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"Road Pricing"

Is it just me or is this the most immoral thing ever (yes more so than starving kids in ethiopia going without when we've got plenty).

Its a well known fact that we are ripped off as motorists as it is, ridiculuosly high Road tax, insurance, petrol costs, OTT fines for minor offences and all and for those of you unfortunate enough to live in london the congestion charge.

Now the government starts chatting crap about road pricing. Basically for those of you who haven't heard about it, it works on the toll principle were we get charged for using roads in certain areas at certain times of the day. They propose to do this by putting chips in all vehicles and charging us via satellite. (though how incompetent they are over digital/analogue switch over i wouldn't hold my breath, but as it makes them money i am sure it will be remarkably quicker!)

Any way this is quite clearly the most ridiculous and unfair tax ever. How can it be justified? We pay for everything three times over. We pay road tax, theres your roads, factor in fines, some of the highest petrol duties in the world, and road maintanence is easily covered, Claiming it is for pollution is equally ridiculous, we pay for petrol, its not renewable so we hhave to refill. We pay for petrol in relation to how much we use it therefore we pay directly in relation to how we pollute. (especially as cars have classification bands), If i use a fuel guzzling land rover then i pay more in petrol and as a result the government has more money to repair my damage, if i drive a fuel efficient car i use less petrol and as a result pay less duties.

We've paid for the roads, we pay Road pricing as it is in the form of the amount of petrol we consume. Why should you be discriminated on fr the roads you use that youve paid for. Why should you have to pay, personally i don't give a damn that london has busy roads, its the price you pay forr living in london everyone has known it for the last 30 odd years, charging for it is moronic, you either put up with the delay or move its your choice. Its outrageous to charge for a previously free resource which has already been paid for. Ken livingstone should be beaten publicly, and blair and brown if further road pricing comes in as has been debated and suggested.

I'm sure my detractors will say "well have you got a better idea", well nothing new really. Just this idea is unbelievably harsh, discriminatory (if you are poor you will be forced off the roads) and shouldn't be implemented. If they did thewir job properly anyway we'd have decent public transport and people wouldn't mind using the public transport, but they blatantly don't want this as the more motorists there are the fatter the cash cow gets.

Personally think it would be interesting to see the scrapping of road tax, and the RISING of petrol costs per litre by a couple of p. I thought about this the other day and concluded i would probably pay about the same over the course of the year as a fairly average motorist. even if i paid a bit more it doesn't matter, at least i am paying as i consume in the amount i consume. If someone does 60000 miles a year they quite clearly do more wear and tear to the roads and polute more than your old gran who does a thousand a year as she only goes to the shops and visits ethel down the road twice a week. Call me a communist but state control over insurance wouldn't be a bad thing either, admittedly we've gone past the point of no return and couldn't make insurance a public issue but in my humble opinion state control of insurance (and who better to back it) than the government who could control the undulations better and therefore make the government completely responsible for all the costs of motoring. They can control it, they take any (reduced) profits, but if the crap hits the fan only their accountable.

Anyway i'm sure my rant is preaching to the converted but road pricing will be so bloody immoral, whoever implements it i will never vote for again

All those jobs you mentioned there...

Aren't those the exact kind of low-pay limited-qualification-required careers we could just as easily get `Townies´ and other low-intelligent inhabitants of our country into?

They usually end up in the Construction and Building industry, and because of their arrogance and reluctance NOT to listen or understand, many lives can so-easily be lost because of them.

Things like that just don't appeal to people anymore when their's ``Uni´´ in sight somewhere...

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Anyway, back to the man topic, and I wonder just how drivers in this country would react to such charges being introduced, wherever the heck you go?

Especially lorry drivers; rooted to their seats day and night; driving up and down the country for the rest of their lives, just for minumum wage.
Would we see another strike, like the one's we had over oil pricing a few years ago? Only, this time, imagine the impact of an entire country doing it....

Then again, I guess that's all part of their plan; to get more cars off the road and more of us into public transpor, like buses, and Trains.... :S



Next thing you know, they'll be charging us for parking on our own driveways! :P

Actually, we could do with some more immigrants. How many buses have you seen lately with adverts for bus drivers in the windows? How many nursing vacancies do we have? I met some Polish guys a week or two back. They were over in Glasgow working as plasterers. Because the building site had trouble getting local people. One of them was an English graduate at a Polish university. Yet, a university education didn't earn him as much in Poland as being a plasterer in Glasgow.

We have a very high standard of living in Britain, but it will only continue when there are people to do the lowlier jobs as it were.

AHH! I see a blackie out the window! Folowed by...er.............legions of NATURAL BRITS! And yet, they are allowed kids, in this 'over crowded' country...

Wow, talk about changing the subject.

Notorious Biggles wrote:
"...I at least know where the money goes. We do have the NHS, which despite its flaws is still a service that most countries struggle to provide..."
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Yeah, they get it up-and-running in another country, and before you know it, those same people are immigrating over to England - legally or not - for the sake of 'better prospects' in an over-crowded country with its doors wide-open and welcoming.

I still think someone needs to shut the bloomin' door on immigrants moving into our country just whenever they feel like it. We might have to change the country's name soon (provided the island doesn't sink under the great mass of weight...)

Are we really paying more just for everyone else?

As with most Government proposals, the cost of setting it up will most probably outweigh the revenue returned. Just think Dome.

I mean, they can't even get a student loan database up and running, even two years after it was supposed to go live.

If they were going to do it, they should do it in a smart way, ie, your car has a chip in it, and if the satellite finds you driving in, say, a bus lane, then you're fined for the length of time you spend in it.

But I bet the government won't think of that.

Although you can probably take solace in the fact that if this thing does ever go ahead some clever sod will figure out a way of bypassing the chip. Hooray for the internet.

Slightly OT, but i read yesterday that Colin Montgomerie was clocked doing 96mph on the motorway by a policeman.

Took it to court pleading not guilty and he got off becasue the policman who clocked him didnt turn up to court so the defence said they couldnt prove who was driving the car!

I'd be strongly opposed to any sort of further taxing based on where and when you drive. You already made the main point, that you pay loads if you drive loads, through the duty on fuel. The only way any move to satellite based tracking would be supported by me is if fuel wasn't taxed.

Last night I drove up to Stirling, from Glasgow. I would view it as a breach of my civil liberties, to have to pay to travel around. I already paid for petrol, I already paid tax, I already paid insurance. Why should I have to pay for the privilege of driving somewhere that I could theoretically get a train or bus too without having to pay extra?

The bottom line is that if this ever happens, it is really just a ploy for the government to get more money out of us. I get annoyed about having to pay so much for petrol, especially since this is an oil producing nation, but I at least know where the money goes. We do have the NHS, which despite its flaws is still a service that most countries struggle to provide. But it managed to hobble along so far without masses more money from taxing motorists more. It should still manage in the future.