Here, there and everywhere: cars are destroying our lives

RECENT articles in the Ham&High show how motorists are taking over ever more of our public space by continual guerrilla action.

People who use buses on main roads know how they are continually slowed down by having to wait for car after car to pass before they can rejoin the traffic stream from a bus stop. According to your recent article, Transport for London decided to do something about this by removing bus laybys on Falloden Way. Then motorists started colliding with buses.

The rational response would surely have been to impose a 20mph speed limit, which would, I'm sure, have been welcomed by local residents. Instead, however, the police closed the bus stops entirely ignoring the hardship this would cause many people who rely on buses to get around.

Meanwhile, we are told that motorists who have been parking illegally in Camden have formed an action group to get their fines refunded on the grounds of minor technical faults in the way they were ticketed. But why should the council tax payer, who may not own a car, be forced to fork out as a result?

Any chance of an undertaking from the council that any loss in revenue from parking fines will be financed entirely by the proposed surcharge on 4x4 parking permits, rather than using this money to lower the price of parking for other cars?

The omnipresence of cars is disastrous for the quality of life in London.

Only a few days ago I was in a 268 bus which had to sit for some time on Buckland Crescent because the road was blocked by a goods delivery vehicle which couldn't pull into the kerbside because it was fully occupied by parked cars.

Not to mention the warning in the Stern Report of the dire consequences if we continue with a business as usual approach, and fail to reduce the number of vehicles on our streets (as well as increasing the fuel efficiency of those that have to be there).

Simon Norton

Howitt Close, NW3