Mad Mary White on TodayFM again

blastman

Anyone hear her latest proposal (it's being fully unveiled at the Green party conference at the weekend, apparently)?? The Greens reckon that the car registration system should be changed from starting with the year the car was manufactured, which they say encourages people to change their car more often to have the latest model (admittedly there is some truth in this), to a reg system that begins with a rating based on the car's emissions, say a letter system like A, B and so on or a system of gold stars (she actually seriously proposed this!). I think the constant smell of old chip fat from her carbon-neutral car is rotting her brain!

I'm becoming sorrier and sorrier that the Greens ever got into power at all.

alexmcred

What a load of ****e there is nothing wrong with the current system. There is only going to be one looser in a mad cap idea and that is Joe Soap motorist. Are SIMI a major sponsor of this party or something? Considering they seem to be doing their damdest to push new car sales!!!!

blastman

Actually, the guy from SIMI was there defending the current system, saying they would be in favour of an additional sticker you could display if your car was eco-friendly instead. It's a system used in other European countries apparently, and can even allow the driver of a car carrying the sticker exemption from toll charges and other benefits (can't see that happening here, somehow!)

I'm beginning to side with Clarkson in this sort of debate after listening to these eejits.

Guy:Incognito

I dont see how our system encourages change anymore than say the UK system. Everyone in the uk knows the most current reg (old letter system and new number based one)

Par72

Stekelly wrote: »

I dont see how our system encourages change anymore than say the UK system. Everyone in the uk knows the most current reg (old letter system and new number based one)

It's not quite as blatant though is it? Ours is really obvious and simplistic.

milltown

alexmcred wrote: »

Are SIMI a major sponsor of this party or something? Considering they seem to be doing their damdest to push new car sales!!!!

I would have thought SIMI would be more in favour of the UK system, with two new reg's per year. More sensible than our system that has 90% of new cars sold in the first four months (probably) and the rest of the year passing around the second hand stock.

If the greens don't want people changing their cars unnecessarily, why are they trying to tax a lot of what we already have, and thanks to the NCT have to maintain well, onto the scrap heap?

TheBazman

I dont think she had thought thru' her idea

If I picked her up correctly her idea was either to have something like C1-CW-12345, or something with 5 stars instead of the C1 for the most environmentally friendly car. Would this mean say in Dublin in 10 years time when there would be over a million cars registered (between now and then), you would have the following number plate " *****-CW-1000001 "

They better start making more room on cars to fit that crap

Guy:Incognito

Par72 wrote: »

It's not quite as blatant though is it? Ours is really obvious and simplistic.

It is when it's in your country and its the system your used to. Just from spending a week or so looking at cars in the uk I know most of the reg's relating to 97 - 03 ish more or less off by heart and can work out any others without much issue.

The Real B-man

Mad Mary is at it again! Green Party imposing there Morals on Society :mad:

trishasaffron

Actually there are 2 mad mary whites. The other one is a FF senator and just as batty

E92

There's an old rule in politics : you always shout loudest about something you know will never happen.

That's exactly what she's doing with this idea: it's giving the Greens coverage in the news while they know full well it'll never happen, not least because of the reg plate snobbery that exists in this country which makes the SIMI a lot better off, and enriches the Government handsomely with VRT.

Personally, I do agree with getting rid of the year and location from the number plate, the year because of the fact loads of people are trying to keep up with the Joneses when they don't need a new car and making used cars with nothing, and the location because of the Dubs and their refusal to buy a car with the "wrong reg":rolleyes:.

trout

It's stuff like this that makes me yearn for a credible alternative to FF ... anyone with genuine Green ideals will find this hard to swallow.

The Greens are learning to "Do" Politics ... keep your face in the news, appear to be energetic and actively working on behalf of some agenda, no matter how daft ... and at the same time fail to deliver anything of any substance.

Does anyone in the Green party really believe a change like this would be of any great value ? My guess is heavy words are being lightly thrown against a soft target (motorists) that will just grin and bear it. So ... remove the 'snobbery' aspect, and be Green ... and keep that VRT rollin' in.

Can anyone remember the justification for moving from the old number plate system, where A indicated Meath (I think) and Z indicated Dublin ? What was wrong with that ? Was it too Green or something ?

*toddles off to the Politics forum*

E92

trout wrote: »

It's stuff like this that makes me yearn for a credible alternative to FF

There is. It's called Fine Gael.

mike65

Par72 wrote: »

Ours is really obvious and simplistic.

An obvious, simple numbering system? :eek:

Mike.

C_Breeze

I would actually love to see that ... not because im a tofu munching, whale hugging nerdlinger but rather because it gets rid of the whole year reg thing. Why would anyone need to know the year of your car on your reg.

