Road Pricing

[A66]

It seems like everyone is signing the petition to stop road charging and my email box is full of people asking me to sign it. I must be one of the only people in the world to fully support this scheme, with one important caveat, it must be price neutral. If they raise the same amount in the first year of ‘pay as you drive’ as is currently raised from road tax, then it is a far more fair system.

The example on the email going around has “A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month”, well good. All schools have buses going to them or primary schools that are within walking distance. If she is on the road taking them to school at 8.30 then charging a high price is the only fair way. Road space is scare resource; the only way to distribute such resources is through such a plan, with exemptions for groups such as nurses etc. People would reconsider their road use if such a plan was installed, companies would consider doing more night time freight movement, routing away from high priced busy town centres. Others would look at starting times that are different so that some companies work 10-6 avoiding rush hour at either end saving their staff and management money.

If such a scheme actually forced people to think about when they travel and other means available then it would also benefits those who really need to travel at peak times through busy areas.


Anyone else?

[Thackary]

Fair point

[Paranoid]

What I object to is that the government seem to be reverting to the choice of financial penalty all too easily to stop people's activities.

This is made all the more worse when I never see an improvement in public resources from this extra injection of cash! Until the Government start showing strong, solid evidence of where this cash is going (other than filling up the massive debts they've already run up) and that it is actually improving my alternative methods of travel (i.e. more frequent and reliable buses, safer pedestrian paths etc. etc.) then I'm not interested in supporting this.


And anyway, why should we go along with these policies with the ministers themselves don't follow them? I know he's been used alot but Prescott and his 2 Jags...the guy says he cant rely on public transport to allow him to do his job...well what makes his job and career more important than our own? Lets not forget that the governments job is to represent us and run the country in a way favourable to ourselves, so he is no different than the rest of us!

I also see another problem arising from this policy, a 'rich-poor' divide. The more you bring financial penalty into the equation, those with money will carry on or even increase their activity, whilst the rest have to take the burden. If this policy were to work then I think it would have to be tiered based on financial income. Its been proven time and time again that a set financial penalty has more impact on the poor than the rich, to those with a higher income its an annoyance but not a hindrance.

And finally, the wider impact of this has not been thought through properly either. Its being shown that the British workforce are now working longer hours at work a day, and whats more they are not getting paid for all of the overtime they clock up. I for one can attest to this as I get a set salary where overtime is only recorded to ensure the company bills the client correctly, I don't see any benefit financial or otherwise from it. But the culture that is increasingly being adopted is that you do what is required to get the job done, and if you care enough about what you do then you should be prepared to put in the extra hours to reap the benefits in 'pride'. Don't put in the hours and you won't be in the company for long!

Getting back to the point of this thread, with a workforce working longer hours, with unreliable, sometimes unsafe, public transport, people will still be forced into private transport and therefore forced to pay these penalties but have no other option!


So until some form of Joined-Up Government is established, where the Ministry of Culture actually sits down and talks with the Ministry of Transport and realise where their policies/reasearch contradict and/or comply with one another I for one will continue to reject these measures.

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[thebrookster]

Quoting A66 from 13:48, 13th Jan 2007

The example on the email going around has “A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month”, well good. All schools have buses going to them or primary schools that are within walking distance. If she is on the road taking them to school at 8.30 then charging a high price is the only fair way.


Anyone else?

I would raise a small problem here. When I left Primary school, we were offerred a choice of two schools to move onto, Hawick High school, which was in the same region, or Langholm Academy, whic is in the neighbouring region. Me, and my four younger brothers and sisters opted for Langholm, as it by far the better school for results, and being a rural school it attracted much better funding than Hawick, enabling a better all round experience. When first started I took the school bus, which cost me £3 a week (as Langholm is in a differrent region, we had to pay bus fares to the border, where the scool bus became the official school bus for Langholm). In my second year a different bus company took on the entire route, and held the contract for two years. They increased the cost to £5 a week, in line with rising costs. No problem there. Unfortunately, when the contract for that route came back up, the original company won the contract back. At this point two of my younger sisters had joined me at Langholm. My mother then took the decision to move my youngest brother an sister to Langholm Primary due to various issues such as bullying. Telfords, the original bus company which regained the contract then informed us that they were raising the price per week up to £15 a head. As there were 5 of us going to school each week, this came to a grand total of £75 a week!! At this point, moving schools was not an option due to me and one of my sisters being well into exam years, we had to start driving the 15 miles to school each day. Even driving a Landrover Discovery 60 miles a day was cheaper than the bus!! Even now, with three going to school every day, it is still cheaper for us to run a car every day just to go to the school of our choice (and yes, they are both state schools ) given that the bus fare is now £18 a week per person. I would argue that it is not fair to (possibly) increase the cost for my brothers and sisters to go to school, when all they we are doing is trying to take the cheapest route to school.

