Horseless carriage

[Greybeard]

.

[muskrat]

G'day GB,
With two nags!
Cheers

[Greybeard]

G'day GB,
With two nags!
Cheers

😁 They could nag me.

[berger]

GB i think they will struggle to nag you--------- dem bones dem bones dem dry bones.

[jhg1958]

Never mind the carriage or the gals look at the state of the road. I am not sure when this was taken, Victorian times perhaps but I think I would need to change to a dirt bike to ride on those.

Anyone have a cub mountain for sale?

John

[Greybeard]

Never mind the carriage or the gals look at the state of the road. I am not sure when this was taken, Victorian times perhaps but I think I would need to change to a dirt bike to ride on those.

Anyone have a cub mountain for sale?

John

Well yeh, it is an unmade surface but many UK roads are like scramble tracks at the moment. I rode through Banbury on Tuesday; I could not believe how rutted and humped the tarmac is. I feel sorry for cyclists today.

[groily]

I could not believe how rutted and humped the tarmac is. I feel sorry for cyclists today.

Statistics on UK local authority pay-outs for damage to vehicles and people like cyclists speak volumes. Many many £££ millions a year now, apparently.
Neglect of  infrastructure obviously makes eventual repair more expensive (and thus even less likely to be done, or done properly). It has become quite shocking to the occasional visitor like me. Who, without going off on one, thinks that vast sums are being expended on the wrong and / or unnecessary things, while stuff that affects everybody and impacts the quality of their day-to-day, gets  ignored.
So, I'm lucky to be buried 'en pleine cambrousse' as they say here ('out in the sticks') with roads that are still mostly quite good (apart from an encroaching obsession with ill-thought-out road humps, chicanes and 20mph limits, that is  ).

[Greybeard]

I'll try to remain non political.
HS2 is estimated to be costing an eye watering £100 Billion. The scheme is obviously a folly. Someone must have said, "Other countries have High Speed railways; Britain should have one so we don't look like a backward country."
I'm sure it could be argued that £100 Billion is small-fry for our treasury but I believe that money could be doing more useful work for society.

I suppose HS2 was going to link straight into Europe eventually. Ha!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2

[Black Sheep]

There have been and still are ongoing colossal wastes of money that could be spent better. Dare I mention the Covid PPE scandal? The horrific defence procurement system? The pretence that we are still a leading world power and all the expense that goes with it?
Vanity projects are far more appealing to politicians than improving the lives of the peasantry, as it always has been. Castles and Cathedrals anyone? How about a few crusades? Wars with France? Ransoming King Richard? The list is endless.

[Rex]

Everyone has their pet "the money could've been better spent" ideas, mostly dependant on their political views or 20:20 hindsight rather than hard reality.
I have a long list too, but so as not to be too controversial I'll just list financial aid to China and India as the two biggest wastes of money.

[Worty]

NHS procurement - firms just use their useless system to rip-off as much money as they possible can.  Pair of scissors - £30, same thing elsewhere, around a tenner (and those are 'specialist' scissors too!).