EU Referendum

Showing posts with label road safety. Show all posts

breath_test[i-breath_test]Picking up in the news story yesterday that the government was considering such a move, George Pitcher in The Daily Telegraph thinks that lowering the drink-drive limit is an "absurd" idea.

In December, however, the same newspaper found it "puzzling" that Lord Adonis wanted to re-open the debate on the issue.

But, as we remarked at the time, it wasn't puzzling at all. This is part and parcel of a covert attempt at harmonising traffic laws in the EU, which made an appearance in May 2004, based on an agenda set out in 2002. The drink-drive limit is part of it - random testing is another.

What we are seeing is a graphic example of the way the system works. Knowing that an overt "in-your-face" harmonising directive would be hugely unpopular – and underline quite how much power we have given away – the EU works in the shadows, getting member states, apparently voluntarily, to bring their own laws closer into line with the European "ideal".

Each time this is done, it comes out without reference to the EU – presented, as is the case here, as if it was a UK initiative. Then, in the fullness of time, when our laws are so close to the rest of the other member states that it makes no difference, the EU brings out a directive to "regularise" the position. By that time, the differences are so slight that the EU law is entirely uncontentious.

This dynamic counters the popular myth that member state governments are somehow unwillingly forced into line by the EU. This is a process of active collusion between governments against their own peoples. It is sly, dishonest gradualism which recognises that, if it was done openly, it would be opposed.

In avoiding any mention of the EU, as do the newspapers today (and yesterday), the media also collude in the process. And so do the opposition parties. You will not hear from Boy Dave's merry little men that this is an EU-inspired measure. If there is any criticism, it will be because it is a "Labour" measure. The fact that road safety became an EU competence in the Maastricht treaty, under John Major, is neither here nor there.

Thus are our liberties and national distinctiveness eroded, all in the name of European political integration, and we are not even allowed to know why it is happening.

COMMENT THREAD

ba[i-ba]It is not that EU commission officials are stupid – far from it. There are some very bright cookies working in Brussels. It's just that their brains are wired differently. And these cross-wires are at it again.

This time, via the Bloomberg news agency, we learn that the EU "Wants Carmakers to Add Brake Technology for Safety".

This is extra braking technology, known as "brake assist", a sensor-actuated system installed in cars which triggers extra braking power when the driver pushes the brake pedal in an emergency. And the EU commission is proposing that this technology should be fitted to all new cars from 2009 adding, incidentally, about £60 to the cost of production.

Burbles industry commissioner Guenter Verheugen (why him and not Barrot?), "this proposal is good and important for the safety of all road users, especially vulnerable groups like pedestrians and cyclists."

What the man (and his officials) fail to understand is that "safety" enhancements to vehicles do not automatically lead to overall improvements in road safety. In fact – as we pointed out in an earlier post, they can lead to increased injuries and death.

The main problem is psychological, in that drivers have an inherent tolerance of risk (the so-called "risk thermostat") and, therefore, if you increase the "safety" of the vehicle they are driving, they absorb the additional margin by increasing risk taking. Thus, you can expect that drivers in cars fitted with this technology will travel faster, knowing the system will bring them to a halt quicker, will leave braking later and will be more likely to tail-gate.

Further, with just some cars thus fitted, you can expect an increase in tail-shunt accidents as some cars are able to stop quicker than others – exactly what happened when ABS was introduced (and still happens).

But, all it takes is the EU to utter the mantra "road safety" and quote spurious statistics on how many lives will be "saved" (in this case a notional 1,1000 pedestrian a year) and the member states (backed by a strong lobby of motor manufacturers) will roll over and pass this latest piece of idiocy into law.

ba+2[i-ba+2]Never mind that, as the technology increases, so does the cost, the weight (itself a killer), the complexity (illustrated) and the number of things that can go wrong.

However, Sigrid de Vries, spokeswoman of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association in Brussels, sums up the mindset. "Safety is one of our priorities," she purrs – no doubt having worked out the additional income that will accrue from yet another expensive add-on to the collective car fleet.

And that possibly explains why industry commissioner Verheugen – rather than transport commissioner Barrot – made the announcement. When push comes to shove, the real agenda is money.

COMMENT THREAD

autobahn+02[i-autobahn+02]The EU's environment commissioner, reports Reuters, has called for a maximum speed limit on German highways to slow down the notoriously swift traffic on the car-loving nation's autobahns.

The information comes from the Bild am Sonntag newspaper which has Stavros Dimas saying, "There are so many areas in which we senselessly waste energy and harm the climate … One simple measure in Germany could be a uniform speed limit on the autobahns."

He adds that, "Speed limits are very sensible for many reasons and completely normal in most EU countries and the United States. Only in Germany is it, oddly enough, a source of controversy."

So far, German transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee has rejected the idea of a top limit. At least one-third of Germany's highways already have a speed limit while the rest carry a recommended speed of 130 kph (82 mph). In reality, drivers and motorcyclists can, and often do, travel as fast as they like.

autobahn+01[i-autobahn+01]Furthermore, high performance car makers such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, as well as mass market producers Volkswagen and General Motors' Opel division, Germany has resisted speed limits, not least because they argue that the demands imposed on their cars have led to them producing vehicles that are amongst the best and safest in the world.

However, the EU commission might push its luck and exercise its powers conferred under the Maastricht Treaty, and propose a law imposing a speed limit.

This really would annoy many Germans, and bring home to them the nature of the European Union. Only good could come of it.

COMMENT THREAD

drink+2[i-drink+2]Front page of The Times today (print edition) is a story headed, "Random breath tests to hit drink-drivers".

Repeated online, it tells us that motorists face random breath testing under government plans to reduce the toll of deaths and serious injuries from drink driving. Ministers, we are told, believe that giving the police the power to stop any driver, regardless of how they are driving, would be a powerful deterrent.

But hang on a moment. In May 2004, when this last came up, we had a robust statement from the Home Office, which insisted that random tests are not an efficient way of catching drink-drivers. Then, it saw no need for them to be introduced. What has changed?

What we do know is that the casualty rate from drink-driving has gone up in recent years, although many commentators put that down to the reduction in routine traffic patrols, as enforcement authorities give vent to their obsession with speed and replace uniformed police with entrapment robots, aka speed cameras. Random testing, therefore, is not the issue – the number of tests, and the need for routine patrolling is.

