MART (Manchester Against Road Tolls) have finally got around to updating their website, include a new forum, so get over there and make your views known about the flawed Manchester Congestion Tax*.
Yes it is a tax – a charge is avoidable, a tax isn’t. Most people driving into Manchester have no alternative.
I’ve received an email stating that the eFax Free service is to cease as of 1st October 2008:
Due to pending changes imposed by OFCOM, the UK regulator for the telecommunications industry, we will no longer be able to offer eFax Free service for your number as of October 1, 2008.
Presumably this is because they receive a kickback from the 0870 numbers used and that is what funds the free service. It goes on to say that in order to keep my number I must convert to the paid-for service ‘eFax plus’. Err… no thanks.
Interestingly, eFax are still offering free numbers with no mention of the short life they will have. No matter, I haven’t used my free eFax number for several years; I now use a proper local number provided by my excellent ISP.
The toothless government regulator OFCOM has today suggested that the UK’s mobile users should follow the ludicrous US model of being charged to receive a call. Yes you read that correctly: pay to receive a call.
Hello, OFCOM, you are supposed to be protecting the telecoms consumer, not giving a blank cheque to the operators and free reign to cold callers.
On my way to work this morning, I spotted the Google Street View camera car parked up on the A666 Bolton Road in Kearsley. Unfortunately I couldn’t pull over to take a pic, but this is what it looks like.
I was disappointed today to see yet another country road lost to the nanny-state council tactics of reducing speed limits unnecessarily. In this case the B5203 Blindfoot Road and Mossborough Road (between The East Lancs Road and Rainford) has been reduced from national speed limit (i.e. 60mph) to 40mph.
This is a farce – this is not an urban area, it is a country lane. When I was training for my Advanced Driving Test, this was a favourite road used by group observers to test driving skills, but councils and government aren’t interested in driving skills any more, they’d rather just make you crawl everywhere instead “because we know what’s best for you”.
I then turned onto the A570 Rainford bypass towards Ormskirk. For those who do not know this road, it is a high quality dual carriageway road, but St.Helens Council have seen it fit to reduce to 60mph. It’s obvious that the council is responsible – as soon as you cross into West Lancashire, you cross back into common sense and the road becomes de-restricted again.
You have to wonder how long it will be before the whole country is one big 30mph zone.
