Reports that single people may lose their right to own cars has caused a fair amount of uproar in the community.

That?s hardly surprising: There are many single people who can make as good a case as couples or families for owning a car.

And it has been rightly pointed out that Bermuda?s ?traffic problem? is a misnomer. Bermuda has a rush hour problem, in the central parishes, compounded by the funnel-that-is-East Broadway.

People coming to Hamilton from the east don?t have the same problem. With three major roads accessing the city, commuting is relatively painless. From the west, it?s a nightmare.

It is likely that the single person ban is a scare tactic aimed at making other changes more palatable. If that?s the case, it would be better to just go ahead and make the changes.

There are several solutions, all already in law, which would reduce the problem. The first is to crack down on people who use ?spare? assessment numbers on vacant apartments and the like to get a second car.

The second would be to crack down on businesses and business owners who tool around all day in ?trucks? and vans when there is no real justification. One need look no further than the construction company heads whose over-sized pickups and jeeps have never seen a piece of block or a piece of construction equipment to understand how the law is being abused.

A new look at the rules for second-hand cars is also in order. Those people who warned that the relaxation of restrictions on the sale of used cars would lead to an increase in vehicles were right. Requiring owners to own their cars for a set period of time before being able to sell them would slow down the increase.

Finally, this newspaper supports to the continued expansion of fast ferries and the offering of more concessions for minibus drivers. Increasing the use of public transport by making it more frequent and more accessible is a step that has to be undertaken before even thinking about draconian restrictions on car ownership for different classes of people ? even if such an idea was not in contravention of the Human Rights Act, which it probably is.

Lobster lottery

The 14 successful lobster pot fishermen who each gave up a ?pot? so that unlucky lottery loser Richard Pereech could work this winter should be given some praise.

But the Environment Ministry needs to come up with a better way of determining who gets a licence before next season, because the lottery is as unsatisfactory as the previous ?dead man?s shoes? system.

There?s no question that there needs to be a cap on the number of licences, and more importantly, on the number of pots used each season in order to prevent over-fishing, but a lottery seems a bizarre method when people?s livelihoods are at stake.