But, those with longer memories may remember that there is another agenda at work here. Back in May 2004, it was the EU which was demanding random testing. And, while the Home Office was resisting the idea, we wrote:

...and here is the crunch - the president of Tispol, the European Traffic Police Network, said the (EU) commission would attempt to make its recommendation a directive if it is not followed.

Says Ad Hellemons, also Dutch Assistant Commissioner of Police, talking to BBC Radio Five Live: "This is the first time the European Commission has made such a recommendation. The vast majority of member states already carry out random breath tests. We can’t understand why governments would want to protect drink-drivers".

"The European Commission has made it clear that they expect this recommendation to be followed. If not they will try to make it a directive". There you have it – you will do as we "recommend", or we will make it compulsory.

So, what does our government do? It leaves it a few years and then, out of the blue, it pops up with a proposal that just happens to bring it into line with the commission's demand. Coincidence? I think not.

But enough time has elapsed, however, for most people to have forgotten the original EU input, so it is seen as a UK initiative and the government can maintain the pretence that it is still in charge. Any EU involvement can be denied.

That is now the way our government works.

COMMENT THREAD

Speed+Camera[i-Speed+Camera]It is too early yet to focus the blame on anyone in particular but, if there are any officials with brains and a sense of self-preservation in the EU commission's transport directorate, they will be looking very closely at the latest figures for road deaths in the UK.

These have been released by the Department for Transport and indicate that, in the 12 months to September last year, these deaths increased to 3,210, compared with 3,177 in the same period a year earlier. Much of the rise was concentrated in the summer months between July and September, when 840 people died on the roads, compared with 818 in the corresponding period in 2005 - up three percent. During that time, the number of fatal accidents rose by five per cent, from 745 to 780 crashes.

At least one media report notes that this increase has occurred "despite the proliferation of speed cameras", although some might argue that the increase has occurred because of the proliferation of speed cameras.

It is Kevin Delaney, former chief of the Metropolitan Police traffic division and now head of road safety at the IAM Motoring Trust who is sounding the alarm, declaring that, "Any figures that show an increase against a downward trend ought to be ringing alarm bells in Whitehall, in local authorities and in police headquarters."

Typical of his kind though, he does not seem to have appreciated that the European Union has, since 1991, gained competence over road safety and has recently started flexing its muscles in this policy area.

road+deaths[i-road+deaths]Why the figure should be of such great interest to DG Energy and Transport is that the UK is the "safe man of Europe" with historically the lowest fatality rate of the EU 15, standing at 6.1 deaths per 100,000 population in 2001, compared with 13.8 in France and a horrendous 21.0 in Portugal.

However, it is also the UK which has bought in most heavily to the "Speed kills" message, the government focusing most of its road safety effort on this single factor.

The rot started in 1991 when the then Conservative government launched its £1 million "Road Signs" TV advertising campaign in the October. The advertisements used "travelling" road signs to illustrate the different survival rates of being hit at 20/30/40 mph, promoting the slogan: "Kill Your Speed. Not a Child".

tvad[i-tvad]This progressed to a £2.3m TV campaign spend in September 1992, £1.5m in April 1993 and another £1.5m in September 1993, followed by a further £1.5m in April 1994 and £1.2m in September 1994. It was in that last September campaign that the advertisements carried the new slogan that has become so familiar: "Speed Kills. Kill Your Speed".

The spending continued, backing up the new slogan, with £2.5m allocated in 1995, and nearly £3m in 1996. The slogan transmuted into: "At times we all drive a bit too fast ... Kill Your Speed" and in 1966, for the first time a kill your speed "hand symbol" was designed and used in television advertisements and publicity literature.

Speed+kills[i-Speed+kills]With a change of government in 1997, spending increased to £3.5m for that year, but the "Kill your speed" theme continued. Currently, the spend is £2.1m, with the campaign focusing on counteracting "the widespread public perception that smaller increases in speed will not have the same repercussions as larger ones."

But the new government did not confine itself to mere advertising. Imbued with the "Speed kills" message, in December 1999 it announced the formation of what were to be called "camera partnerships" where local authorities, the police and the courts banded together in their areas, to run speed cameras and collect the fines, the bulk of which revenue they were allowed to keep. Eight trial areas were announced which began on 1 April 2000. The trials soon became permanent and now there are (as of April 2006) thirty eight camera partnerships in England and Wales covering forty-one police force areas out of a total of forty-three.

In 2004 - the latest year for which Home Office figures are available - 2.1 million motorists were booked for speeding. Drivers forked out £114.5million in fines last year, with a £60 ticket issued every 15 seconds. The number of cameras, from a mere handful in 1999, has grown to over 60,000, earning on average £36,000 each year.

The results have been all too obvious. From an annual level of 4,753 in 1991, deaths had dropped by over 1200 annually in 1999, to 3,564. But, in 2000, the decline started slackening off to 3,580. In 2001, it increased to 3,598 and in 2002, the figure was 3,581, still higher than the level in 2000. By 2003, it had only reached 3508 and the figure stood at 3,221 in 2004.

While some will blame the effect of speed cameras, there are obviously complex effects at play, not least the fact that as robotic speed enforcement has increased, there has been, according to the RAC, an 11 percent reduction in traffic officers between 1996 and 2004. Other estimates suggest cuts of up to a fifth in some forces between 1999 and 2004.

Furthermore, there has developed a kind of motoring "underclass" of two million drivers who evade camera fines by driving unregistered and uninsured vehicles.

think[i-think]Then, others – such as campaigner Paul Smith, founder of Safe Speed – argue that the emphasis on speed and an over-reliance on cameras for enforcement is making our drivers worse. Speed cameras and "speed kills" policy is badly affecting driver skills and driver attitudes, he says. "Drivers are so concerned about getting a speeding ticket that they are less likely to concentrate on the road ahead."

With opposition to speed cameras quite clearly growing, the EU has thus walked into a situation where, progressively, it is taking over a road safety policy that is not only highly unpopular but also – if the present trend continues – as failure. But rather than the government being seen as turning a success story into failure, as the EU increases its profile on road safety, it will undoubtedly attract some – and then an increasing amount – of opprobrium.

This is something we pointed up in April last year, when the EU commission had signalled its intention to take a much greater role in road safety.

But what signals in turn the inevitable failure of the commission - which has set as its target the reduction of read deaths across the EU in the ten years to 2010 – is an evaluation of the variations in road death rates across the UK.

