If you give yourself an adequate gap between you and the car in front then no matter what they do you will not hit them

Nonsense. M8, M90, M9 – leave the right amount of space at peak times and someone will pull into it whether you’re in inside or outside lane. Back off to create space, same thing happens again. It isn’t just what you do – it is what other people do.

It will be worth going to the Traffic Scotland live eye views page as you can see what stage several of the roads are in to give you an idea of what you face on the different options

Live eye views[/url]

I took the grip shift of my lads bike and popped an X5/X7 trigger on for about £8 from CRC. he found it much easier.

Same here and issue sorted.

I don’t think the extended journey time was ever claimed as earth shattering. The question is whether the same effect could have been achieved by other methods which would not have extended journey times as much.

No other options were explored by the group making the decision, as far as I can see, and the minutes of their first meeting make the whole thing sound like a forum for validating a decision already made elsewhere. At the very least I would have expected different safety options to be evaluated and the relative merits of each option made as public as the justification for the average cameras.

But it isn’t a wide open road

There’s only one bend I can think of Perth – Inverness where distance visible is even close to being as short as braking distance. That’s an open road.

I assume at least one person in the group holds a driving licence, so car drivers were represented.

If you want to be pedantic, no advocacy group. It was Local Authorities, the Police, Road Haulage Ass’n and Public Transport bodies.

FWIW the truckers seem to be reporting slightly reduced journey times.

Not entirely surprising given they can now legally drive faster. Road Haulage Association was in the decision making group and pushed for it. There was no IoM / AA / RAC presence to get anything to assist car drivers.

The speed limit is a limit not a target

There’s no reason it cannot be both on a wide open road.

The (apparent) idea that we can only reduce accidents by reducing average speeds on a major trunk road is a message which has already brought demands for such schemes to be expanded.

Other ways of making the road safer were proposed but largely ignored as cameras are a nice cheap blanket fix. There wasn’t a single body representing car drivers in the group which decided on the cameras, so that’s hardly surprising.

My average has gone from about 54mph to 47 mph on a road where the average speed limit is about 63. There have to be ways of enhancing road safety whilst allowing people to use the trunk road network on journey times closer to what the roads were designed to take.

Yep. All looking good.

Almost. Perth to Inverness is 20+ mins longer than it was, although as one of my colleagues said, it is preparing us nicely for 3+ hour Perth – Inverness times when the dualling works actually start.

There’s going to be a big diesel backlash soon. The Labour Shadow Environmental Minister recently admitted Labour **** up on diesel policy. Taxes etc will rise in the new parliament I bet.

Employer’s fleet leasing company told me this would happen shortly…in 2005. In 2016-17 the 3% penalty which diesel company cars pay over petrol cars with same CO2 output will disappear so there’s a fair bit of current policy to reverse which will take time.

Money traders will be busy earning come Monday…

It must be Monday in some market or other already as XE had it lost over half a cent straight off. If some currency trader is going to earn though, doesn’t that mean someone else is going to lose? One or two went bust when the CHF delinked from EUR.

I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall in Merkel’s office right now though.

You’d be better letting them know rather than just paying back the cash you’ve received.

As you’ve said it is pay they’ve given you, they’ll have deducted tax, NI etc which could have a knock on effect on what you pay in tax over the year, depending on your rest of year earnings. Once you’ve made them aware, insist that they correct your PAYE / NI position before handing it back.

As for the traffic not giving you space thing just take the space

I once left Haymarket Terrace in the back of an ambulance whilst taking the space – entirely down to driver stupidity.

Many people are too scared to take the space – there may be lots of cycle commuters but skill isn’t universally high. The infrastructure needs to be good enough for the below average skill or confidence levels, not just the expert. And it isn’t.

Way back in autumn 2005, TIE stuck a tram in Princes Street gardens with lots of shiny people there to do consultation / PR on the trams. I had a long conversation with them about the profile of the rails, the implication for bike tyres and the solutions which could be found to minimise the risk.

That included routing, angle of attack and the use of a sort of vulcanised rubber cover for the gap which heavy trams could depress but light bikes wouldn’t. I was not the first person to raise the issue as the responses seemed reasonably well informed and assurances about managing risk to bikes were made.

None of that happened.

Those who are saying people are too special maybe fail to understand the junctions involved. Haymarket has lots of inter-lane movement of different traffic types and an off camber bend heading west right on the cycle lane. The rails limit the ability to take the inevitable avoiding action required when a vehicle cuts you up. Riding through it is a problem because traffic doesn’t give bikes the space to do it safely.

