"20 mph speed limit proposal for towns could be flawed," reports Reuters. Its reliable source for this oddly-weighted headline is Verdict on Cars, an online motoring magazine. It quotes Paul Smith of Safespeed. What is this sinister Safe Speed organisation? Presumably the initials "SS" provide some clue to their political orientation, and they are in fact a front for a vile neo-nazi pro-motoring party headed by Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Littlejohn? Sadly not, although Smith's website provides some little gems of poor reasoning, such as this page denouncing congestion charges, which seems oblivious to the fact that congestion affects people other than motorists. As well as plenty of tips for motorists to dodge the law.
Smith's main argument comes close to existentialism: drivers robbed of their autonomy by Stalinist New Labour, programmed to drive at exactly 20mph in built up areas and 70 on the motorway, will be simply incapable of deviating from that speed, whether there's an open road ahead of them or an entire class of dithering, unobservant schoolchildren. Of course it's pointless to try and engage with these arguments, being as they are merely outbursts of rage of the caged middle-aged male motorist. If you want a picture of the future – imagine a loafer, stamping on the accelerator – forever.
UPDATE: Having done a tiny bit more research on this I realise that Smith is already known to Youtube users as the Bloke on Sky News who acts like David Brent, to George Monbiot readers for his convoluted arguments, and to Wikipedia users who make unsubstantiated (but somehow pleasing) claims about links to libertarian groups. I did my duty and added Safe Speed to SourceWatch
Loonwatch will form an occasional series highlighting dodgy campaigns, organisations and websites, especially those that manage to work their way into mainstream news sources. Apologies to the Loonwatch blog which is a different thing entirely.
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