In Glasgow, for instance, deaths have increased but the toll is in the number of elderly people knocked down and killed. This has almost doubled in a year, with Glasgow City Council reporting 11 pedestrians over 60 dying as a result of road traffic accidents in 2006. The year before, the total was six. The elderly deaths helped to push the overall death toll from road accidents in the city up to 18 pedestrians from 13 in 2005.

In Mid Devon, there is also a doubling of road deaths, with 11 people dying. The police report the single most frequent problem involved drivers or motorcyclists losing control while negotiating bends.

North Yorkshire, however, reported road deaths down by a fifth and, in this county, the success is put down to "an increasingly successful campaign" to drive down the number of fatalities after a concerning rise in deaths, especially among bike riders. Road deaths fall from 85 in 2005 to 68, while fatalities among motorcyclists have been reduced by 38 per cent – 13 died last year, compared with 21 in the previous 12 months.

Shropshire also bucked the rising trend, with 23 people dying in the year, compared to an average of 27 deaths per year between 1994-8. But the police were not abler to offer any specific reason for the fall.

The point here is that the actual causations of deaths throughout the UK are likely to differ significantly from area to area, so control strategies will also have to be different. Even in the UK, away from the "Speed kills" mantra, there is no "one-size-fits-all" quick-fix answer to road safety. For the 27 member states of the EU, the picture is even more varied, making road safety even less amenable to centralised EU treatment.

For the commission, therefore, the UK experience should serve as an early warning of what happens if its gets it wrong. Not, of course, that it will.

COMMENT THREAD

ambulance%20scene[i-ambulance%20scene]This is not Telegraph bashing, per se – just that the paper today reports a story which provides yet another example of the failures of modern journalism. And, if you accept that the Fourth Estate has a vital role in the maintenance of our democracy – and our freedoms - then this particular failure is important.

The issue to hand is not one with which EU Referendum would normally be concerned, as it has no EU or foreign affairs dimension. But the principle raised is of universal importance, and links nicely with the preceding two posts of mine.

As to the story itself, this is headed, "Judges voice fears over law for killer drivers".

Written by Joshua Rozenberg, the legal editor, it is a perfectly respectable and accurate (as far as I can tell) attempt to convey the "grave concerns" of senior judges, who have "expressed about the new offence of causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving, approved by parliament earlier this month."

When the Road Safety Act 2006 is brought into force next year, writes Rozenberg, anyone who causes a death by driving without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other road users, will face up to five years in prison.

"That might involve no more than a moment's carelessness," a senior judge said. "You could be distracted by a child in the back of the car. We have all been in that position."

Judges fear juries will refuse to convict defendants of the new offence once they realise that it will lead to prison sentences for motorists with no previous convictions who have not been driving at high speed, dangerously, or while uninsured or under the influence of drink or drugs.

Right! All good stuff. But what is the point in writing an article raising concerns now, when the Act received Royal Assent three weeks ago and nothing at all can be done.

link[i-link]The time for such an article, surely, would have been in March, when the Bill was being discussed in detail in committee. Then, precisely these points were raised by the opposition transport minister, Owen Paterson – on Tuesday 28 March 2006, to be precise.

Was it reported then? Or at all? Don't bother answering. The lead political story in The Telegraph for the 29 March was, "Top level attack on Brown as leadership battle gains intensity", although the paper did find space for a bijou little story on a hack whose tube travelcard ran out and his wife suggested he take the car.

Had there actually been any grown-ups on the paper to report the issue, then at least there might have been something of a public debate before the law had been passed. That would have served democracy somewhat better than today's airing of ex post facto concerns from a number of anonymous, unelected judges.

Thus, it is all very well the media taking politicians apart – when they deserve it. But, in addition, it would be nice if the MSM spent a little time asking themselves whether they are doing their job properly.

COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]With the publication yesterday of the Department for Transport's (DfT) road safety statistics for last year, there has been much focus on the revelation that – contrary to previous official assertions – "speeding" is not a major killer on our roads.

Up to press, the official line has always been that excessive speed is a contributory factor in a third of all accidents but, what transpires from the latest set of figures (summary here) is that "speeding" – defined as exceeding the speed limit – is a factor in only five percent of accidents (1 in 20).

Why the authorities should be so obsessive about speeding, therefore, has always been something of a mystery, except that it has the advantage of something that can easily be measured and is therefore relatively easy to enforce.

But, another important factor – of which most people are entirely unaware – is the European Union. On 12 September 2001, when the EU commission defined the road safety targets to be reached by 2010 in its Transport White Paper, it too singled out “speed” as the major issue and, in its list of priorities called for tighter enforcement of speeding laws.

link[i-link]If not actually the cause of the speed camera blitz, therefore, the EU has been right in there supporting the mindless morons and the government liars who have been quite deliberately distorting the presentation of the data and confusing the issues.

Even yesterday, in the official DfT press releases, the weasels were out in full force, highlighting that:

Exceeding the speed limit or going too fast for conditions were reported as a contributory factor in 15 per cent of all accidents. However, the factor became more significant with the severity of the accident; it was reported as contributory factor in 26 per cent of fatal accidents and these accidents accounted for 28 per cent of all fatalities (793 deaths).

speed%20camera%205[i-speed%20camera%205]And that is how they do it, eliding "too fast for conditions" – a variable independent of the speed limit – with exceeding the speed limit. But, whereas the latter is amenable to speed enforcement, the former is not. By such legerdemain, though, is the bulk of enforcement effort distorted, with effects that have been pointed out by Paul Smith of the organisation Safespeed.

Smith thus argues that the obsession with speed limit enforcement, increasingly through the use of speed cameras, is counter-productive. And such is the malign effect that the rate of decline in the death rate due to road accidents has tailed off. When it comes to serious injuries, data from the British Medical Journal suggests that there has been no fall at all, year on year.

Pro-camera advocates – not least those who benefit financially from them – still insist, however, that their loathsome tools should be called "safety" rather than "speed" cameras, but the evidence it now pointing to another possible appellation – like "death cameras". Ironically, the very measures which the EU supports and encourages are preventing the UK from reaching the targets that the EU itself has set.

As for possible solutions, the pictures above happily illustrate options which could apply equally to cameras and the European Union. It really is interesting, though, to see quite how many people believe burning is the most appropriate answer (more here and here).


COMMENT THREAD

link[i-link]After my rant last Friday about the stupidity of Mary Ann Sieghart in The Times, for devoting her whole column to a complaint about the new seat belt law which comes into force tomorrow, while failing to mention that the law was implementing an EU directive, today it is the turn of The Sunday Telegraph to exhibit exactly the same level of stupidity.