Surely there is a more private, less superificial way of having car reg plates.. afterall its not like its a huge population of cars in comparison to other countries.

The ABC etc for emission rating on a reg plate would actually be beneficial to SUV bashers that havent got a clue but just hate SUV because theyre destroying our environment whereas, nobody would bash an Audi TT for example compared to a X5 3.0D :rolleyes:

Oilrig

I think our current system does lead to "pressure" to update cars.

Why not plate the driver instead of the car - like Belgium?

You would get a plate number and it stays with you for life. Several cars? same plate number on them all.

VeVeX

Prototype "Greens" 09 reg plate -

MySelf56

The amount require to change the “current proven working sytem” to proposed “Green Ego” system will cost (new software, training and changover) to tax payers. With the same amount of money they bloody can plant mini rain forest. :mad:

As matter of fact Mercedes (I don’t drive though) consider to be greenest then Prius because they amount recycle material goes into.

C_Breeze

VeVeX wrote: »

Prototype "Greens" 09 reg plate -

Nice - reminds me of American plates with pictures and slogans faintly in the backround. Like Florida for example, with the orange fruit and "sunshine state" written behind it.

prodigal_son

Batty idea..

E92 wrote: »

the location because of the Dubs and their refusal to buy a car with the "wrong reg":rolleyes:.

Don't you mean, the location because country folk aint willing to pay the going rate that's in Dublin? :rolleyes:

All that would do is raise the price of second hand cars in the country side, if they couldn't get the price they would just sell it in Dublin, and maybe slightly if at all lower the price of second hand cars in Dublin.

If you want to take the dubs money that bad, get a D car, if you dont mind people being a bit more aggressive toward you on the streets of cork that is.

berliner

E92 wrote: »

There is. It's called Fine Gael.

You can't be serious! Irish politics are a shambles.Sinn Fein,Fine girl,fianna fail...could they be any worse.

Guy:Incognito

Oilrig wrote: »

I think our current system does lead to "pressure" to update cars.
.

Unless you buy into the "pressure" system then what do you care?

Oilrig

Stekelly wrote: »

Unless you buy into the "pressure" system then what do you care?

Because the knock on effect of this devalues my (and everyone else's) "old" car...

what_car

blastman wrote: »

Anyone hear her latest proposal (it's being fully unveiled at the Green party conference at the weekend, apparently)?? The Greens reckon that the car registration system should be changed from starting with the year the car was manufactured, which they say encourages people to change their car more often to have the latest model (admittedly there is some truth in this), to a reg system that begins with a rating based on the car's emissions, say a letter system like A, B and so on or a system of gold stars (she actually seriously proposed this!). I think the constant smell of old chip fat from her carbon-neutral car is rotting her brain!

I'm becoming sorrier and sorrier that the Greens ever got into power at all.

a load of bollix i tell ya. they must be smoking the wacky backy.
greatest shower of fairies ever...... maybe it should be based on the amount of CO2 that they spout , with their stupid ideas

cabrwab

EH does the green party not see the irony of all of this, lets get rid of everybody changing there car for a new one, which i thought they were encouraging as new ones are cleaner, but then everybody will try get the greener reg instead, so therefore everybody buying a new car to keep things "GREEN".

Clarkson your a genius i tells you with your whinging.

I don't give a shi*e what reg car i drive. If your that much up your own hole there aint no flipping taxing/reg changing will undo that.
Oh boo-hoo i don't have a 08, i drive the car until it stops being loyal!
Then i drive it into a lake thus destroying the envoirment a little more!

What will also happen is everyyear car makers will start changing the cars appearence everyyear just so you can get the 09 model, so you know its not a 08 model you've bought.

My conscience is clear i didn' vote the f*ckers in. Will they start putting energy ratings on the real cause of global warming, a cows as*hole!!

Fr0g

cabrwab wrote: »

EH does the green party not see the irony of all of this, lets get rid of everybody changing there car for a new one, which i thought they were encouraging as new ones are cleaner,

I was just about to make this point.

I'm reminded of an occasion in 2005 when i was complementing a woman on her new car I asked her what kind of car it was (by which i meant the make/model obviously)

She replied "It's an 05"! Muppet :rolleyes:

ismynametoolong

Mad Mary must be drinking the Bio fuel she is buying from some friend in the Midlands or where ever she gets it.
Unfortunately we gave these clowns a mandate and the economy will suffer as a result. Who is paying for this ridiculous idea of off setting ministers carbon travel foot print you and me buddy and making some carbon broker very rich in the process. We now have the most draconian CO2 taxation system in Europe even the Swiss decided not to go with CO2 taxation because of economic concerns. Our market will from July turn into an 80 % Diesel market a fuel which is much more dirty and polluting than Petrol and far worse for the local environment. Also just so the fuel companies dont get accused of profiteering overnight Diesel has already started to creep ahead of pertol in price at the pump and is set to get worse.

pburns

E92 wrote: »

Personally, I do agree with getting rid of the year and location from the number plate, the year because of the fact loads of people are trying to keep up with the Joneses when they don't need a new car and making used cars with nothing, and the location because of the Dubs and their refusal to buy a car with the "wrong reg":rolleyes:.

