In today’s Times (23rd January 2015) there is an item reporting that the Highways Agency “is testing the feasibility of installing wireless technology beneath roads which would charge electric and hybrid cars on the go”- so called “scalextric roads”. The study is to cost £200,000 and to be completed by the summer before progressing to full off road trials, for heavens sake..

We can only wring our hands at the folly of the thing.

Ours at second below, and at topic 32 in our web site, shows that the electric car emits as much or more carbon than does a diesel. Likewise, ours immediately below shows that the effect on health of particulates from road traffic is likely to be between zero and negligible.

The cost of this “Scalextric” proposal would be overwhelming, or as Professor Glaister, of the RAC Foundation, puts it, “enormous”.

Leave politicians with a free hand and there is no end to the ways in which they will spend other people’s money. At the same time one does wonder at the integrity of the Engineering profession. Rather than telling politicians the truth we Engineers seem content do or say anything, provided a decent fee, or a vast salary, is guaranteed…….. HS2 springs to mind.