Even in their own terms, this is dismal hackery but, in their determination to avoid confronting the elephant in the room, these hacks are missing an even bigger story. Not only is the EU imposing "safety" laws of dubious value, it is also stopping the UK government from introducing much-needed road safety measures that would prevent thousands of accidents.

read more…

COMMENT THREAD

If you are a lorry driver, you can't do this...[i-If you are a lorry driver, you can't do this...]We didn't need Le Figaro to tell us that the European Union was mounting a "vast charm offensive", homing on "feel-good" consumer issues in an attempt to regain its "legitimacy" in the eyes of "European citizens".

Thus, in recent months, we have seen proposals to cap mobile roaming charges, on the introduction of child-proof lighters, the regulation of artificial sun-tanning studios, standards for sun tan cream, controls on credit card charges, or rules for airline fare price declarations in advertising – to say nothing of safety regulation of hair dyes.

...but you can do this...[i-...but you can do this...]All of this is quite deliberately designed to overcome the negative image of the EU, brought to the fore with the rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters as the commission attempts to promote a "Europe of results", demonstrating that "Europe is useful to people".

But the inherent dishonesty of this marketing strategy is that it is so singularly one-sided, failing ever to highlight the down side of the mad regulatory machine, whether it is the estimated €3 billion annually lost to the UK Treasury to VAT fraud, the €1 billion a year to be wasted on translation services, or the £1.7 billion cost arising from the ban on lead solder, adding ten percent to the price of a personal computer and other electrical appliances.

...and this...[i-...and this...]But, as we know, the imposts do not always have a direct financial cost. As often , it is the aggravation factor, the latest of which comes from The Scotsman which is telling us that the EU's working time directive, now applying to lorry drivers, is leading to a shortage of trucks to be used for floats at this year's Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade.

This year, the event celebrates its 30th anniversary and the organisers need around 80 flat-bed trucks to carry performers through the city centre for the parade. But several haulage firms are believed to have been unwilling to allow drivers to take part because of the EU's directive, which means they can work no longer than 40 hours a week.

...and this...[i-...and this...]Because drivers would be behind the wheel for the event, and also need to prepare their vehicle for it, taking part would use up around five or six of the hours that they are legally allowed to work in a week. And several companies are believed to be cautious about letting workers use up their entitlement when they are not working for them. Now several groups of performers have been left scouring the city looking for people to drive floats and at least four trucks are still needed.

Such is the perversity of this law that truck drivers could quite happily spend their weekends on a variety of arduous tasks, ranging from rock climbing and hang-gliding, to motorcycle racing and off-road rallying, but the moment they sit behind the wheel of a carnival float with a view to taking a leisurely and pleasurable jaunt round the streets of Edinburgh, the EU rules kick in and create the problems.

...and even this[i-...and even this]It is even the case that a truck driver can spend unlimited hours at the wheel of a private car, driving to and from work, but waiting at a depot for his truck to be loaded or unloaded counts as "work" within the terms of the working time directive.

No wonder a separate report in The Scotsman complains that EU red tape is "crippling business". That is the real outcome of the commission's "Europe of results". But you won't hear any EU apparatchiks talking about the effects. They, I suppose, are the "wrong kind of results".

COMMENT THREAD

A multilingual roadsign in Wales - a model for Ireland?[i-A multilingual roadsign in Wales - a model for Ireland?]The UK, of course, is by no means the only country to be affected by the wave of immigration from the new accession countries. A significant "beneficiary" of the population movement has been Ireland, which has taken more than its fair share of Latvians, including Russians posing as Latvians, and Poles.

This however, has had unintended and unfortunate consequences, in that it has reversed the downwards trend in road deaths, with the new carnage being wholly attributed to these migrants, a point we noted in our blog.

Nearly a quarter of all road traffic fatalities now involve immigrants, partially because they drive on the wrong side of the road and partially because they have a devil-may-care attitude to drink driving. Many, it is said, believe they will not be caught for traffic offences.

Given this clearly identifiable problem, and the extremely dubious nature of the driver testing systems in the accession countries, the most obvious – and undoubtedly effective - stratagem would be to require entrants from these countries to take the local driving test, and to prohibit them from driving until they had done so.

The trouble is that Ireland, like the UK, is no longer an independent country and is obliged under the EU dictum on non-discrimination to recognise Latvian, etc., licenses.

Thus we come to the absurd situation of Fine Gael's road safety spokesman, Shane McEntee, proposing that road signs in Latvian, Russian and Polish should be installed on Ireland's twisting country roads, to remind these killer drivers to drive on the left and avoid alcohol.

The absurdity of this suggestion can readily be seen from our illustration of a Welsh road sign. Millions have been spent on multilingual signing and the net result is to add confusion and incomprehension. With the Irish authorities already having created their own quota of confusion, having converted their road signs to metric, one can now see chaos reign.

Absurdity, however, should not be confused with amusement. In the final analysis, this situation is leading to a not insignificant number of unnecessary deaths and injuries, all because governments have been so keen to surrender their powers to our masters in Brussels.

COMMENT THREAD

The shape of things to come[i-The shape of things to come]One of life's difficult choices is working out which I hate more – the EU or speed cameras.

The latter feature particularly highly in my life at the moment, not only because I have just paid off Mrs EU Referendum's speeding fine but because I am teaching EU Referendum Junior how to drive.

This has meant frequenting camera-infested streets which I usually avoid, while insisting that Junior at all times obeys the speed limits – a classic case of "do as I say, not what I do".

What has been particularly striking about this experience is discovering how difficult is to know what the speed limit is at all times. Firstly, it is impossible to gauge from the type of road what the limit might be. You get four lane carriageways, with generous grass verges and no housing in sight, the limit inexplicably set at 30 mph, while some narrow urban roads, lined with parked cars, can have a forty limit.

Secondly, one notes how poor the signing is – and how few signs there are. Many are in disrepair – one I spotted was so old, the red ring round the number had completely faded – and many are concealed by foliage or other obstructions. I have commented, rather sourly, that if the authorities spent a fraction of the money they spent on cameras on improved signing, then compliance rates would shoot up.

One other thing I have found is that Junior, having taking multiple lessons with a professional driving instructor, is so imbued with the necessity to keep to the speed limits, that he will quite happily bowl down roads nicely on the 30 mph limit, feeling pleased with his performance, when the particular circumstances demand a maximum of 15 mph or less.

