THE Mayor of London, in announcing his grand new traffic congestion scheme, claim s that he has finished his

long consultation with Londoners. Not so. No one has consulted me, despite the fact that I have been driving around central and great er London and using public transport almost all my adult life, and could be said to know something about it. I am even beginning to find that I know parts of Lo ndon better than some black-cab drivers. So, I propose to offer Red Ken the benefit of my experience of London traffic, a t this 11th hour. It is not too late, even though he has already issued his ambi tious plan, because it is almost entirely unworkable, and he will have to change it. I apologise to readers who, like most people, don't live in London. It must be very irritating when metropolitans carry on as if there were nowhere else on British earth, but, all the same, what happens in London affects most people, d irectly or indirectly. When London sneezes from congestion, the whole country wi ll catch cold. By far the major cause of congestion, pollution and road rage on the streets of London is not the cars, as Ken seems to think, but the buses. Belching out diese l, buses sit for unaccountably long periods, idling extravagantly and holding up the traffic. Buses are quite useless to anyone who is obliged to stick to a timetable. Two we eks ago at Russell Square, I found three parked together, at the same stop with the same number, any of which could have taken me close to my destination. All t hree were quite unmanned. Meanwhile these useless buses were obstructing a large square footage of public highway. Perhaps it is a sophisticated form of covert traffic calming, like the mysterious road works everywhere, which are quite clearly unnecessary. I say not hing of the folly of the bus lane, a constant nightmare for cars and cyclists as they have to swerve suicidally in and out of them, if ever they are to turn lef t. It is not, however, simply that buses are hopelessly, inexcusably unreliable and obstructive. They also seem to be getting more and more dangerous. I don't know how bus drivers are trained or recruited these days, but to see them lurch in a nd out of the bus lane without proper signalling, or heave vertiginously round n arrow intersections of ancient streets, swinging up on to pavements and biffing bollards as they go, is to despair and to hold your children close. And what is Red Ken's solution to all this? Not to keep out the real culprits, b ut to exclude the cars. And without a remotely usable public transport system in place instead. It is mad. Cars are not the problem; dependence on cars is a sym ptom of the problem. Here is my suggestion. We should dump the red buses and allow much smaller, priv ately run, Hong Kong-style people-carriers instead. We must pour squillions into the Underground. Until then, the Mayor must not force yet more people on to pub lic transport; if he does, there will be riots and deaths from overcrowding, ove rheating and public panic. Meanwhile all large coaches, all outsize lorries and vans, and all day-time deli veries should be excluded from London: small vehicles only. Oh, and no cylists; they are the most irresponsible, lawless and dangerous of the lot. That should d o it.