I have just been fined for breaking Britain's lowest speed limit by the new lowest threshold....

Rod King of the alliteratively depressing
Twenty's Plenty campaign to make everyone
drive at depressingly slow speeds.

Being a very naughty person I have been sent a Notice of Intended Prosecution by the Metropolitan Police for driving along the Camberwell Road at 24 mph instead of 20 at 6:45am which is about the only time of day you can reach such highly irresponsible speeds there ... There is a new camera at the junction... Apparently Mr Khan has changed the threshold for prosecution from 25 to 24 mph in pursuit if his Vision Zero where nobody will die on the roads (3 people have died at this junction in the past 25 years).  In order to achieve this he intends that 80% of journeys should be made on foot, by bike or by train, tram or bus.  One wonders if this were ever achieved what would be the impact on Britain's £22bn car industry.  

Anyway... I expect I shall be invited to attend a speed awareness course which I will probably skip in favour of the fine as four hours listening to heavily biased propaganda promoted by full time killjoys is less valuable than my time.  It's easier to simply memorise where the cameras are ...

When 20 zones were introduced we were told TFL main roads were exempt.  Then we were told 20 zones would be self enforcing ...clearly they're not and fines need to be issued because no one is actually stupid enough to voluntarily drive at 20 mph on a duel carriageway.  So now Southwark and Lambeth are filled to the brim with cameras and camera cars intended to stop the plebs travelling by car into the city centre in order to achieve our net zero targets and reduce road casualties to a fanatical and surely unachievable target of zero deaths.  

I mean surely there's likely to be at least one death if only by accident?  Can you really prevent all accidents even if you could eliminate all private cars?  7 people died in the New Addington Tram Crash and the Glória funicular crash killed 17 people.  Transport deaths have always been a thing since horse drawn transport... 

That said the death stats have improved remarkably in the past few years due to simple measures like changing the traffic flow at the five way junction round the Bank of England. 

Anyway, I tried joining a protest group against this puritanism once but the Association of British Drivers banned me from their twitter feed whilst other protest groups are flooded by anti-immigration campaigners, racists, nutters, global warming flat earthers and ULEZ camera vandals and seem to lose sight of any single issue to a sense of generally fermenting rage at all and sundry.  I often wonder why I vote for the left when they seem to constantly come up with policies designed to make my life miserable.  No doubt others ...

One also has to wonder whether in the long term Khan's salami tactics against motorists will work.  Jamaica road is a literal assault course which would be fine but people still live on it and the roads and estates are still full of cars which look as though they're going nowhere... Maybe AI driven cars will prevent collisions... Hummm... 

Touch wood the only collision I've had in the last ten years is a cyclist crashing into my boot because he was tailgating and doesn't have power assisted breaks.  The dent is still there because he didn't have a numberplate so I couldn't make an insurance claim against him...