Anyhow, at least one problem is about to be resolved. In its consultation document issued this week, on its CARS 21 Report, (Competitive Automotive Regulatory System for the 21st Century) the EU commission has signalled its intention to take a much greater role in road safety. It intends to include in its roadmap, "measures to improve the enforcement of bans on drink-driving, the enforcement of speed limits and the promotion and enforcement of seat-belt use and motorcycle helmet use."

As with the morons which masquerade as road safety campaigners in this country, the EU is obsessed with the mantra "speed kills", promoting the falsehood that speed is a factor in about one-third of fatal and serious accidents, when it is actually about seven percent. Furthermore, the bulk of speed-related accidents occur at speeds within the posted speed limit, so that it is "inappropriate speed" rather than speed, per se, that kills.

Thus, the EU will bring no improvement to road safety and, as it takes its greater role in projecting road safety myths, and progressively assumes responsibility for speed enforcement standards, we can transfer our detestation from the imbeciles who are at present destroying road safety, and direct it at the EU.

From their perspective, the "colleagues" may think it is a good idea to take over road safety but with that will come the unpopularity currently reserved for the likes of camera partnerships. Clearly, they know not what they do.

COMMENT THREAD

Reflective markings - a three-quarters view[i-Reflective markings - a three-quarters view]A simple, cheap, life-saving road safety measure is being delayed by five years, owing to a fatal confusion over whether a British minister has the power to introduce it, or whether he has to wait for EU legislation before he goes ahead.

The issue at stake is the fitting of reflective markings to the side and rear of heavy trucks, which – at a cost of little more than £100 per vehicle - have been shown to reduce accidents involving trucks and passenger cars in poor visibility conditions by 95 percent.

In the UK each year, it is estimated that 30 to 34 occupants of cars are killed in collisions with the tail end of HGVs and that another 40 to 44 people are killed in side collisions. Many more are injured, some very seriously.

A rear view[i-A rear view]Research has since demonstrated that some 45 percent of all fatalities caused by road accidents occur in darkness and pioneering research by the Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany has shown that 37 percent of all side collisions with trucks at night occurred because the trucks were seen too late.

It was with that in mind, there is a provision within the Road Safety Bill, currently in its Committee Stage in the Commons to permit the secretary of state for transport to make regulations requiring the fitting of these makings to all new HGVs, as a measure designed to reduce the number of collisions.

However, during the second reading of the Bill it emerged that the secretary of state was not proposing to introduce regulations until at least 2011, some five years hence.

This was despite the government itself having commissioned its own research in 2005 from Loughborough university, which concluded that there was a cost benefit for fitting line or contour markings to newly registered HGVs. The government then launched a consultation, and of the responses, the vast majority were in favour.

Spot the difference[i-Spot the difference]On Thursday last, therefore, Labour MP for Bolton West, Dr Brian Iddon, supported by Owen Paterson, Conservative shadow transport minister, tabled an amendment compelling the introduction of regulations that would require all new trucks to be fitted with markings from 1 January 2007.

Nevertheless, despite the overwhelming case made during the debate, the transport minister, Dr Stephen Ladyman, was not going to be moved. We cannot make retro-reflective marking a requirement, he said,

…because of obligations under United Nations Economic Commission for Europe measures and EU directives, which mean that we are unable to make any unilateral requirement of vehicles in this country. Were we try to change the legislation in the way suggested, our partners in the European Union would certainly object and take infraction proceedings against us… the amendment and the clause are redundant and perhaps illegal.

On the face of it, therefore, this was yet another example of the dead hand of the Brussels bureaucracy holding up a measure, this time with potentially fatal consequences. Owen Paterson estimated that, should the present position remain until 2011, there will be 1,540 avoidable collisions.

As always, though, nothing is as straightforward as it seems. Subsequently, it was learned that, in 2003, the Italian government brought out a law making such markings a mandatory requirement. It notified the EU commission and received no objections, whence the law went into force in November 2003. Both Iddon and Paterson then tried to raise this at the committee meeting yesterday, only to be ruled out of order.

Thus we remain in a state of fatal confusion. Evidenced by the Italian government's action, there is nothing to stop regulations on this life-saving measure being introduced immediately, yet according to our own minister, the EU prevents him from so doing until 2011.

Just who is in charge here?

COMMENT THREAD

seat%20belt[i-seat%20belt]It is very easy to see why the EU has taken so enthusiastically to its road safety portfolio. The subject offers endless opportunities to pander to the "nanny state" tendency inherent in the construct, allowing sundry politicians to lecture us on our behaviour.

Latest in this line-up is Hubert Gorbach, vice chancellor and transport minister of Austria, commenting on the EU’s mid-term review of its Road Safety Strategy.

According to the faithful Reuters, Gorbach's target is the citizens of the EU's mostly ex-Communist new member states. They must, he says, get in the habit of wearing seatbelts to help cut the high number of road deaths in the Union. "Forty-thousand people are killed on the roads every year in Europe," he wails. "That's terrible."

The particular problem identified, to explain the rise in road accidents in the accession countries, is the lack of seatbelt usage. The level of use in nations such as Sweden, Britain and the Netherlands was 95 percent, while that in countries that joined the EU in 2004 was a low 70 percent. "There's a great potential for improvement there," says Gorbach.

Other explanations offered for the death toll in the accession countries – but buried deep in the commission's working document is the fact that high-powered, modern West European motor cars are now available in increasing number in the East, but they are being driven on decrepit roads which are not designed for them – with disastrous results.

To remedy that, however, would cost real money and take considerable time, so it is much easier for Gorbach to hector the citizens. As always, he offers the mantra that people in road crashes not wearing are seven times more likely to die than those who are belted up.

That conveniently ignores the number who have been killed because they were wearing seatbelts. Certainly, if in the one major crash in which I was involved (as a passenger), I had been wearing a seatbelt, I would have been killed. Instead, I was thrown clear, and suffered only a brief spell of unconsciousness, while the part of the sports car in which I had been sitting was completely demolished after impacting with a telegraph pole.

One expert, John Adams, author of the book "Risk", sheds a different light on the issue. He agrees that, overall, death rates in accidents are lower but argues that, when drivers feel safer – such as when they are wearing seatbelts – they take more risks, and thus have more accidents. Often, the risk is transferred from the drivers to pedestrians.

Thus, says Adams, if you really want to improve safety overall, the way to do it is to have a sharpened steel spike projecting from the centre of the steering wheel of every car. But what makes me think that an amendment to the EU's vehicle construction and use regulations, along these lines, is not in the offing?

