| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Debates On Third Runway are fine but...... | |
| Posted by: | Thomas Barry | |
| Date/Time: | 12/11/12 22:42:00 |
| "One day there is going to be an accident at Heathrow" The Staines Trident crash killed 118 people. The annual death toll on London's roads, which had been falling sharply, rose to 159 in 2011. Since Richard, at last count, wants to spend £50bn of public money on an airport in the estuary*, perhaps he'd like to estimate the extra road deaths that would be caused by the consequent savage cuts in transport investment elsewhere and offset that against the risks from an industry that (like railways) for all practical purposes a fatality rate of zero? There are many valid reasons to oppose a third runway - the noise, pollution, environmental destruction, likely medium to long term prospects for the economics of short term aviation and general bullcrap from the supporters, but the sky falling on our heads isn't one that should concern us until after we've found out why the decade long falling trend in road casualties reversed itself a couple of years go. * Usual working out: £10bn for buying Heathrow from BAA, £40bn on rail and road links, funding for which even the most enthusiastic estuary airport backers are now admitting will fall on the taxpayer. |