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Press Release: WMCA Consultation Reveals The Endgame Of The Transport Lobby

By 6th March 2020March 9th, 2020No Comments
After 30 years of softening us up, at last the truth is there in writing. The public must be told.
The unelected West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA), covering 12 local authority areas and three enterprise zones, has revealed its transport proposals in a consultation document (1) (7).
 
Its proposals include:
– Massive expansion of clean air zones
– Scrappage scheme in favour of travel cards
– Fossil fuel cars banned from the roads by 2036 across the entire West Midlands
– Electric cars rejected as a solution
– Eliminate car ownership by 2041
 
ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries said: “At last the truth is out. This has been the plan behind closed doors since the 1990s, but it’s never been clearly and publicly stated before. This is for the simple reason that when it is, up to 97% of people reject it (2). It is vital that the public hear and understand these proposals, so they do not allow themselves to be sleepwalked into having their freedom of movement and economic potential taken away from them.”
For the last 30 years, all levels of Government have been manipulated into participating in the process of softening up the motorist to accept the inevitability of these draconian measures. Restriction after restriction has been brought in, always with an apparent excuse, but in reality with the object of making driving into a chore, and to brainwash people into accepting further restrictions.
 
Examples of this include:
(a) The introduction of area based 20mph limits, and many other measures, which are not justified on safety grounds (3). Meanwhile, lives are lost because road safety is being run by people who are clueless about driving, and allow nonsensical ideas like smart motorways to proliferate.
(b) Clean Air Zones. There is nothing wrong with Britain’s air quality, and it’s getting better all the time. Outdoor air quality is better than what is found inside people’s homes. The so called science used to justify these zones is not proper science, but statistical manipulation performed by the tame academics of those lobbying against the car (4).
(c) Traffic congestion is being created deliberately (5), by the removal of road space, closing of roads and the introduction of poorly phased traffic lights and the removal of flyovers/underpasses in favour of obstructive surface junctions.
(d) The removal of parking on the street and through planning requirements on new build properties
“It is now beyond all reasonable doubt that all of these things are linked together in a co-ordinated campaign, the endgame of which is banning the private car, irrespective of whether it is powered by fossil fuels or renewable energy,” continued Humphries. “What puzzles us greatly is the compliance of the media in failing to bring this to the attention of the public. Programme after programme on UK TV fawns to the anti car lobby, supporting restrictions without any examination of the evidence, nor any balance from opposing views (6). Yet if the truth is told, we know the anger of the British people would be swift and severe. Given what is in the WMCA document, journalists need to inform the public about one of the greatest cover-ups in modern history.”  
 
ENDS
 
(2) In 1998, Nigel Humphries took part in a debate about car use as part of the institute of Civil Engineers. Both sides put their case, and then took questions. The audience was evenly balanced until Nigel’s opponent, a Friends of the Earth spokesman, admitted that bus lanes were really there to remove space from and obstruct the use of the private car. He did so utterly convincingly, almost contemptuously suggesting that of course that was the case, everyone knows that, don’t they? There were gasps around the room and the ABD won the debate 97-3%.
(3) Again not the ABD’s words, but those of Friends of the Earth, who stated in 1997 that speed limits should be reduced far below what is needed for safety in order to take the glamour out of driving and facilitate a modal shift.
(4) DW German TV Documentary – How Dangerous are Diesel Emissions?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLPVuahuX0Q 
(5) In a Panorama programme in the late 1990s a representative of Birmingham City council stated that he wanted to phase the traffic lights to deliberately obstruct those driving into the city
(6) A BBC employee once told Nigel Humphries that “balance” on transport issues was provided by Top Gear, so there was no need to have pro- motoring viewpoints covered in news and current affairs programmes
(7) Local Transport Today, issue 793, 6th March 2020:
https://www.transportxtra.com/publications/local-transport-today/news/

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