Photo courtesy of autoliv.com

COMMENT THREAD

MSAFrontCover[i-MSAFrontCover]The UK Metric Association was having a ball yesterday, urging the government convert all road signs to metric in time for the 2012 Olympics. Typically for the genre, it argues that failure to do so risks Britain being seen as a backward nation clinging to an awkward and outmoded measurement system.

Quite why this "failure" – or, more accurately, refusal – to adopt an arbitrary system of measurement devised during the French Revolution and imposed at the point of a gun by Napoleon should be so devastating is hard to see, especially as the richest economy in the world remains staunchly Imperial.

Anyhow, The Times suggested that any changeover could be an "Olympic task" as the Department for Transport claims it would cost £750 million to install new signs and £10 million to publicise the change.

This is disputed by the Metric Association, which believes that it would cost only £80 million, or 0.27 percent of the annual roads budget, if the investment and conversion were spread over five years.

But their jewel in the crown is the Republic of Ireland, which converted its road signs to metric a year ago, increased its 70mph motorway speed limit to 120km/h, or 75mph. The 60mph limit on single carriageway roads became 80km/h, or 50mph.

The Metric Association reminds us that, while British transport ministers have tended to argue that a metric changeover would be confusing for older drivers and could result in crashes, this was not the case – they claim – in Ireland.

ireland[i-ireland]To support their case, they called in aid Ann Cody, the "road safety" official who oversaw the change in the Irish Republic. She said that there had not been a single serious incident in the past 12 months, adding: "There were many scare stories before the switch, but the danger never materialised."

Er… what price then The Irish Times which on 21 December 2005 reported that in a reversal of the long-term trend, road fatalities had gone up dramatically for the second year running.

And, while Garda figures showed that 2005 was the worst year for fatal road accidents since 2001, when 411 died, what is especially significant is – according to the Irish Examiner - that, despite a reduction in the speed limit, following the conversion to a metric system, the incidence of speeding on regional roads increased dramatically.

Incredibly, the number of drivers who exceeded the speed limit on rural roads rose to 63 percent in 2005 compared to just 8 percent in 2003 when a new points system was introduced. Average speed in built-up areas was 65km/h, 15km/h over the speed limit.

Looks to me that the Irish took er… an Irish view of the new signs, taking the new signs at face value – the face of their existing speedometers, calibrated, of course in miles per hour. It seems also that, contrary to what its advocates claim, metric kills.

COMMENT THREAD

car%20accident%202[i-car%20accident%202]When it comes to long-term strategies, the EU is a by-word for failure, its much-vaunted Lisbon strategy having degenerated into a hollow joke, inviting cruel sniggers every time it is mentioned.

Less dramatic – and considerably less publicised - is the EU's European Road Safety Action Programme, launched with a somewhat subdued fanfare in September 2001 with the aim of halving the 50,000 road traffic fatalities in the EU 25 to an annual rate of 25,000 by 2010.

Now, halfway through the period, the EU commission has published its mid-term review, claiming that improvements had been achieved, in that the number of road fatalities had been reduced by by 17.5 percent during the past four years.

On the other hand, it has been forced to admit that it was not likely to achieve its 2010 goal. "At present rate," the commission concedes, "road deaths in the European Union in 2010 are likely to stand at 32,500".

Interestingly, far from enjoying reduced accident rates, in some member states, they have actually increased. The culprits area all new accession states, with Cyprus leading the way, but Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and the Czech Republic all show significant hikes in their death tolls.

And, despite the camera-driven reign of terror on British roads, with the obsessive focus on speed, the continued downwards trend in road deaths has slowed, the UK delivering a six percent decrease compared with an EU25 average of 14 percent, the latter figure taking in the member states where casualties have increased.

Having come late into the field, despite road safety having become an EU competence with the Maastricht Treaty in 1990, the EU has so far promulgated relatively few laws (see here) but, it warns, the Commission "will now give consideration to additional measures within the framework of the mid term review of the Transport White Paper". You have been warned.

The photograph, incidentally, shows what is left of a Ford Fiesta XR2. The driver survived the crash.

COMMENT THREAD

kyoto[i-kyoto]Of the many news organisations which covered the failure of EU member states to reach their Kyoto targets, it was the Yorkshire Post which got the headline right, with "Do as I say, not as I do".

This refers to a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), outlined in detail by The Scotsman, which has found that ten of the 15 European Union signatories to the Kyoto Protocol will miss their targets by 2010 without urgent action.

The worst offenders are Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, each up to 20 percent off target. Spain will miss - by 13 percent - its target of limiting emission levels to 15 percent more than were recorded in 1990. Ireland will fail to hit its target of emission levels by 20.4 percent. Austria on current performance is 21 percent off its target

Only Britain, Sweden and France are remotely on target, and even out CO2 emissions have increased by 9 percent since 1999. And before we preen ourselves, Britain's performance, such that it is, has been achieved largely through the contraction of the coal industry, making us dangerously reliant on imported gas supplies.

The Yorkshire Post also reminds us that, even worse than the EU is Canada, which played host to the international climate-change conference in Montreal earlier this month. While mouthing platitudes about remaining "fully committed" to its Kyoto obligations, by the end of 2003, its emissions were up 24.2 percent on 1990 levels. Meanwhile, since 2001, a period in which greenhouse-gas emissions across the EU have increased, those from the United States have fallen by almost one percent.

Kyoto%20cartoon[i-Kyoto%20cartoon]Kyoto was never meant to be an excuse for the self-righteous among nations to preen themselves on the global stage while doing nothing concrete to meet their own grandiose pledges, says the YP, yet, as the date nears by which action is supposed to have been taken, it is increasingly clear that this is the case.

However, it seems that the Kyoto hypocrisy is very much in character – almost the defining attribute of our masters. Whether it is MPs who award themselves ever-more generous pensions, while cutting back on ours and demanding we work longer, or the EU which creates more and more laws enforcing financial probity on commercial companies while itself failing to get is accounts signed off for 11 years, the "do as I say…" ethos seems to pervade modern government.

Even on more mundane matters it seems to apply, for instance with the police, who – according to The Scotsman this morning, stand accused of believing they have "carte blanche" to break the speed limit, while, on the same day, The Telegraph reports that six "road safety" partnerships have each made a profit of more than £1 million from their speed cameras.

Our readers will, no doubt, be able to offer many more examples of our masters' double standards. And if we ourselves are so forcibly reminded that there is one law for them and another for us, and that much-paraded “commitments” are so much hot air, then the essential consent which underpins democratic government becomes steadily eroded. In the final analysis, Kyoto may be more damaging than even its worst critics could have imagined.

