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SURVEILLANCE STATE
Labour have announced that they would like to impose the EU’s General Safety Regulations 2, including the mandatory fitting of a black box and provision for an alcohol lock to all new vehicles.
They claim the car industry wants this regulatory alignment, as divergence from EU standards means higher manufacturing costs and standardised rules ease production.
Changing from right-hand to left-hand drive requires an awful lot of re-engineering, so to my mind this ‘standardisation’ argument does not stand up.
LHD export vehicles can be supplied with all this spyware intact, while those destined for the UK market can leave all these gizmos off; it’s that simple!
I’m sure this is a political issue and nothing to do with road safety. One of Labour’s core values is to ‘get people out of their cars’ and onto public transport, where destinations, timetables and your life can be more fully controlled. The Greens and the Liberal Democrats have similar public transport policies, and as for the Conservatives, well, they didn’t do drivers any favours over their last term in office!