Rockets

Greyhound Cars is good.

Yes and I do wonder how many of those "asking" for a CPZ may be Labour supporters/activists and been tapped up to do so. I still can't work out how the council justified doing the Townley and Calton CPZ seeing as the consultation results showed the majority didn't want it.

Emma Ermengarde Ogilvy Greville-Nugent seems like an interesting character!

In my defence I only did that because 300,000 of the "1 million SUVs" article you shared are Ford Pumas or similar and are categorised as "Small SUVs". They are not SUVs - nowhere near it and nowhere near the negative impact of a Ford F50 series SUV/truck. Of course we agree on that but can we also agree that there is no "Epidemic of SUVs"? But short of incentivising manufacturers to not make them how do you stop their sales? When the stories emerged back in 2021 with the research on a 3rd of car sales in Chelsea being large SUVs the call to action centred around banning advertising and trying to advertise to shame people into not owning them but, to be honest, the people I know who own them aren't the type to shame easily and tend not to be the type to care one jot about what anyone else thinks - did Tyre Extinguishers make anyone think twice - I doubt it, far more likely they made people think there are a lot of climate cranks around! 😉

Superb - thanks both. I have never seen the sign on the bench but will seek it out.

Superb research! What is the domed building in the picture? Is that looking up the hill towards Camberwell?

Ah so it's part of the Melbourne Grove Streets for People works then. Madness that the council goes ahead with this when there are so many other works disrupting traffic in the area but I suspect year end budget surplus spends are at play here. Who at the council is responsible for the co-ordination of this type of thing?

Funny isn't it - the council rinse and repeats this approach all across the area, they say there will be no displacement but the moment anyone says there is a problem they acknowledge that it is due to the CPZ and, gleefully, ask whether people would like a CPZ on the streets impacted.

Absolute nonsense, how you can claim nitpicking and pedantry is laughable. We are not the ones making sensationalist and hyperbolic statements that there are now over one million new SUVs on the road when the "definition" of SUVs to get to that 1 million figure includes vehicles that nobody would ever claim to be SUVs. Do you think a Puma, Qashqai or Mokka is really an SUV? No, I didn't think so. If you want to have a discussion about the 3,000+ large SUVs purchased in the UK last year go ahead but don't wrap an ideological crusade around it and try to create the narrative that somehow there is an "epidemic of SUVs" in the UK based on injury data from a country (the US) that in 2024 sold over 2 million monster trucks and a country where the best selling vehicles are monster trucks. If challenged on that narrative don't then share data to back that claims 1 million SUVs sold in the UK that includes the vast majority of cars which no-one would ever consider to be an SUV because the rational people you want to engage with in the discussion will turn around and go...don't be daft and sideline you as some sort of "eat the rich and their Chelsea tractor crank". No-one here is doubting car bloat - I actually gave a reason for that and interestingly but somewhat predictably shot down as wrong by other posters. I am sorry but this thread really highlights how some refuse to let the truth get in the way of a good story and how knee-jerk ideology is not borne out in fact. And remember, it wasn't so long ago that eco-terrorists Tyre Extinguishers were going around letting tyres down on vehicles they deemed to be too big for cities based on this type of nonsense. There is no epidemic of SUVs in the UK. There is in the US. Don't conflate the two.

But interesting when the report originator never gives any indication as to what 30% of car sales in those areas actually equates to in actual numbers. It makes a good headline until you look and consider well, how many new car sales are there in those boroughs and what is 30% of that..... Given that in the year that report was published there were 2287 large SUVs bought in the whole country I very much suspect the numbers for those boroughs are no more than a handful and if you went with the actual number rather than a % then the hyperbole impact would have been massively diluted. To be fair @Earl Aelfheah when the original report got publicised by Ash Sarker hate, envy and a healthy dose of Marxist-ideology is normally not far behind.....;-) The original report did wreak of activist research.... It is funny because in the original publicity one of the authors/advocates for the report suggested that people should stop buying large SUVs and buy a Tesla instead....that hasn't aged well!!! 😉

But you are because you are sharing hyperbole reports and headlines to justify your narrative on SUVs yet the data within those reports includes small cars that they deem to be "SUVs". But it's not at all - you seem to think those cars are part of the SUV problem. Do you? Because if not I do not know why you are using research and articles that do to back up your point. You have to agree the headline you shared is undermined massively when you look at the detail included within.

To be fair @Earl Aelfheah - you're throwing around headlines and articles to try and justify the "epidemic of SUVs" like the below but when you look at the detail it includes cars that no-one thinks of as SUVs and then you look even further you realise the attention grabbing headline is because the major growth is not in actual SUVs but things like a Nissan Qashqai or Ford Puma. And I am sorry but this is not an SUV....and this is the SUV Mini category in that survey.

