one.point.zero - Colin O'Brien's weblog

Dates for your agenda starting October 3rd: a series of midday conferences concerning automobile pressure on the city of Brussels.

There is simply no other measure as effective in quickly reducing traffic as congestion charging.

the system works

Renault greenwash

The hypocrisy of the auto industry still manages to surprise me. I spotted this ad on a Belgian news site:

renault hypocrisy

Translation: The eco-conditions from Renault, recommended by nature.

Yes, I’m sure nature recommends a toxic gas shower.

In the thirties, William Bushnell Stout designed the egyptian-inspired and art-deco-feeling scarab automobile.

Drive one day less and look how much carbon monoxide you’ll keep out of the air we breathe

Dear Mr Winterkorn, you could actually choose not to give customers what they want, or rather what your advertising makes them want.

Scientists believe that there are so many idiots behind the wheel that we would all be safer if cars were driven by robots, and that’s what they’re working on. I wonder if they’ll have a “go round the block 100 times with music at loud volume” program for the sad gits who mistake those looks of pity from pedestrians for admiration.

Get this: the cars are not part of the solution (whether they run on fossil fuels, vodka, used frymax oil, or cow shit). They are at the heart of the problem. And trying to salvage the entire Happy Motoring system by shifting it from gasoline to other fuels will only make things much worse.

Start thinking beyond the car

The modern automobile uses just one percent of its energy to move its occupants, the rest is used to move the big hunk of metal and glass that it is, power the gadgets, and a big chunk is simply lost as heat.

We’ve got 10 years to avoid dangerous climate changes. At the moment, it’s not looking too great...

A quarter of road traffic victims were not inside a car. Great concept.

The flawed presumption that murder and maiming by car is an “accident”.

By hiding the cost of congestion - by paying it in time rather than money - we understate the cost of our preference for living in low-density patterns and we end up overinvesting in highways.

We won't pay for driving so we queue