Life beyond Watford.

A report commissioned by the RAC has found that "we are just as dependent on our cars as we were more than a decade ago". Well, surprise me! I've been on this hobby-horse before, but the suggestion that public transport provides a reasonable alternative to the car is, at least for those of us who live out here in the real world, so much baloney. Our thinking - or rather, the thinking of our lords and masters - tends to be very London-centric. It may well be that in the capital, with its wealth of buses and the Underground, these provide a quick and attractive way of getting round - particularly now that travel by car means having to pay the congestion charge. But most of us don't live in London, and out here in the sticks, buses are unreliable, dirty and unpleasant, and anything but a quick way of getting from A to B. I wish the policy makers would realise there is a big world out there beyond the M25, and that you can't extrapolate from a London experience to a nationwide one.