30 less reasons to overtake bikes

the adoration of the golden car

As the demonstrations by the “gilets jaunes” become a fixture of French Saturdays, the French government is gradually giving up on the reforms it had started and is in particular catering to the car [and motorbike] lobby that started the protests. The symbol itself comes from the yellow fluorescent jackets found in every car and the first round of demonstrations was about the rise of the gas taxes towards more sustainable transportation. Things have since then metastasized into a winner-takes-it-all litany of complaints, but with gas engine drivers remaining at the forefront. When driving outside Paris during the Xmas break, every speed radar I X’ed had been neutralised or destroyed, leading to a significant increase in speeding and thus eventually in road kills. Following the abandonment of the gas tax a few weeks ago, the most recent abdications of the government on that aspect are returning to the speed limit of 90km/h on secondary roads, from the year-old decrease to 80km/h, tax rebates for changing cars, financial advantages for frequent highway users and more generally heavy drivers. Ride faster, comrade, until you hit the next right curve!

from my office

 

bad graph of the day

In the plane to Trondheim, I spotted this ludicrous graphical representation of the sales of cars in France during the first trimester of 2012. While the ration “diesel”/”essence” is four to one, the areas and scales of both sets are completely disproportionate! And this is reinforced by the representation of the larger set as a one-fourth disk, hinting at a scale four times larger… (I do not know if Le Monde or the ” comité francais des constructeurs d’automobiles” (CCFA) is responsible but I would suspect Le Monde after checking on the CCFA site… It sounds like Le Monde needs a journalist with better statistical skills.)

rewarding the most reckless [and even…]

I just got a spam email for joining an automobile association, promising a free training session for those having lost points on their driving licence (due to reckless driving). I thought this was a quite surprising incentive and an equally surprising focus on poor drivers. I thus checked on the site and it gets worse: (a) only those with at least half of their points gone can benefit from those free sessions and (b) they have to loose at least four points after joining the association. Hence a puzzling reward on the most reckless drivers from a driver association! (Maybe they could recruit this insane driver I saw on the Paris beltway a few years ago. )