I don't think anyone is saying the trend for larger cars is a good one but other than the fact people are ideologically opposed to them (or maybe their drivers) I really don't understand the fevered reaction to them and there is nothing to suggest there is an epidemic as the title suggests. It does seem that people are conflating (perhaps deliberately) the massive challenges the US has with truck sized SUVs that are 1) bought in huge numbers - the F150 is America's best selling vehicle and over 700,000 were sold last year alone and 2) kill and injure people in huge numbers as a result. The fact there is only 1 SUV (and even that is small compared to the "trucks" in the US) in the UK Top 10 sales figures for last year really demonstrates that this is in no-way an epidemic. The question remains, on what grounds are people going to ban them in London when a much smaller car - Toyota Prius - is actually a bigger menace to people because 1) there are so many of them and 2) given many are PHVs spend a very large time on the road so proportionally are the vehicle most involved in injury causing accidents. Hang on @Earl Aelfheah that survey counts a Mini, Ford Puma and Nissan Juke as an SUV.....and the chart below seems to show that's where the big growth is coming from. I don't think anyone looks at one of those and thinks that's an SUV. Is the Ford Puma a vehicle you categorise as an SUV? Are you suggesting we ban all of these from London as well?

Germany also cannot afford to lose 780,000 jobs in car production; that has nothing to do with national pride - it's about survival. Governments are delaying the phasing out of sales of ICE vehicles because the Chinese are too good at EVs, can produce them cheaply and are a huge threat to the established players. VW will sell you an ID4 for at least £45,000 here. In China they have to sell them for £15,000 such is the pressue on prices and they're losing money each time they sell one in China as they desperately trying to maintain marketshare.

Earls it is. Electrification is leading to bigger and heavier cars. Why? Because the majority of the car is battery and to get the range you need to increase the size of the battery and that increases the dimensions of the car. A friend has an Audi Q8 electric car and whilst it looks big on the outside it feels almost claustrophobic on the inside and has a tiny boot - why, because of the size of the battery needed and the space it takes which raises the floor height. Just look at some of the electric monstrosities coming out in China (who are now the leader in EV) - many of them look like massive shoe boxes on wheels - why? Because of the battery. A bigger concern for me is exactly the Chinese EV issue if you look at the design trends (see the Ford Focus shared by Malumbu) is that, for some reason, electric cars seem to be squarer, blockier and with more prominent nose sections. Because how on earth do you legislate to stop them coming into London without also then having to address even bigger, heavier, high-fronted vehicles like vans and buses.....and given the fact Toyota Prius are the vehicles involved in most injury causing accidents on what grounds do single out SUVs - and "I don't like SUVs or SUV drivers" aren't grounds for barring them from a city. I think it is pretty clear that the citing of the Ford Puma was given as an example of how the hyperbole around the "Epidemic of SUVs" isn't actually born out by the facts - that in the Top 10 UK car sales only one is close to being considered an SUV. That's not a deflection. Maybe people's perception of the number of SUVs on the roads is being influenced because we live in a wealthy part of London and people see more of them on the roads. But like a lot of things Dulwich life is not a reflection of life everywhere.

The problem is much of the negativity and scaremongering around SUVs comes from the US and this is totally understandable. In fact, in the US they aren't known as SUVs but trucks and the really scary thing is that the F-Series and Silverado are the two biggest selling cars of any car and look at the units sold - the F Series sells more cars than all of the UK Top 10 put together and there is not one car in that list that comes close to the size of the 4 pick-up trucks highlighted in the US Top 10. Take a look at these two pics as well showing how big some of these monsters are, comparing a Ford F50 vs Fiesta and Silverado vs a Golf. Absolutely agree, there is no place for these on roads in the UK but we need to keep the perspective and stop the hyperbole - yes UK cars are getting bigger (much of this is being driven by electrification) but we will never get to the situation the US finds itself in. P.S. Whatever happened to RaptorTruckMan...... US 2024 Top-10 Car Sales 1. Ford F-Series - 765,649 2. Chevrolet Silverado: 549,945 3. Toyota RAV4: 475,193 4. Tesla Model Y - 405,900 5. Honda CRV - 402,791 6. Ram Pickup: 373,120 7. GMC Sierra - 324,734 8. Toyota Camry - 309,876 9. Nissan Rogue - 245, 724 10. Honda Civic -242,005 UK 2024 Top 10 Car Sales 1. Ford Puma - 48,384 2. Kia Sportage - 47,163 3. Nissan Qashqai - 42,418 4. Nissan Juke - 34,454 5. Tesla Model Y - 32,862 6. VW Golf - 32,370 7. Hyundai Tucson - 32,174 8. MG Motor HS - 30,207 9. Volvo XC40 - 30,202 10. VW Polo - 28,981

Is it Thames Water again?

