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Public or Private Transport?
We are told often by politicians that it would benefit the country if more of us used public transport. Less cars on the road would mean less pollution as well as less traffic, which would lead to quicker journeys for everyone and more productivity in the long run.
If you have ever relied on public transport to get you around it can be a frustrating experience. You would assume that buses would arrive at the same time every day. I've learned to never assume with public transport. For the most part the trains and buses get me where I need to go on time but there have been quite a few times in the last year when transport services have arranged engineering works over big holidays or festivals.
So although we're told that it would benefit the country if we used more public transport it would actually hurt the economy if everyone stopped buying and selling cars. The automotive industry at the moment is in trouble in the U.K. To stimulate this section of the economy the Government has created a scrappage scheme where car owners can take a certain age of car and receive money for scrapping it. This leaves the car owner with more capital available to spend on a brand new vehicle so the economy trundles on.
A recent study that was made by Trailblazers on the state of public transport for people with disabilities has shown that our transport system in the U.K. is somewhat inaccessible as well as having inconsistencies across the board. It showed that buses are often inaccessible to wheelchair users and that it can actually cost more for disabled passengers to use buses. There was a shocking lack of disabled facilities at half of the train stations investigated.
This leaves a lot of disabled people with no other option than to get their own wheelchair accessible vehicle. This is made easier by the motability scheme to help disabled drivers obtain vehicles but there should be a decent publicly available transport system that meets their needs.
About the author: Allied Mobilty are an accessible vehicles company.
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