They don’t seem to even realise that the CURRENT marginal rate of tax at £100K to £120K is 62%.

was it when they wrote their 2010 manifesto?

The change was announced around April 2009 and effective April 2010. They certainly had time to get any implications of it in their manifesto.

Private schools, it always surprises me to remember, are charities. They are therefore subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of more than £100m a year.

Which is substantially less than the cost the state would have to stump up were it suddenly to have to educate all those at private schools. Whilst there are things to criticise private schools for, the cost to the public purse isn’t one of them.

Better friction when it is cooler. They’re in T shirts a lot of the time and climbing some bits at night just to get the rock cooler.

Just like in the UK lots of the grit climbers go out in grim winter conditions for better friction.

GPs refused to join the NHS at its inception because they felt that the NHS wouldnt pay them enough.

I’m afraid that’s incorrect. Compulsion was involved. My grandfather, having bought his practice in 1946 after 20 years of voluntary service overseas, ended up earning so little from NHS he couldn’t service and repay the purchase debt. It was only when my father qualified as a GP and joined the practice that the combined earnings were able to deal with that.

For what its worth, my father now considers that politicians have messed up GP contracts to the point where they are paid more than they deserve for what they do.

I recognised the park rather than the sculpture. Many nights wandering back through the park from the Golden Rule to the holiday flat my parents rented over the burn.

I think that’s in Rothay Park in Ambleside.

Have you ever thought why French ski resorts such as Courchevel have fallen from favour with the rich and famous in recent years?

The property prices and level of building work there at present suggest it hasn’t fallen out of favour with everyone. It may be that the increasing number of rich and rude Russians has persuaded many people that other places are more pleasant and better value options.

Don’t be put off the Saab just because they’re out of production. But that’s a very good reason to get them cheaper. And lots of the aftermarket parts are better than the originals. My wife still runs our 55 plate TiD because it is worthless and there’s been no problem getting parts. The key is a decent independent garage you trust and the auto you’re looking at will at least avoid the DMF issues.

I still wish we’d never bought it, but that’s because of it being on 3rd DMF and paying the price for it before Saab went under. It is still really nice to drive.

yes, let’s blame anything other than human error.

Of course it is human error. Few accidents are not. But irrespective of how people ought to drive, increased frustration is likely to lead to more stupidity. 20-45 mins has been added to a previously c. 2 hour journey.

The cameras were introduced with the stated aim of improving driver behaviour. The increased journey times and possible risk taking as a result was dismissed by the scheme planners.

True – no-one leaves space between cars in the convoys so overtaking is harder. And everyone else is bored and paying vague attention to the lights of the car in front only. Worried now about being hit in the phantom braking incidents as much as anything else.

I’m on Perth to Inverness section almost weekly and I’ve started to vary my travel times even more because it is just nuts now.

Everyone limited to 70mph wouldn’t stop accidents, it would probably cause them

You may laugh Lifer, but as anyone driving the A9 since the cameras went on, consistent mileage at the speed limit is a distant memory. The long convoys and reduced average speed are almost certainly behind accidents like Wednesday’s – I’ve certainly seen more worrying overtakes since they went on than before. No-one killed Wednesday, but to keep STW happy, an Audi was involved.

Not arguing fantasy at all – arguing for coherent tax policies. This isn’t coherent. Successful and justifiable taxes work on the basis of taxing a justifiable event – so you earn a wage, you pay income tax. You make a profit on shares, you pay tax on a profit. Not on the full price.

I covered the lost revenue point on the last page and there’s another idea on the post above. I’ve no doubt this tax is here to stay, but that doesn’t make it justifiable.

The vast majority of people will pay less under these new rules, so it’ll be less of a barrier

It remains a barrier and has no justification.

So, you buy a house for £500k. 5 years later you have to move job. You sell for £500k and buy a new house near the new job for £500k. No profit made at all yet you have to shell out a tax. Unjustifiable.

If you want to tax profit on housing, the thing to do is revoke the exemption from CGT for the main house. But they’re not doing that.

Or a tax on profiteering from the property market depending on how you look at that.

The only profiteering is by government. Created the conditions for housing boom then tax the change. Stamp duty is not a tax on profits as that would take account of the cost of purchase. Even that would be preferable.

Moving house to find work is normal and finding yourself having to lose 18 months pay to move does not encourage that.

Not a terrible idea – but where do you make up the lost tax revenue?

Government needs to justify collecting any tax and its basis and this one only catches big numbers because of the impact on the housing market of multiple policy failures.