[Bizarre Atheist]

When will the government leave the petrolheads and motorists in general alone!? I pay through the nose for tax and petrol as it is, now they want to charge for road usage AND abuse the 4x4 community in London CC and through higher tax bands. Madness! I wish they'd pick some other group, like those bloody smug [shudder] cyclists, or, better yet, caravaners.

Furthermore, and EVEN WORSE THAN CYCLISTS, those horsey people are all over the roads, shitting all over the place (horses, not people), slowing traffic down, causing accidents and distressing their own horses, without paying any road tax whatsoever!! More madness!

I love cars and car culture (not cruzin' or pimpin', i migh add) but detest driving on 80% of British roads as it is. Potholed, poorly-surfaced in the first place, punctured with speed cameras, the concept of paying for the specific privelige of driving on them infuriates me.

Rant over.

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[[James]]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 17:53, 13th Jan 2007
now they want to charge for road usage AND abuse the 4x4 community

Fuck the 4x4 community. If you're driving a 4x4 in London, of course you should be penalised. In 2007, it's just needlessly irresponsible. While I suspect the government's plan is aimed more at road congestion than at environmental concerns, it's about time we charged people based on their road use and the distances they travel. I don't know the details of this scheme, but the fuel economy of the vehicle really ought be taken into account.

What we really need is the introduction of a carbon economy with individual quotas. The environmental situation at present is bad enough that the next PM and the next President simply must introduce much harsher measures, and stop treating environmentalism as a token gesture to appeal to the more liberal members of the population. From what I've learned, the global carbon economy is the best idea for environmental management.

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[ARTooD2]

From what I understand they are wanting to keep the road tax AS WELL as introduce road pricing...or did I misread it somewhere?

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King Sinner

[The Penguin Of Death!]

I support anything that will help reduce emissions as climate change really isn't being taken seriously enough. Yet I'm still against this new system.

What I have a problem with is the fact that your movements will be tracked and recorded. Now, I have nothing to hide and have no plans whatsoever to engage in any kind of illegal activity, but my own sense of privacy feels pretty violated when 'Big Brother' knows where you go and at what times.
The extent to which Britain is turning into a nanny state is ridiculous! It would be nice to not be kept track of 24-7, for teachers to be able to discipline unruly kids in school without fear of being sued for psychological bullying, for pantomime performers to be able to throw sweets to children in the audience!

This is why I'm leaving Britain the minute I can find a decent job, and heading for the place with the worst health and safety statistics I can find.
It's a form of natural selection don't you know?

[Paranoid]

4x4 taxes are justified in Britain I think, although the farming community who use 4x4's that are legally seen as an asset of their business should be exempt.

I lived out in the middle-east for 6 years and out their owning a 4x4 was a necessity for the rough terrain, lack of tarmac'd roads etc. etc. There is no reason for people who live in cities to own 4x4's other than for materialistic reasons.

I agree that the environmentalist issue should be taken more seriously, but collecting cash whilst not providing better alternative modes of transport is not the way forward

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[Jono]

What a brilliant scheme. Let's price people off the road and onto the bus services and trains that our government so graciously provides at an affordable rate. I don't think so!

It's just not going to work. So we take people off the road and onto what exactly? Extortionate trains and privately owned busses! I'd agree with this scheme if there was a reliable and affordable alternative. As it stands, public transport is neither! This is just another stunt to push through an unpopular scheme in the name of the "High Ideals" of saving the environment. The worst thing is it's not going to save the environment. It's just going to provide another gravy train on the backs of those forced to take the car because the busses and trains are infrequent, expensive and unreliable!



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[Bizarre Atheist]

Quoting Paranoid from 18:42, 13th Jan 2007
There is no reason for people who live in cities to own 4x4's other than for materialistic reasons.

Interesting. In some cases, I agree, there are people who simply do not need 4x4s. Drug dealers, for instance.

However, for your average family who have two or more kids, and therefore need to carry kids+friends+junk+school stuff+anything else, a 4x4 is a MUCH better option than a people carrier or estate. For a start the majority of 4x4s (and there's a difference here between the likes of Land Rovers and so called-Chelsea tractors - X5s, M-Classes etc) have seven real seats, significant storage space, towing power, and high safety ratings. The bonus is that in a Range Rover you don't look like a middle-aged accountant, which a Ford Focus Diesel Estate just screams. Nothing against accountants, mind, I'd just rather not look like one.

