hedgehog

It strikes me that this could be the start of special lanes/road access for party members. I wonder if the fines and lanes will be removed after the games?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...838469,00.html

Drivers face £5,000 penalty for using Olympic VIP lanes Dipesh Gadher, Transport Correspondent MOTORISTS who dare to stray into VIP lanes reserved for athletes and officials at the 2012 London Olympics face penalties of up to £5,000 under special powers sanctioned by the government.
As many as 55,000 members of the “Olympic family”, including ministers, media and corporate sponsors, will be able to sweep past other traffic in scenes reminiscent of Moscow’s politburo-only Zil lanes.
NI_MPU('middle');The lanes, linking sports venues across the capital, are likely to operate between 6.30am and midnight. They will be policed by cameras and enforcement officers.
Ordinary drivers will be herded into the remaining lanes, prompting fears of gridlock — and those who try to break out will be hit with severe penalties.
According to the London Olympics Bill, which passed its committee stage in the Commons last week, motorists who enter the VIP lanes, or infringe the new Olympic Route Network (ORN) in any other way, face a maximum penalty of £5,000 and a criminal record. This is five times the maximum penalty for most offences under the Road Traffic Offenders Act, such as failing to stop at a red light.

unclebuck

Looks like it. Only £5,000 though. Could be worse.

I can't wait for the Olympics. They will be so good for our great nation.

Bottomfeeder

A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “The last thing we are after is people’s money — we simply want to get everyone to their venues on time.”


BWAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaaaa <wipes tears from eyes>
(A member of the current Gov assuring us it's not our money they're after)

Leslie

Self important prats!!!

Les

King RA

Well, it's better than them hiring an army of helicopters to ferry them around!!

Regacy

Why's this a problem?
Our transport infrastructure will be improved for the Olympics, it's only on for a few weeks and you get to keep all the new sports venues and transport improvements afterwards?
Some of you would find reason to moan if you lost a quid and found a fiver!

OllyK

So the Olymics is going to improve my commute to work in the Midlands?? Didn't think so. It "may" provide some improvement in London, by providing more "zoned" lanes that all but the car commuter can use.

The Olympics are going to do little or nothing for anybody outside of London, and it is going to cost way more to host than it will generate, look at the years of debt the other host cities have put themselves in to.

ajm

Clearly us ordinary tax payers aren't included in that statement then.

Imagine getting a criminal record for driving in an olympic lane. The whole concept is absurd. And what makes Olympic traffic any more important than any other traffic? Because it's the government's pet project, that's why! They are building another millenium dome for us, except this time they will send us to prison if we don't inconvenience ourselves and pay through the nose to make it work.

OllyK

Time to get some "Nike are proud to sponsor OllyK in the London Olympics" stickers made up

unclebuck

The 'problem' is that it's only going to be 'improved' for the benefit of a few elite visiting athletes, priviliged party members and of course the jackbooted New Labour 'officials'. For everyone else it will actually be worse (far worse)than ever.

Any dissent will as always be met with the usual punitive fines and/or 90 days detainment without trial under their newly introduced anti 'terrorism' powers

But there won't be any improvements. Do you think after this expensive system has been put in place and the party officials have sampled it they will want to give it up? I don't think so. It'll be here to stay and then after it's been hailed a great success, rolled out nationwide across the main arterial road network.

ajm

LOL!

I expect, as with blood donation vehicles, ambulance drivers will also get prosecuted for using the lanes. Yes the sick and infirm will be in the ambulance in a traffic jam which is double the length of normal because one lane has been redesignated as 'Olympic Only' because what is one dieing taxpayer compared to getting fat Prescott to the olympic pie eating competition on time?

And when the olympics are over lucky old us get to keep the 'Olympic Lanes' as 'Labour Party Lanes'. A long lasting transport 'improvement' for the lucky citizens of London!

GCollier

They had lanes designated for olympic vehicles at Athens 2004 and Sydney 2000.

But hey, why not let London 2012 descend into a farce by having athletes caught in traffic and arriving late or missing their events - we're only talking about entertainment for millions of people the world over. Though I suppose it would give some of you muppets more ammunition for running the country and government down.

Gary.

Leslie

Regacy,

Will it be the same as Greece then, where they no longer have a use for most of the sporting facilities which were built for the Olympics.

What a waste!

Les

Dracoro

I manage to get to work on time everyday without having a 'special' lane.

Anyway, I thought all the althletes were on site anyway.

Now, if they'd build a nice new monorail all the way round central london to the olympic zone that would be public transport afterwards, that'd be great.

Adrian F

So how do we the working tax payers in London benefit? Less road capacity as the existing jammed roads already reduced by bus lanes are further reduced by Olympic lanes.

Apparently we are so short of land in the South East that they are building houses on massive areas of our countryside, yet they suddenly found a massive area of brown field land to build the Olympics on? Why couldn’t we have built houses on this land?

300+ businesses are being forced to move to accommodate the Olympics. Hackney Marshes is being tarmac’d over to make car parks for Olympic officials (not us tax payers).

We the tax payers are paying for all of this. In fact the Government said in a commons committee earlier this week that they will not cap the amount they pay for this e.g. it has a blank cheque from the Government (That is our money they are spending)

We get a lot of poorly built sports facilities that nobody wants (thrown up in double quick time to be ready for 2012) which we can’t afford to maintain or use after wards (Dome anybody!)

We get left with a big debit well can anybody realistically prove it will make money? If so let private industry fund it.

we get London disturbed for years with all the changes to roads and rail people being blighted with noise etc and apparently we now have to concrete over parts of Hertfordshire to build more runway capacity to let people fly in whilst the same government try’s to stop us using fossil fuels in cars or for electricity generation to stop global warming. That makes sense of course? Encourage people to fly round the world to watch some thing they could view on TV?

As I said if this is such a great idea let private enterprise do it if not then we should have kept well clear! Let Paris have it! In fact maybe we can sell it on and recover the millions we have already spent on bidding!

And once we have the VIP lanes they will never be returned for the motorist, at best they will just extend the bus lane network with them so more tarmac sitting empty.

Chelspeed

Can't pay (well choose not to) - won't pay.

All the old duffers are only paying inflation related increases on their poll tax why not join them?

Tell your local authority you don't do olympics (obviously, there's no motorsport in it....) so you're witholding the portion of the poll tax which is going to the olympics and just paying the rest.

Leslie

Chelspeed, what is your definition of a "duffer"?

It was reported that London council tax will be increased significantly to pay for it all, and that it will take up to 50 years to pay the costs off! That is the Dome in spades I reckon!

Les