into London and this young woman (quite nice I might add) was blocking the inner lane of a 3 lane motorway and periodically she kept tapping her brakes... VERY annoying!

While I've seen many women do silly things I've seen many men do silly things too... but after speaking with a few girls who drive we've concluded that women in general have a worse sense of spatial awareness than men. I wouldn't be surprised if in a years time a report comes out outlining that young women have fewer accidents because they drive slower, and that they drive slower because they need to pay more attention than males. Whereas males just think they're good and they take more risks, causing more accidents.

Its also worthwhile noting that all the talk about women being safer drivers only applies to women under 40 years of age, after that age their accident is the same as males of the equivalent age group.

Please don't take anything I've said as a sexist remark, you must remember that in the world of insurance everything is based on statistics and statistics by their very nature are a generalisation or, taken a step further, using numbers to sterotype.

I'm with Pipex.. sure they've got ADSL problems at the moment but I have faith in them, I've been with them for a long time and they've always been first class and up front.

As for wireless... just be careful, it is _very_ easy to snoop data over wireless networks and if you're using it for work going wireless may not be the safest thing unless you're running a VPN (And if you do go with a VPN, I recommend IPSec and an old machine running BSD with IPSec and routing enabled... it will save you loads of money compared to a proper hardware VPN).

I'm also using an Asus ADSL router, its the best router for the money and works over Ethernet, not nasty USB. The Asus is great unless you want to use a VPN, it doesn't have any support for VPNs :(

Originally posted by Divhow many of us would agree that every single person in the UK with a license are OK using a HF kit?

Well personally, I see a lot of drivers on the road (presumably with a license) who I think shouldn't be on the road at all - never mind whether they have a hands free kit or not.

No handsfree?? I don't believe that using a hands-free could distract you anymore than talking to someone in the passenger seat... do we now ban passengers too... make everyone travel alone?

If so, let's wait until the environmentalists get wind of it ;)

Hey people, its official - BMW drivers are the worst. read it at http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_66472...u=news.quirkies

Hey there, welcome to the club. I think its about time we had someone from the home of Lexus here to talk to :)

I have a feeling that someone's already asked this before but I couldn't find the thread...

I'm into almost anything except country *throws up*.... My favourite genre are hip-hop and r'n'b and my favourite band are The Corrs (yes I know they have nothing to do with r'n'B).

So... everyone else?

I suspect there must be at least 5 Ferrarri cards since there are 5 prizes offered.

I don't drink alcohol so that goes out the door...

I do love RedBull, Tropicana, Starbucks Frappacinos and water... oops and musn't forget my protein shake.....

Watch it Playa... I'm all for getting people to appreciate others' property, but you don't wanna land yourself in trouble over something silly.

That said... if you've checked no one's around....

Bloody animals in London.... I was in Whitechapel yesterday evening and some guy kept trying to cut in to the lane, I wouldn't let him so he kept reving his car, went round a corner to try overtake... unsuccessful in this he reverted to horning me for the next 2 minutes.

I'd had my fun so I let him past, don't think he learnt his lesson though :D

Just two links that may be of help to people. Someone on clublexus has managed to sucessfully do a nav screen conversion to take an ordinary video signal.

The links are:

http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47722 ://http://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=47722

and:

http://www.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54236 ://http://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...threadid=54236

The main part used (Pioneer GEX 7000TV) is available in the UK too.

Sorry to hear the dude, you should check out a company called 'Profinish Dents', they're like ChipsAway and you'll find them in the Yellow Pages. I've used them once and they were excellent.

Lexus Reading said I'd be covered on any one of their courtesy cars for free when mine is in for servicing. This is good for me since my comprehensive policy doesn't include 3rd party on other cars.

Those look kinda fiiine :) How much did the set cost with shipping ?

I don't know about any 'chip' but if you look on clublexus.com you'll find a chap who has recently managed to get his nav screen take in a signal from a seperate DVD player.

There is no way to use the sat-nav DVD box to play DVD movies.

Ever since I read the letter the issue about petrol prices has been bothering me, and for those who have the time and are interested I have a solution...

The government will tax everyone as hard as people will bear until the people do something (and history shows that it is usually a protest or revolt of some type).

I think what we should do is look at taxation issues (...those who have the time...) and see what can legally be done to minimise taxation on ourselves.

For starters I suggest everyone look at Inheritance Tax, since it is one of the easiest to understand and minimise upon. I personally think its shady practice on the governments side to tax people upon their deaths and they know they can get away with it because its one of those things no one likes to think about.

There's no way we're going to be able to get the government to cut down taxation on fuel, they didn't budge during the protests and there's no reason to think they'd react any differently to a repeat of the protests now. We have to hit them using their own laws and legally avoid whatever we all can they'd notice somethings up.

Right... well I've just sent it to 30 ppl. in my address book... I'd very much like to see this go ahead to the extent that I'll be making sure they forward it too by phoning them and checking what they're doing about it.

I do believe that petrol prices are extortionate, although I feel the impact will fall upon the oil companies whereas the reason for such high prices lies, in my opinion, with government taxes on fuel. Esso and BP can point to their operations in other countries and say 'look we're cheaper over there... its not our fault your government tax you so heavily'. And that will be a valid argument.

The fuel protests were designed to hurt government by slowing down the economy; not to directly hit the oil companies (although they were obviously hit by the downturn in sales of fuel).

Useless info #1: When we die our bodies are being preserved for longer periods of time purely because of the amount of preservatives we eat from processed foods in the modern world.

Useless info #2: 1 + 1 = 2

Useless info #3: 'Starvation' as a form of dieting may actually increase your bodyfat levels.

Useless info #4: It's late... I'm tired.

Useless info #5: As I give more and more pieces of useless information they become ever more useless.

Useless info #6: Do you know being tired is the same as being sleepy? [borrowed from a dunk American friend ;)]

Useless info #7: The Golden Ratio to 0.618, or more precisely: (sqrt(5)+1)/2.

Useless info #8: The RIFE machine may have been the single most amazing medical discovery of our civilisation to date.

I think I'll call it quits now for those of you who are still reading :D

Oh well... I guess I'm definitely no longer the youngest Lexus buyer....