Private Cars

Over the years, there has been many cars coming onto Britain's roads which is becoming increasingly worrying, as climate change is upon us. I for one have tried to cut down on my use of my car as I want to do something about stopping our world from becoming a world which we don't want to live in. I have stopped going out in the car for no reason, ever since ive come to university, I have used the bus a lot more, as it is cheaper and really isn't that bad, and it has been good not getting into road rage situations. I have a problem with other motorists and not being in the car has helped me.

But anyway, with the figures from Defra, stating that CO2 emissions have been going up 4%, its only been 4 %. I know that sounds bad but over the space of 16 years, that seems like we have won. Since the Kyoto Agreement in Japan, many countries have tried to combat Climate Change and so too have Car companies. Many companies like Ford and Toyota have made cars a lot cleaner over the years. 1990 was bad with Leaded petrol still being around and nowadays, theres alternatives like LPG and Ethanol (which being Swedish, makes me feel good). There has been an improvement in the amount cars produce in emissions and people never stop inventing. We have cars that produce less than 100 kg/km of CO2 and people should be encouraged to drive them instead. I know i would!

But today, since the credit crunch has hit us and petrol went up rapidly in the past 12 months, people have been forced to try different modes of transport, like the bus and train. But still, these produce mass amounts of CO2, even though they carry a lot of passengers. I still think that every public transport vehicle should be run onf alternative fuels. Ok, everyone thinks thats a bad idea, but if they want to see the world another day, then the government should help encourage us by converting government vehicles to run on alternative fuels.

Also, just on another note, if roadworks were helping keep traffic flowing, then they need their head sorted out. All roadworks do is make everyone queue up and burn fuel that is unnecessary. Roadworks should happen at night when noone is about so less CO2 goes into the air. Everytime I need to get home, im always in a traffic jam because roadworks have blocked one lane and it happens to be on a slip road, so everyone queues up to let people out. What a crap idea. if they did it at night, it would make me and every other driver happy.

But alternative fuels have their advantage. Since ethanol is 85% more powerful than petrol when burnt, the Swedish car manufacturer Koeniggsegg created the CCX-R, which has 850bhp. But as it is able to run on ethanol, it goes up to over a 1,000 bhp. Now thats what i call a success, even going green can help get more power when driving that supercar, which by the way, is very very fast. Ok, it costs £1.5 million quid, but even so, alternative fuels are showing their strengths now.

Here is a link to help support my opinion:
http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-2007-Koenigsegg-CCXR.htm

But onto a serious note, over the past few years, the government have been trying to help us stop using our cars and get to use other modes of transport. The bus and the train have been successful to an extent but most of the people in this country still drive our cars. I feel that the government have not done enough to help advertise the fact that public transport is better. Places like London you are better off to use public transport as it is a lot quicker, but in other parts of the country, people are not swayed by public transport. I'm with them as public transport is way too expensive and like trains for example, they are £19 for a one way ticket from Peterborough to London Kings Cross. When i went to Sweden 3 months ago, the Train was only £1.60 one way, for the same distance. Shows how much the government is not providing the people of this nation the value for money that other countries provide. Let's hope the government sort this out.

Anyway, since the credit crunch is hitting us, noone can really afford to buy a clean car. There are so many cheap cars that pollute a lot out there that are cheap as chips. Car companies should put the price of small cars down so people can exchange their old banger for a shiny new clean car. Me on the other hand, im upgrading my car, because its just as cheap to run a bigger car to mine than to run mine. My car has cost me a fortune over the past year so im going to get a cheaper car, and get a profit out of mine. It has to be done, however much my parents hate it.

Anyway, the choice of having a car outweighs public transport. Unless your a student or an OAP, then public transport is not for you and the public car seems cheaper in the long run. Public transport is not cheap enough and until it does, everyone is going to drive their cars everywhere. I might not think its a good idea, or a bad one, but if the government want to get a green tick from Defra, then they need to promote alternative transport better and stop putting car drivers down with stupid laws. It would make everyone happy and make Britain a healthy place.