COMMENT THREAD

This week the Booker column looks at "the biggest issue of all" that can't be mentioned in the general election, that colossal "elephant in the room", the European Union.

Booker opens his column pointing out that the real reason for the collapse of the Rover-Shanghai deal was the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. These enact EU directives which would have imposed on the Chinese greater obligations towards redundant employees than they could and would accept.

Even the BBC now asks why "Europe" has become the great unmentionable issue in this suffocating election - but it is missing at least half the point. It is true that all parties seem eager to keep the EU out of view (Tory candidates, for instance, were startled last week to be issued with a set of focus-group-tested mantras on this topic and warned not to vary from them by an iota).

The politicians' stock explanation is that discussion of "Europe" should be deferred until the referendum on the European constitution in a year's time. This could prove to be more than just a convenient excuse: with the voters of France and Holland seemingly set to kick the constitution into the long grass, we may find ourselves denied any debate on this issue at all.

There is, however, a more serious respect in which "Europe" has become the black hole in this election. The discussion of many vitally important issues is now avoided because they are in fact no longer the responsibility of our Westminster Parliament. When even the Cabinet Office website admits that half our laws are now made in Brussels, this means that a whole range of policy areas which would once have been at the centre of election debate are off the agenda.

Booker then goes on to offer a list of nine key issues which have effectively been excluded from discussion, because the views of British voters are no longer relevant to how they are handled.

1. The Coming Energy Crisis
Within a few years, with the rundown of North Sea gas and our ageing nuclear power stations (currently providing nearly a quarter of our electricity), we face the prospect of a major energy crisis, which in the electronic age would be far more devastating to economic life than Heath's "three day week" in the 1970s.

Yet no party is prepared to argue the unworkability of an EU-agreed energy policy which pledges that, within 15 years, we will derive 20 per cent of our energy from "renewables", mainly wind. To achieve this - which would entail building 20,000 turbines - is out of the question. No party dares question the EU-Kyoto orthodoxy by pointing out that wind energy is hopelessly unreliable and uneconomical, and that without a new generation of nuclear power stations a crisis is inevitable.

2. The Waste Crisis
Our waste disposal policy is in chaos thanks to the insane complexity of EU waste rules and its diktat that we must replace most of our landfill sites with giant incinerators. This is not going to happen. Thanks to the EU's bizarre definitions of "waste", Britain is prohibiting all sorts of imaginative recycling systems, such as the use of sewage pellets to fuel power stations.

Labour ministers' slavish attempts to comply with ill-drafted EU law are proving increasingly self-defeating: eg the current nationwide wave of fly-tipping, or the fiasco of the EU's ban on burying "animal by-products", from fallen farm stock to old supermarket chicken tikka. Yet neither of the other parties dares question this shambles because they accept the EU's right to dictate waste policy.

3. The Defence Crisis
The Armed Forces face an unprecedented crisis in the provision of their materiel - their planes, ships and vehicles - which is intimately connected to the demands of EU defence integration. The recent award of the Army's biggest ever truck order to a German firm rather than an Anglo-American consortium was just the latest instance of how the politics of EU integration are now overriding military considerations.

The Tories promise to spend more on defence and to reverse the abolition of old regiments. But neither pledge makes sense without addressing the central issue of whether our armed forces should be reorganised and re-equipped according to the needs of EU defence policy.

4. Immigration and Asylum Rules
In January when Michael Howard first proposed a limit on immigration, he was caught out when Brussels officials explained he had no powers to do so. The Labour Government had signed up to directives which prevent Britain deciding its own immigration and asylum policy.

Mr Howard responded that he would repatriate those powers. But although he has continued to make immigration a central election issue, he has carefully avoided getting drawn into further discussion of how he could implement a policy which would be viewed by Brussels and his EU partners as illegal.

5. Road Safety and Traffic Control
Few issues have become more contentious than speed cameras and congestion charges. Even Labour's manifesto admits they will consider a new system for charging road-users. What no party explains is that Brussels now plans to take control of all "road use policy" across the EU, through its proposed Road Safety Agency, including speed limits. Furthermore, among the declared intentions of its Galileo satellite system is a plan for electronic charging for road use of EU roads, including congestion charges; and satellite-controlled automatic "speed limiters", making it impossible for drivers to break the limit even if they want to.

6. Overseas Aid
Tony Blair makes play with his plans to more than double Britain's overseas aid spending to £6.5 billion a year. What he doesn't highlight is the frustration of his ministerial colleagues at the extent to which UK aid priorities are now dictated by the EU, and how inefficiently and corruptly much of it is administered.

A junior aid minister, Gareth Thomas, recently complained at the way EU aid is weighted towards Mediterranean countries, in the hope of deterring emigration - so that Egypt, for example, receives 100 times more per head than the much poorer Bangladesh. The Tories say they would "repatriate" some aid policy, but do not explain how they would do this in face of unanimous opposition from Brussels and EU partners.

7. Foreign Policy
Because it is obscured by headline exceptions such as Iraq, few people, even politicians, are aware how much we must now comply with the EU's common foreign policy. In 28 policy areas we have already handed over our right to decide our own policy, which is one reason why the British Government has appeared to take such a pusillanimous line over such issues as the tyranny of Mugabe, Botswana's persecution of the Kalahari Bushmen and appeasement of the mullahs in Iran.

8. Competition and State Aid Rules
When, with Government support, Peugeot planned a car plant at Coventry which would have contributed more to the Midlands economy than Rover, the deal was scuppered because it took too long for Brussels to approve it under EU "state aid rules". Although the rules are widely flouted by France, Germany, Italy and Spain, Britain is punctilious in its efforts not to use subsidies in a way which might "distort competition". This has also resulted in abandoning such socially desirable policies as the Public and Private Partnerships which helped to clean up scores of former industrial sites and put them to beneficial use.

9. The Growing Deadweight of EU Regulation
When one West Country MP was recently approached by a constituent asking why, as a lorry driver, he was forced by the EU's working time rules to take a 20 per cent cut in wages, the MP had to point out that there was nothing any British politician could do about it.

EU regulations are regularly put at the top of the list by business organisations, from the CBI to the British Chambers of Commerce, as by far the biggest single factor undermining the efficiency and competitiveness of British industry. Despite weak noises from the Tories, no British politician has any practical idea as to how to curb this regulatory blizzard, which is why it is not an election issue.

