'Transport 2000' says scrap Top Gear

A press release here

I was quite annoyed by this so wrote the following last night…

-=-=-=-=-

I must express my distaste at the misinformation presented by Transport 2000`s `spokesperson`. It is a disservice to your organisation and harmful to the genuinely useful pursuit of public support for environmental issues.

Allow me to explode a few of these statements.

Speed is dangerous with respect to cars. This is not true. Speed has to be mixed with incompetence to be dangerous. Target the incompetence and you target the danger. Setting speeds limits way below the safe speed for a scretch of road is also potentially dangerous, and ethically questionable when coupled to `safety` cameras.

Excessively powerful cars are excessively polluting. This is a gross generalisation, typical of someone who does not understand the subject matter. A modern TVR will produce far less pollution than granny`s 20 year Ford Fiesta. Engine efficiency is not related to size. Aircraft engines were made larger to make them more efficient and cleaner, not smaller. By the way, Carbon Dioxide technically isn`t a pollutant anyway.

Jeremy Clarkson is an acquired taste, he is a personality, love him or hate him. `Spokespersons` shouldn`t be using personal opinions as PR.

Top Gear highlighted a number of `greener` issues. An economy drive from London to Scotland and back on a single tank of fuel. It also highlighted the fiction that trains and buses are wonderfully pure and innocent when it comes to ecological damage.

Yes, they were stunts, but the truth of the matter remains. Trains, buses and by and large most public transport systems remain hugely inefficient and costly. Ecologically, the logical choice would have been to remove all rail and bus links in favour of subsidising car ownership, much like the logical choice for improving Carbon sinks would be to remove the entire South American rain forest and replace it with far more efficient grassland. Oddly enough, this hasn`t been presented as a viable option!

As for the `Macho Themes` claim that womens` interests aren`t served, I suggest Mr Hounsham actually speaks to some women who watch the show and canvass their opinions before relying on this hoary old chestnut.

Quote - "Everyone is talking about how to reduce car use, cut climate change emissions and make the roads safer but, to quote in perhaps its own language, Top Gear effectively sticks up its fingers to this."

How appallingly arrogant to link your narrow political agenda with genuine issues and couple it with an effected superior air. How to loose friends and influence people!

Top Gear is entertainment, plain and simple. What`s more it is good quality entertainment. If you want to target programmes which is genuinely a waste of the earths resources get rid of the mind numbing `reality TV shows` and endless materially oriented `House Improvment` items.

Quote - "It is irresponsible, out-dated television designed to give comfort to boy racers, ?petrolheads? and those from the ?get out of my way? school of driving."

To the contrary, Top Gear is a welcome breath of fresh air to those who realise that life is meaningless with out a bit of risk, and that rules should be tested and pushed to see if they are genuinely useful, not accepted prima facie without question.

More dangerous are narrow minded individuals and organisations who fall to see events and situations in a wider context, and who impose their will on fabricated evidence and cliched attitudes.

Love live Top Gear!

Cheers,

Drew.

Very good drew!

That press release is a load of rubbish - has the writer ever watched a full series? through out one series they would cover possibly everything - Electric & green cars/Safety/Speeding etc…

What's so green about electricity?

Where does electricity come from, Power Stations that's where.

French Nuclear ones most probably.

Peter.

Cracking reply Drew - nice one! 8)

(Did you mean to say 'Long Live Top Gear' at the end?)

Pete,

hear hear - coal and gas power stations are about 20-30% efficient I believe.  Then there is the Coal transport and extraction - oils obviously have top be extracted and transported too.

The Green part of electric vehicles is the low pollutant generation in urban areas only.

Now fuel cells and alcohol powered vehicles - that's the greener solution!

Another point to note - I think that upto 70% of the energy required in a cars life is the actual construction - keeping older cars on the road in good condition is also a very Green approach.  So we are the Mk1 Golf Owner's Club - Saviour's of the world  8O

Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth."

sorry.

Some people just dont get it do they!

Why should i pay tv lisence to watch someone tell me how to drive! i know how to drive. i also know right from wrong, and that i need locking up if i rob and beat people in the street!

Do these people have a life at all, maybe they need sticking in a jungle for a few weeks. surely anyone given a license understands what type or driving is kept to the track etc. and im all for environmental issue etc. but its going mad, ive currently got 4 bins and a bottle bag cluttering up the yard, i need an extension to store them. until the car is band i will continue to drive one.

I want to watch something entertaining, and if i dont like what i see, i turn over, simple as that.

Well done Drew, you have put your points accress well, and make these people sound like jokers and the sad muppets they really are. stuff like this bugs me, this contry has gone to the wall because of people like this, there no such thing as a perfect world, the sooner some people realise this the better.

Sorry for a messy reply that went all over the place but hey, thats freedom of speach.

Rick.

I thought this article was a joke at first….

What a load of rubbish their arguments are! At the bottom it quotes him driving into a tree - that was nearly 10 years ago! Five criticisms spanning a decade?!?! Jeeeeesus, they need to get a life! Top gear is about excitement, imagination, challenging society and giving people what they want' fast cars and power slides!

There is stuff that they do go too far on though. Recently they had that jet car blowing up a Nissan Sunny and a caravan; that is going too far, as burning vehicles is THE WORST thing you can do to the environment… Whay didn't they just smash them up in a new way? That is much less bad..

o

Come on guy's give it a chance….Third gear presented by Dorris and Agness the local neighbourhood watch co ordinators could be very informative! We could all learn how to do 60 safely in the middle lane of the motorway, turn without indication and learn what those three mirrors are for!!

Hehe - well said Drew.

Does anyone know if anyone has ever looked into converting classic cars to use fuel cell / greener technology. I reckon with all the eco-bland mobiles coming out now (Toyota Prius anyone?), that a few years down the line there may well be a demand for the converting of classics to use newer power plants  :wink:

How cool would that be to have a fuel cell powered Mk1 in 20 years time - or is it just me?

Chris

Personally, I hate Top Gear as it about 3 baffoons on an ego trip who no little about the motor industry (their newspaper columns also confirm this). Entertainment for some maybe, but a serious motoring program I think not. Fast cars, going round a track, bring on the Stigosaurus…yawn, yawn, bladah, bladah. The "Cool Wall" says it all…no merit to how good a car is but how much Mr Clarkson wants one and that he is taller than his fellow gimp. Suzuki driven by so called famous celebrities  - err relevance to motoring please? Why do they spend 90% of their time test driving cars relevant to less than 5% of the population?

Bring back Tiff and Quentin, all is forgiven!

Cheers
Rajan