Furthermore, a 4x4 is versatile - to quote the marketing campaign of the first Range Rover back in 1971 'It's four cars in one'. Jack Dee often comments that his Landy keeps two other cars off the road, because otherwise he's have a runaround, a big family car and something fast to motor round in. Then again maybe the govt WANTS us to have more cars sitting on our drives, taxed, tested and wasting our money even more.

On a side note, Paranoid, I accuse you of owning things for materialistic reasons. It's not a valid criticism - you could easily do without your laptop, more than one pair of shoes, iPod etc.

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[Thackary]

We're already being taxed for using the roads.
Petrol costs a fortune.

I don't agree with being tracked though.

[Senethro]

Whats wrong with being tracked? Is Tony Blair going to care that you shopped at Alldays instead of Tescoes?

[Bizarre Atheist]

Tescos will. And you will pay.

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[Senethro]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 19:55, 13th Jan 2007
Tescos will. And you will pay.

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[[James]]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 19:05, 13th Jan 2007
On a side note, Paranoid, I accuse you of owning things for materialistic reasons. It's not a valid criticism - you could easily do without your laptop, more than one pair of shoes, iPod etc.

The difference though is in possessing something that is critically damaging to the environment for materialistic reasons. Of course, iPods and laptops consume power, but the carbon emisssions for which they are responsible are insignificant in comparison.

The real problem, though, is that environmental efforts in Britain are entirely pointless without the United States on our side. If you want to drive your 4x4 and be hopelessly, stereotypically suburban middle class, fine. But in the US this is a far greater epidemic. The depressing truth for British environmentalists is that our efforts mean virtually nought. The biggest change we need to make - and I know this may come as a shock to the 4x4-driving, ski holiday community, not to mention Tony Blair himself - is to dramatically reduce air flights, especially long haul, which means the abolishment of cheap airfares and the introduction high taxation on aviation fuel (with revenues being put into efforts towards carbon-neutrality, naturally).

That argument is somewhat off the point, though - my gut feeling about this particular initiative is that its heart is not in the right place. Any such legislation needs to be built on an environmental basis, and much more far-reaching. It's important to remember that the longer we wait, the worse things get - economically as well as environmentally. It is the '4x4 community' (that phrase sounds as though they are some kind of under-represented ethnic minority) that will need to pay for the inevitable, essential environmental changes, so sooner is far better than later for everyone on every level.

[Bizarre Atheist]

Quoting [James] from 20:02, 13th Jan 2007
If you want to drive your 4x4 and be hopelessly, stereotypically suburban middle class, fine.

How gracious. I shall.

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[[James]]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 20:07, 13th Jan 2007

Quoting [James] from 20:02, 13th Jan 2007
If you want to drive your 4x4 and be hopelessly, stereotypically suburban middle class, fine.

How gracious. I shall.

Oh Christ. Not another Clarkson.

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[oddly familiar]

Quoting Bizarre Atheist from 17:53, 13th Jan 2007
punctured with speed cameras

Yes, damnit! Having to keep to the speed limit and not kill people is just so annoying!

Also, 4x4s aren't actually much safer than normal cars; Yes they are tougher, but studies have shown that because of the high viewpoint and knowledge of the car's solidity, they drive more carelessly, almost negating any safety advantages the 4x4 has. If you think you're one of the exceptions to the rule, it might be a good idea to think again. In addition, anyone else getting hit by a SUV is waaay more likely to get killed, because they get pulled under the car rather than going over the top (as with most other cars). This vastly increases the likelyhood that a pedestrian will die.

One thing people often say justifying their SUV is that in a collision they know they'll come off better than the other guy. wey not just buy a tank and shoot any car that your going to bump into? Its all very well thinking that you'll come of better but if you then spend the next 4 years in prison for killing someone through careless driving then you've not gained much now have you.

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[Bizarre Atheist]

Quoting [James] from 20:09, 13th Jan 2007
Oh Christ. Not another Clarkson.

I do have a certain affinty for the man, but I doubt he'd be happy to sit idly by and be defined as 'sterotypically suburban middle class'. He is one of the few people who, armed with the facts, is happy to defend the motorist. I refer you to his TopGear interview with Alastair Darling, Minister for Transport, no doubt on YouTube, in which he concedes to many of the stock well-argued points on this thread, but is able to retort with something TheSinner sadly lacks - fact.

Quoting oddly familiar from 20:41, 13th Jan 2007
Its all very well thinking that you'll come of better but if you then spend the next 4 years in prison for killing someone through careless driving then you've not gained much now have you.

Careless driving is a whole other issue. You could be Leonardo diCaprio driving a goody-two-shoes Toyota Prius carelessly and still kill people.

Should have mentioned earlier - I don't have a 4x4 - I drive a 1.2 VW Polo, though I have in the past used a 2.25 Land Rover Series IIA built in 1969.

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