I agree. All this talk of switching to newer cars with better CO2 figures make me barf. By far the most environmentally-friendly policy is to keep & maintain cars longer. At the moment there are perfectly serviceable cars being scrapped simply because nobody wants to be seen in them! That's hardly in keeping with the times we're living in where we're encouraged to use low-energy bulbs, insulate our homes, bring our glass to a bottle bank etc.etc.

I'm no environmentalist, God knows, but the macho Clarkson-parroting posture of some really peeves me off.

E92 wrote: »

There is. It's called Fine Gael.

:eek: Ah come on E92!: This is not the time or the place for a political discussion but Enda Kenny as Taoiseach!? :(

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

ismynametoolong wrote: »

Mad Mary must be drinking the Bio fuel she is buying from some friend in the Midlands or where ever she gets it.
Unfortunately we gave these clowns a mandate and the economy will suffer as a result. Who is paying for this ridiculous idea of off setting ministers carbon travel foot print you and me buddy and making some carbon broker very rich in the process. We now have the most draconian CO2 taxation system in Europe even the Swiss decided not to go with CO2 taxation because of economic concerns. Our market will from July turn into an 80 % Diesel market a fuel which is much more dirty and polluting than Petrol and far worse for the local environment. Also just so the fuel companies dont get accused of profiteering overnight Diesel has already started to creep ahead of pertol in price at the pump and is set to get worse.

Doesn't diesel always get more expensive during the winter??

ismynametoolong

Yes Diesel does tend to get a little more expensive through winter but it is only recently that the price of Diesel has passed that of petrol and is rising!!
Here are some average January prices per litre from AA Ireland the last few years !
Year Petrol Diesel
2002 81.14 75.17
2003 88.9 81.5
2004 90.6 83.5
2005 94.8 95.4
2006 105.2 105.5
2007 103.4 103.5
Jan 2008 118.9 119.6
Mar 2008 120.0 122.2

So it is only recently that Diesel has become more expensive than petrol and rising if the jan to March 08 figures are considered !!!

alias no.9

I was so dismayed by her complete ignorance about what she was talking about yesterday that I wrote the following letter to the papers...


I listened to Mary White TD of the Green Party speak on the radio last night. As part of a conversation about their latest plans to make 'Green' cool by replacing the year on our registration plates with an energy rating, she was asked about the energy rating of her own car. She claimed it was highly efficient because it was running on Pure Plant Oil so when it was NCT'd it had emissions of just 0.1%. 0.1% of what, she didn't say (or seem know for that matter), but she speculated that normal family cars would run at well over 2% or 3% which would make her figure of 0.1% exemplary.
I checked back on my last NCT report, it shows CO (carbon monoxide) and HC (hydrocarbons) emission measurements, both checked at low idle and at high idle. The units for the CO emissions were 'volume %' and for HC emissions were 'Parts per Million'. I assume that Deputy Whites quoted figure was for CO emissions, due to the mention of a percentage value, and the measurement was at high idle based on the fact that this will be the lower of the two values and portray her car in the best possible light. Comparing this to my own report from July 2006, my car registered a reading of 0.16 volume %, very close to the performance of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. My car runs on petrol, not pure plant oil like Deputy Whites. Worse again, it would attract a very poor F Energy Rating under the new system for VRT and Motor Tax. How can this be?
First of all, despite what you'd think listening to Deputy White, her car does pump out greenhouse gasses, just like a regular car. The 'Carbon Neutral' credentials of biofuels are established on the basis that the carbon contained within the fuel has been absorbed from the atmosphere by the crop from which the fuel is derived, as it was grown. For some biofuels, these credentials can be pretty tenuous, not only because of the amount of energy required to grow and harvest the crop, and convert the crop into fuel, but also because of the environmental implications of diverting agricultural land from food production to fuel production, but that's another matter.
Getting back to the NCT report, a second read brought more enlightenment. The limit for CO emissions was 0.3 volume %. This limit varies according to year of manufacture, but my car being 8 years old would indicate that if anything, it has been lowered for more recent models. It seems Deputy White’s claims of normal family cars running at 2% and 3% were sourced from Berties Big Book of Numbers.
Research into the presence of high levels of CO or HC in the exhaust identified a rich fuel / air mixture as the probable culprit, possibly a result of a defective sensor, fuel injector, catalytic converter, or other engine component. It seems the most frugal car can register high levels of CO or HC in the NCT if there is an engine fault and the biggest gas guzzler can register comparably low levels of CO and HC to that of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. Neither CO nor HC measurements can be correlated to the CO2 based Energy Rating of a car, as used in the new Motor Tax and VRT bands, which is measured in g/100km. How are we expected to take the Green Party seriously when their policy spokesperson demonstrates such a blissful ignorance of the subject matter?
One thing I would agree with Deputy White about is the large environmental impact of the manufacture of new cars. Mine is even older than hers and I see no reason to submit to number plate snobbery, either chronological or pseudo-ecological, any time soon.