These, concludes Booker, are just some of the issues which will remain undiscussed at this election, reflecting how much of our government has now passed to the new system centred in Brussels, unaccountable to any electorate. This inflicts endless damage, from the chaos over our new "118" system for directory enquiries to the continuing disaster of our fisheries.

But the more the power to run our country is taken out of our politicians' hands, the more reluctant they are to talk about it. This is why debate will continue to centre round the same obsessive little list of issues - schools'n'hospitals, crime'n'tax - ignoring that ever greater "European black hole" into which our right to govern ourselves is steadily vanishing.

A research report by Berg Insight - a noted "business intelligence" consultant to the telecom industry - tells us that, by 2009, all 15 million cars sold in Europe could have "telematics" – by which is meant a satellite navigation device and a mobile communication unit.

Navigation equipment, says the report, will drive growth in the premium car segment and – wait for it - EU safety regulations could open the volume market for embedded telematics solutions after 2009. By that year, says Berg, the EU commission has proposed that all new cars sold in the EU should automatically notify an emergency centre with an exact location in case of an accident.

If the proposal is realised, it adds, all 15 million cars sold in the EU annually will have to be equipped with telematics unit consisting of GPS satellite navigation device and a mobile communication unit,

From where Berg Insight obtained this information is questionable, as there are no firm proposals from the commission that cars should be fitted with "telematics".

The idea stems from the White Paper on Road Safety COM(2003) 311 final published on 2 June 2003 which suggested, tentatively that cars could be fitted with "accident alert system for the automatic transmission of essential information to the nearest emergency service unit".

There is no obvious connection between Berg Insight and the commission but what we are seeing is an insidious form of EU propaganda, paving the way for a major commission initiative – wittingly or unwittingly – making it appear to be inevitable (and unquestioned).

But of course, as we pointed out in an earlier posting, the real agenda is an EU-wide road charging system, based on the EU's Galileo satellite system. But how typical that the EU, through its useful idiots, is making the case on safety grounds, getting universal acceptance of equipment in cars which, latterly, will be used for road charging.

Softly, softly, catchee money. Mother Europe will look after you and summon help if you have an accident. Only later will we be presented with the bill.

In the Sunday Times today is a story that has being doing the rounds, this one headed: "Europe wants a black-box speed spy in every car".

According to The Times, "black box recorders" could be installed in all new cars under an EU ruling. The "aircraft-style equipment" would also act as a tracker, using global positioning satellites to record the location and route of a vehicle and to tell how fast a driver is going and whether seatbelts are being worn.

Typically, this is being presented as a safety measures, the Times also reporting that "data recovered from the boxes could give investigators important clues on how accidents are caused". We are told that the EU commission has asked the police forces of member states to look at whether the technology could improve road safety.

Then, if as expected, the police give their backing, manufacturers would be required to install black boxes in all new cars by 2009.

All very nicey-nicey this is, and you can bet the police – or more particularly the "road safety" partnerships – will be highly enthusiastic. As the technology allows speed to be monitored, and is linked with positioning data, the facility will exist to issue speed tickets from information generated by the car electronics, without any external apparatus such as speed cameras.

Furthermore, there have been some suggestions that the system could be linked to in-car computer diagnostic systems which already exist in many cars, to monitor exhaust emissions, with penalty tickets being issued automatically to drivers of cars which fail to meet emission standards – even though they may be unaware of the problem.

Few people are aware of quite how far this technology has already developed, and quite how enthusiastic the regulators are about its applications.

Some indication can be gained from the EU commission site on “Intelligent transport systems”, where ideas such as "electronic fee charging" are rehearsed.

Furthermore, since much of this technology relies on satellite positioning data, this the use of such systems in the regulatory context has the potential to provide a considerable revenue stream, underwriting the EU’s Galileo project, with otherwise is difficult to justify financially (other than through the spin-off in arms sales).

This is not only an EU problem as the National Transportation Safety Board in America is also highly enthusiastic about such systems, all of which goes to show that the bureaucracies of the world have a great deal in common.

Unsurprisingly, British motoring groups fear the technology could be used by government to introduce a national congestion charge or to keep tabs on people’s movements and therein lies the greatest danger.

Give governments power (any governments) and it is only a matter of time before they abuse it. Here technology is creating a worrisome scenario where, in the future, every time you climb in your car, "big brother" will be looking over your shoulder.

This week the EU parliament approved plans for a standard EU driving license, aimed at replacing the 110 different permits in use across the EU, with Jacques "Wheel" Barrot, the EU transport commissioner, claiming that this new license, with anti-falsification measures, would help prevent fraud and thus improve road safety

Elsewhere, on its website, the commission claims that the move to a standard licence is governed by two major principles: to facilitate the free movement of the citizens of the Community and contribute to the improvement of road traffic safety.

And therein is yet another big lie. While there is some utility in having mutual recognition of driving licenses throughout the member states, with harmonisation of technical standards (but why stop at the EU?) the specific rationale for having a "EU model" license, emblazoned with its ring of stars, has nothing to do with fraud, road safety or freedom of movement.

The concept of the standard European driving license stems entirely from a report written by Italian MEP Pietro Adonnino, in 1985 for the Milan Council, entitled "A Peoples' Europe".

The whole purpose of the report was to recommend ways of developing a "European identity", to which effect Adonnino came up with a number of ideas.

Perhaps the most significant was that the European Community should have its own flag and its own anthem, "to be played at appropriate events and ceremonies".

He also recommended a "Community passport" to replace national passports and other "concrete measures" to encourage "the people of Europe" to feel a sense of common identity, ranging from a "Europe-wide lottery" to an emergency health card, entitling them to medical assistance in any member state.

To this he added the idea that the Community should take over the long-established practice of "town twinning", dating back to the Second World War, and use it to promote the idea of "European union", and that "European" sports teams should compete in international events, wearing the "ring of stars" rather than national symbols. This would be adopted a few years later by the "European" golf team competing against the USA for the Ryder Cup.

His driving licence proposal was originally scheduled for adoption by 1 January 1986, and while a standard "Community model" driving licence had been set up in an earlier directive (80/1263/EEC), and modified by 91/439/EEC, it has not yet been made compulsory for member states.

Now, all that is to change. Adonnino's recommendation is finally to come to fruition, the primary purpose of which is to promote in the "people of Europe" a sense of common identity.

Thus does the EU take a basically good idea, pervert it, distort it and hijack it for its own political ends.