British Bumpercars

In 2003, UK politicians levied a "congestion tax" on drivers in London. Their professed reason for the new tax was to reduce overall traffic in London. So has it worked? Well, not exactly...

..."excess delay" nearly doubled from 0.87 minutes per mile in 2003 to 1.5 minutes per mile in 2006.

[Much] of the congestion within the zone was actually intentional. To discourage drivers from using the streets, Mayor Livingstone took away lanes from general traffic and designated them "bus only" after re-timing traffic lights to disturb the flow of traffic.

I'm tellin' ya, the Monty Python troupe is secretly in charge of the British government...

Linkman: Well, there's the first result and the Silly Party has held Leicester. What do you make of that, Norman?

Norman: Well, this is largely as I predicted, except that the Silly Party won. I think this is largely due to the number of votes cast. Gerald?

Gerald: Well there's a swing here to the Silly Party...but how big a swing I'm not going to tell you.

George: Well, if I may...I think the interesting thing here is the big swing to the Silly Party and of course the very large swing back to the Sensible Party...and a tendency to wobble up and down in the middle because the screw's loose.