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

alias no.9 wrote: »

I was so dismayed by her complete ignorance about what she was talking about yesterday that I wrote the following letter to the papers...


I listened to Mary White TD of the Green Party speak on the radio last night. As part of a conversation about their latest plans to make 'Green' cool by replacing the year on our registration plates with an energy rating, she was asked about the energy rating of her own car. She claimed it was highly efficient because it was running on Pure Plant Oil so when it was NCT'd it had emissions of just 0.1%. 0.1% of what, she didn't say (or seem know for that matter), but she speculated that normal family cars would run at well over 2% or 3% which would make her figure of 0.1% exemplary.
I checked back on my last NCT report, it shows CO (carbon monoxide) and HC (hydrocarbons) emission measurements, both checked at low idle and at high idle. The units for the CO emissions were 'volume %' and for HC emissions were 'Parts per Million'. I assume that Deputy Whites quoted figure was for CO emissions, due to the mention of a percentage value, and the measurement was at high idle based on the fact that this will be the lower of the two values and portray her car in the best possible light. Comparing this to my own report from July 2006, my car registered a reading of 0.16 volume %, very close to the performance of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. My car runs on petrol, not pure plant oil like Deputy Whites. Worse again, it would attract a very poor F Energy Rating under the new system for VRT and Motor Tax. How can this be?
First of all, despite what you'd think listening to Deputy White, her car does pump out greenhouse gasses, just like a regular car. The 'Carbon Neutral' credentials of biofuels are established on the basis that the carbon contained within the fuel has been absorbed from the atmosphere by the crop from which the fuel is derived, as it was grown. For some biofuels, these credentials can be pretty tenuous, not only because of the amount of energy required to grow and harvest the crop, and convert the crop into fuel, but also because of the environmental implications of diverting agricultural land from food production to fuel production, but that's another matter.
Getting back to the NCT report, a second read brought more enlightenment. The limit for CO emissions was 0.3 volume %. This limit varies according to year of manufacture, but my car being 8 years old would indicate that if anything, it has been lowered for more recent models. It seems Deputy White’s claims of normal family cars running at 2% and 3% were sourced from Berties Big Book of Numbers.
Research into the presence of high levels of CO or HC in the exhaust identified a rich fuel / air mixture as the probable culprit, possibly a result of a defective sensor, fuel injector, catalytic converter, or other engine component. It seems the most frugal car can register high levels of CO or HC in the NCT if there is an engine fault and the biggest gas guzzler can register comparably low levels of CO and HC to that of Deputy Whites Eco Machine. Neither CO nor HC measurements can be correlated to the CO2 based Energy Rating of a car, as used in the new Motor Tax and VRT bands, which is measured in g/100km. How are we expected to take the Green Party seriously when their policy spokesperson demonstrates such a blissful ignorance of the subject matter?
One thing I would agree with Deputy White about is the large environmental impact of the manufacture of new cars. Mine is even older than hers and I see no reason to submit to number plate snobbery, either chronological or pseudo-ecological, any time soon.

+1
'yeah, what he said!'

kona

will she get the ****, my car had a 0.12% co2 at idle and its a race engine:D:D:D:D:D and the design is 50 years old:D:D:D dip****.
as said for a c02 that low the Hydrocarbons(unburnt fuel) will be through the roof. which was the story with my car due to the cam overlap.

this country is run by clowns who dont have a clue about what they talk about, so they hire consultants, why dont we just get rid of the middle man(politicians)

id love to ask here about the i-vtec engines honda make, and if she understands the priciples of engines, valve timing etc.

does she realise diesels are carcenogenic???
does she relise they are sh!t??:D

the bitch obviously doesnt have a clue, nct this and nct that, lets see what damage plant oil does in the long term. and the damage to the enviroment when she needs new parts manufactured, and fitted:rolleyes:

off all the partys the greens are the worst because they are a bunch of tree hugging gob****es, who will destroy all fun in driving, fecking communists:D