Fourteen smart motorways removed from government road-building plans over cost and safety fears
The building of new smart motorways is being cancelled as Rishi Sunak acknowledged concerns about safety and cost.
Fourteen planned smart motorways – including 11 that are already paused and three earmarked for construction – will be removed from government road-building plans, given financial pressures and in recognition of the lack of public trust.
Continue reading...While many operators still ply the cross-Channel route, some businesses are focusing instead on domestic trips
It was once the staple for group travel abroad, favoured by school trips and touring retirees alike, but it now looks like Britain could be falling out of love with the continental coach journey.
Many are likely to have been put off for life by chaos at Dover, as people try to get away for the Easter holiday. An estimated 20,000 people got caught up in gridlock last weekend alone after delays in border processing that forced vehicles to queue for up to 14 hours.
Continue reading...Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo supports ban after three people died and 459 were injured in accidents during 2022
Parisians are voting on Sunday on whether to rid the streets of the French capital of electric scooters, although some say the city’s leaders ought to be focusing on more pressing issues.
Paris was a pioneer when it introduced e-scooters, or trottinettes, in 2018 as the city’s authorities sought to promote non-polluting forms of urban transport.
Continue reading...School holiday delays of up to 14 hours blamed on ‘French border processes and sheer volume’
Extra sailings are to run overnight at the Port of Dover to try to clear a backlog that left passengers stuck in Easter school-holiday traffic for hours on Saturday.
A spokesperson for the port, which declared a critical incident on Friday, said it was hoping to clear the backlog by lunchtime on Sunday as some travellers said they had been held up for 14 hours.
Continue reading...‘Nonno Sprint’ avoided paying by nipping in behind prepaid Telepass customers before barrier descended
An 80-year-old Italian man nicknamed “Nonno Sprint” (Granddad Sprint) risks going on trial after he brazenly dodged paying €4,000 (£3,514) worth of motorway tolls using a technique more frequently reserved for metro fare hoppers.
In his Fiat Punto, the man, whose real name is Mario, “travelled far and wide” on Italy’s motorways for two years without paying a single euro, arguing that the charges were too pricey and not worth it for the poor service, according to Corriere della Sera.
Continue reading...The research group that first exposed the scandal say ‘it’s not over’ and that governments must act
Thirteen million diesel cars producing “extreme” levels of toxic air pollution are still on the roads in Europe and the UK, according to a report, seven years after the Dieselgate scandal first exploded.
The non-profit research group, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), revealed in 2015 that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing. The scandal led to a more rigorous test being introduced in the EU in 2019.
Continue reading...Experts liken act known as ‘ICEing’ to parking at a fuel bowser, and say high penalties are necessary to encourage EV uptake
Drivers could be fined as much as $3,200 for parking in spaces for electric vehicles as part of little-known penalties introduced in four states and territories.
The fines, some of them added to road rules late last year, range from $3,200 in the Australian Capital Territory to $369 in Victoria.
Continue reading...Temperatures could plummet to -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas with snow cutting off some rural areas
Tuesday night could be the coldest this year so far, the Met Office has warned, with fears that Arctic air could cut off some rural communities and cause power and transport chaos.
Temperatures could fall as low as -15c in some sheltered Scottish areas, with locations that have seen snowfall especially vulnerable.
Continue reading...Popularity of sport utility vehicles driving higher oil demand and climate crisis, say experts
The continued global rise in the sale of SUVs pushed their climate-heating emissions to almost a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.
The 330m sport utility vehicles on the roads produced emissions equivalent to the combined national emissions of the UK and Germany last year. If SUVs were a country, they would rank as the sixth most polluting in the world.
Continue reading...National Highways faces third intervention by a local authority over infilling, after burying Congham bridge in Norfolk in tonnes of concrete
A controversial practice by the government’s roads agency of burying historic railway bridges in concrete has been dealt a fresh blow after a third council intervened over another infilled structure.
King’s Lynn and West Norfolk council has told National Highways it must apply for retrospective planning permission if it wants to retain hundreds of tonnes of aggregate and concrete it used to submerge Congham bridge, a few miles east of King’s Lynn.
