9 September 2002
Elderly and infirm get poor deal from city
Those of us who switched our votes at the last city council elections were hoping that a change of power at City Hall would make a difference.
But the streets are still full of litter, and the council continues to risk law suits by discriminating against the poor, the elderly and the infirm, and in favour of the young and healthy.
And this discrimination is about to get worse: the council is going to install more speed humps and make life more difficult for anyone who drives a car.
How is this discrimination against the old and sick?
Well, anyone who is young and/or healthy can walk or cycle. Cyclists, although they are fine people, are the most dangerous of road users, but they get specially built tracks, and no one takes any notice when they routinely jump lights and ignore no-entry signs.
The ill or elderly rely on cars: increasingly these cars have to negotiate various obstacles to reach their homes, the worst being humps in the roads that cause considerable pain to drivers or passengers with joint or back problems. (Of course, they can stay at home.)
What about the poor? They are likely to have older cars that will suffer most from being jolted over deliberately engineered suspension-breakers.
But none of this matters if it stops accidents, does it? Well, I could stop all accidents involving cars by shooting their drivers. Perhaps that is what the city council would prefer.
A civilised society should be preserving mobility for its less able citizens. We have that mobility, and if the best way we can think of to stop accidents is to screw up the road, then I suggest we start employing people with more than one brain cell.
![[Photo] Rusty machinery](/articles/images/020909T2000.jpg)
Pictured in a secret testing ground in South Norfolk, this prototype vehicle is the most advanced in a series of suggested improvements in car design from the workshops of a well-known anti-car pressure group.
The T2000 includes several features that the pressure group feels will be essential on the roads of the future, including the large tube (top) for processing statistics, and the refined exhaust (left) which cools the atmosphere.
Critics have pointed out the restricted visibility, but this is not felt to be a major factor. Much more important is the absence of wheels, which should cut down on speed slightly, though maybe not enough. On its trial run the driver dozed off, and the T2000 was involved in a collision with a traction engine that attempted to overtake it. This accident was blamed on excessive speed.
Signs of a new approach
![[photo] Sign reads: Norwich - Danger](/articles/images/020909Norwich.jpg)
Complaints about the upbeat “Norwich: a fine city” signs have led to tests being made on alternative approaches.
This picture from a reader shows one of the possibilities, inspired by the increasing problems within the city, particularly on weekends.
Its inventor, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “It may be a bit ahead of its time, but I think it will fit the bill eventually.
New village may have emerged from the sea
The recently discovered Norfolk village of Whynge could be the result of longshore drift, coastal experts have suggested.
Earlier theories centred on the possibility that no one had noticed it before because it had been signposted variously Quarry, Landslip and Common. But this is now felt to be unrealistic.
A coastal spokesman said: “We feel by far the most likely explanation is that it emerged from the sea because of sand and shingle building up. We know that the coastline changes over the years, and this is just one manifestation of it.
“The fact that Whynge contains speed cameras, chicanes, phone masts, a composting centre and 15 giant wind turbines is simply a sign of the times.
“That is the way things are going.”
He felt that in the circumstances it would be perfectly all right to let older, less well equipped villages like Happisburgh be swallowed up by the sea.
“It’s the survival of the fittest,” he said. “The unfit go under, and villages that adapt come out of the sea and evolve on dry land. The possibilities are endless. It’s all very, very exciting. Eventually Whynge may develop a bus route.”
Ancient forecasters much more accurate
Although we are told we can predict the climate for the next hundred years or so, we still seem to have trouble forecasting the weather for even a day at a time, especially if that day happens to be a bank holiday.
As to the BBC website’s five-day forecast, I am at a loss to understand why they bother, since it always changes after three. I did mention it to them, but they said they changed it when they had fresh information, which rather missed the point.
Weather forecasting is just one of the sciences that appears to have deteriorated over time, as ancient-Norfolk expert Richard “Volcano” Meek has demonstrated in his ground-breaking work on the slopes of Mount Beeston, near Sheringham.
He writes: “I came across a stone tablet which carried the earliest known weather forecast: ‘It wille be a bitte parkye’. This was absolutely spot on for about a quarter of a million years – often dismissed by non-meteorologists as The Ice Age.”
Some may dispute Mr Meek’s precise figures, but it is marvellous, as he says, that “these early Pre-Fyshites could provide such an accurate forecast when in this age of genetically modified seaweed we can hardly predict the week ahead”.
Mr Meek is currently investigating the primeval soup, which he suspects is still being served in some Norfolk guesthouses.
Norfolk driving advice is breath of fresh air
One of the nice things about living in Norfolk is the occasional outbreak of intelligent behaviour. A correspondent tells me that on driving into Deopham, near Wymondham, he was greeted by an official speed restriction sign bearing the legend beneath it, in the local language, “Drive you steady”.
Much more effective than a thousand sour-faced humps and hysterical “Speed kills” signs.