The issue with stamp duty is it is not a tax on wealth or income. Two people living in the same value of house moving every 5 years vs every 25 pay different amounts of tax. So it is a tax on mobility.

A fairer way in my view to deal with higher value property, or any property for that matter, which would also answer your question, would be to reduce the level of central government funding to local authorities and increase the council tax.

I use vredestein W drive all year round on the Passat, mainly because with the mileage I do there’s not enough tread left after one winter to be worth taking off and keeping for a second winter. A new set in about November lasts a year and saves the refitting and storage hassle for the other tyres.

For mileage that covers pretty much all of Scotland all year round I wouldn’t be without them.

One of my colleagues was diagnosed with that earlier in the year. The first couple of months were harsh as the initial treatment and medication regime was sorted out, which it has been for months now.

They get a bit tired from time to time but that seems to be lessening and seems to be the only side effect they really talk about, although they don’t do anything like the level of activity you’ve listed.

They expect to be around for decades to see their kids grow up. I hope you can get to that level of confidence too Keith – good luck.

I do both. Skiing was first and then added boarding and neither seemed difficult to learn. There’s no reason not to do both at different times.

I only use the board when there’s something approaching decent powder – when I was learning, 4 out of the group of 7 of us finished the 4th day with either separated or dislocated shoulders. I was one of the lucky ones, but it does colour my view of boards on pistes. All of those injures happened in the run in to tows.

So I stick to skis on piste and also for touring which you’ve alluded to. It isn’t for everyone, but being able to wander off on long days in the hills knowing you can get back down in minutes as the sun sets is great.

Back to EU membership then – looks like the Spanish won’t let any of the ScotGovt proposed easy shortcuts happen. Going to have to do it the long way.

Spanish PM says Scotland would have to reapply to join EU as a new member state

In a, fnar fnar, my bank account is extremely large, this can’t possibly continue kind a way I’d imagine!

Thought you were going.

But no, your uninformed prejudice is showing through a bit there. I’m an accountant. I looked at Gordon Brown’s numbers. They didn’t add up. It really wasn’t that hard to see so my main irritation with the Tories is that they didn’t challenge that hard enough.

Bless them for the guidance and insights without them we would be lost and we would experience recessions and stuff like that.

Some of us bean counters predicted what would happen, but a bit like the YES campaign, weren’t listened to because it didn’t fit with populist thinking. “scaremongering” was a word bandied around then too but we know how well that went.

Last I heard figures was that most people in England were exempt from the charges anyway

2012-13 was over 90% free. Scotland issued nearly 99M prescriptions last year. 10% of those being paid for would have given the Government c. £80M at English charging rates. Maybe they didn’t need it.

it’s about the fact that England, Wales and NI are oppressed in the shape of prescription charges, education charges

In what way is that oppression? I’m unimpressed that free prescriptions here means less money available to help those who can’t help themselves. Likewise, one of my kids is about to get free school meals. Why? I can and should afford both.

And don’t give me any crap that they aren’t affordable

Little is or isn’t affordable in absolute terms. It is just that if you spend it on one thing you can’t spend it on another. So Scotland is spending money giving me free prescriptions and free school meals I don’t need. Which means someone somewhere who needs something isn’t getting it.

How’s that helping social equality?

It was on a similar thread years ago that someone posted this image. Not far off how mine “helped” me a few years ago.

The range of times to join are huge- Finland managed it in 3 years, Scotland would almost certainly have a better starting point even than them.

I’m afraid I disagree. Scotland starting point is that it does not exist as a nation with a track record of economic performance. It will be difficult for the EU to consider Scottish accession until it is clear what iScotland looks like. That will require a large part of the separation negotiations with rUK to be complete and budgets for an iS to be created so that contributions can be set.

Once it is clear what iS looks like, I agree that it will not take long to join.

Can anyone find a source for that “not a nation” comment? Genuinely curious

According to the publication on Tavish Scott’s website it was in answer to a question to NS at a Times conference in Edinburgh March 2012.

I dont get how anyone can be so pro business tbh

Equally, I don’t get how anyone can so readily dismiss the concerns of so many organisations which provide employment and generate wealth which can be taxed.

It is like that old public vs private sector debate – neither is better, both are essential. You’ve made your view clear on employers several times over many threads but being one isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

If staff told the company about its social responsibility, we’d be delighted. Fortunately, they do. And we support many of the initiatives they propose because if they don’t believe in what the company is trying to do they’re not going to do it as well. It may surprise to you learn that many companies know that great ideas come from every level within a business if you just give people the confidence to speak up.