Roddy Graham's Blog: 8 November 2007

Date: 08 November 2007

Roddy Graham

Calls are being made for a radical redesign of fuel filler nozzles and openings to ensure expensive accidents at the pumps are avoided. Next there'll be a call for 'sniffer' pumps to detect what was in the tank.

Unfortunately mistakes do happen. We have colour-coded nozzles and, at many fuel pumps, large garish placards tied close to the handle. What more do motorists want?

Maybe we should go back to the good old-fashioned days and have fuel attendants. "Unleaded, super unleaded or diesel, Sir/Madam?" Now that would be good, and perhaps we could have our windscreens washed at the same time? Ah, and we also had open roads, fewer speed limits and even fewer cars.

Unfortunately, we can't turn back the clock and cars nowadays are light years away from what they were just four decades ago. Just think, the average small family car has more computing power than that which delivered Apollo 11 to the Moon!

There seems to be a veritable hue and cry over the latest declarations by transport minister, Ruth Kelly. The LibDems accused her of lacking a coherent vision for Britain's future transport system while the Campaign for Better Transport has called for action now.

I couldn't agree more on both counts. We still await an integrated green transport paper. As one campaigner stated earlier this week, we need to collectively tackle climate change with the same vigour as we would a World War. Indeed, our rapidly deteriorating climate represents World War III.

Talk of forcing manufacturers to cut vehicle emissions, educating motorists to drive more efficiently and become less reliant on personal transport to achieve reductions in CO2 emissions of just 60% by the middle of century are just hot air.

And that just compounds global warming!

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