Yup it's about as "fairly balanced" as you're going to get from the Guardian....but in typical Guardian style the headline is hyperbole not actually born out in the rest of the article 😉 It was clear from my posts that I was questioning the timing of it - why did Peter Walker suddenly decide to write about it now - one wonders what the trigger for it was given the same story was extensively covered some months ago in other media?

Of course its good news but why did Peter Walker decide to write about it now - it's really old news? And it's a classic Walker article in that the headline makes a definitive statement: Wales 20mph limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate? .....and yet his opening paragraph contradicts his headline by referring to the caveats that the Welsh government has applied to pause jumping to the conclusion of his headline. This is cub reporter stuff. Here is how the BBC dealt with those caveats: Government officials have urged caution in attributing the fall in casualties to the 20mph limit. The Welsh government's chief statistician said in a blog last year that at least three year's worth of collision data would be required for a meaningful comparison to be made. Casualty figures have also been on a downward trend for sometime - the Welsh government said they have "declined steadily over the last decade". So why did Peter decide to write that article now and gloss over the cabeats part? What do you think? I did. See post above yours.

There is a lot of hyperbole over SUVs, granted, if you get hit by one you are far more likely to suffer terrible injuries, in fact I read that the Ford F150 and Chevy Silverado are the most dangerous cars on the roads in the US and that's not surprising as they are huge and also a lot of American roads are 6 lane motorways (ostensibly) through residential areas and everyone seems to own a monster truck. In the UK by comparison I keep seeing research (that claims to come from DfT STATS19 data) that says the car involved in most accidents that lead to injury in the UK: Toyota Prius, followed by Vauxhall Corsas and Astras and Volkswagen Golf. Range Rovers are the only one on the list that falls into the SUV category. One thing worth considering as well is that due to the high value margins involved many of the newest and most expensive SUVs are some of the most advanced cars on the roads and come with significant accident avoidance technology, often long before smaller, less expensive, cars do.

I saw Peter Walker's article in the Guardian and thought, hang on this is old news and lo, the BBC wrote about it in January which then made me wonder why Peter Walker decided to write about it now. It's not news, so why now? Anyone have any clue, is he using it as part of a lobbying effort? Normally, now that he is acting political editor, his forays into his old patch of transport are usually built around "exclusives" most often fed to him by his pals in the cycle/active travel lobby because they know he will treat their narrative sympathetically and he will not ask any probing questions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w1891z03o

What work are they doing outside ED station? Another route in and out of Dulwich disrupted...it's becoming a badly organised joke.

I agree it would be good if the council did the exercise again to see how much has changed. It was research done over two days in February in 2015 so repeating it wouldn't cost the earth.

In the last Lordship Lane footfall analysis (I believe the last) done by the council in 2015 their research suggested that: 29% of visitors (and by far the largest group) were from SE22 17% of visitors were from SE15 11% of visitors were from SE12 5% of visitors were from SE5 4% of visitors were from SE23 The rest were spread across a lot of London postcodes further afield but a lot from the wider South London area 37% of visitors had walked 21% had got the bus 22% of visitors had driven

Earl, for the benefit of everyone else I don't want to get drawn into one of the cycles that bore the pants off everyone else and yes you are right this has nothing to do with Peckham, but: STATS Under-reporting is an issue that the government is trying to address because the police reports that form STATS have not necessarily correlated to other forms of reporting (hospital, insurance claims etc) In fact the latest review (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reported-road-casualty-statistics-background-quality-report/reported-road-casualty-statistics-background-quality-report) the government cites this very example in bold: For example the STATS19 definition of a collision will include single-vehicle pedal cycle collisions, if the rider (or a pedestrian in collision with the cycle) is injured. In practice, only a small proportion of these types of collision are reported to the police. This is a serious issue concerning the quality of the road casualty data. If under-reporting remains unrecognised, then the true magnitude of any road safety problems cannot be known, or could be underestimated. This could in turn lead to incorrect prioritising of policy measures to improve road safety, or could lead to less efficient or inappropriate countermeasures. These issues also affect the ‘coherence’ strand of quality. STATS is slow to adapt to new transport usage types it only started monitoring for Powered Personal Transporters (e-scooters) from November 2024 and I very much suspect PPTs were added to the data collection mechanism because other sources (hospitals maybe) were seeing an increase in issues that were not being reflected in STATS. So, what I was saying remains true that STATS data should not be used for comparisons of road user type X vs road user type Y in terms of numbers of injury inducing accidents - any database to which you refer that uses STATS as the basis for their data needs to be approached with that mindset.