Continue reading...Exclusive: cuts come despite government’s levelling up promise to improve transport connectivity
Almost one in 10 local bus services were axed in Great Britain in the last year despite government promises to improve local transport connectivity being a key pillar of its levelling up agenda.
The reductions – equivalent to more than 1,000 registered routes – follow the publication of a national bus strategy for England in 2021, aimed at improving routes and service frequencies. The figures suggest the “bus back better” strategy, conceived under the then prime minister Boris Johnson, has failed to halt the decline in local bus services.
Continue reading...Passengers should use a 24-hour hotline to report cabbies who refuse to turn on meters, David Elliott says
Passengers should dob in “dodgy” cabbies who don’t use their meters for rides over the holiday period, the New South Wales transport minister says.
David Elliott sent a warning shot over the unethical practice of taxi drivers negotiating prices for passengers in a hurry without turning on their meter.
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Continue reading...Effort to reduce new year collisions has been criticised for encouraging drivers to film others or stage violations
Thai police are taking an alternative approach to their annual road safety campaign by offering cash prizes of 10,000 baht (£240) for the best – or worst – videos of traffic violations.
About 22,000 people die each year in Thailand in road traffic accidents, one of the worst death rates in the world. The week over the new year, known locally as the “seven dangerous days”, has the biggest spike as people speed around the country.
Continue reading...Traffic blocked after vintage vehicle carrying several Santas gets wedged in narrow lane
A vintage armoured vehicle filled with Santas had to be freed by police after getting stuck in a Cornish lane.
The Santas, who were believed to be on a pub crawl, got wedged in a hedge at Marsh Lane, near Hayle.
Continue reading...Ansbach court rules in favour of two cycling activists who had been fined €100 for breaching data protection regulation
People who notify the police of parked cars blocking pavements and bike paths will in future be able to submit photographs as evidence of offences, a court in Bavaria has ruled.
An administrative court in Ansbach has ruled in favour of two cycling activists who had been fined €100 (£87) each for breaching data protection regulation for photographing apparently illegally parked cars and emailing the images to the police.
Continue reading...Lawyers acting for more than 1,600 drivers say they have been wrongly classed as self-employed
More than 1,600 UK drivers working for the ride-hailing app Bolt are seeking compensation for missed holiday and minimum wage payments as they argue they have been wrongly classed as self-employed contractors.
Lawyers for the drivers have written to the government-backed workplace conciliation service Acas, in the first stage of lodging the claim against Bolt.
Continue reading...Additional requirements would be time-consuming and threaten capacity, Dover port boss says
Post-Brexit Channel border delays could multiply from next May, with a five-person vehicle being held for up to 10 minutes if the EU goes ahead with a planned biometric entry system, the Port of Dover has said.
The entry-exit system (EES), which is due to start in May 2023, will require all non-EU nationals to register their fingerprints and be photographed before entering the bloc.
Continue reading...Hourly bus serves local villages and brings staff – and sometimes customers – to Michelin-starred restaurant
With rural buses in long-term decline and a funding crisis putting more routes in peril, a surprising service has appeared on the English transport menu: the No 46 bus to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.
Raymond Blanc’s celebrated restaurant and hotel in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside may not appear classic bus territory. The Michelin-starred establishment’s seven-course dinner with matching wines starts at £350 a head, rising to just over £1,000 if you want to drink the good stuff.
Continue reading...Cross-Channel ferry passengers told to arrive in good time for border checks after weekend of delays
Cross-Channel ferry passengers were being told to arrive in good time at Dover as queues built at the Port of Dover amid fears the severe disruption of recent days could return to Kent throughout the summer.
The ferry operator DFDS told passengers there were queues of about an hour for French border checks on Monday morning and to “allow a minimum of 120 minutes before your departure to complete all controls”.
Continue reading...Travellers told to allow three to four hours to pass through security and French border checks at port
French authorities have hit back at claims by the Port of Dover that French border control staff were to blame for a second day of hours-long delays, saying: “France is not responsible for Brexit.”
It came after the port blamed delays on insufficient border staff at police aux frontières.
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