Road pricing bill before Commons

[threaded]

dang65: At a deep and meaningful level you really just don't grasp this reality thing. Let me give you an example: where I live the trains are far cheaper than using a bicycle, yet lots of people still use a bike...

[Hart-floot]

"In what way is it proven?

The way it works now is the simplest way of road pricing. At the moment there are supposed to be a couple of million untaxed/uninsured cars on our roads. At the very least these people have to pay the tax on petrol.

Road pricing it is not proven.

Well Singapore's version of Electronic Road Pricing/ pay-as-you-use has been in place a number of years now, seems to work OK. Singaporean drivers might not like it but it is proven to work.

The problem with untaxed/uninsured cars is an issue for the police and has nothing to do with congestion charging & road pricing but i agree piling on the tax on petrol (another form of pay-as-you-use tax) would catch them

[Vito]

A man after my own heart Vito. I have 6 cars but only three can be driven at once. By keeping three cars off the road at any one time I therefore feel no guilt. BTW if you need a good second hand motor I can do you a good "summer's coming, special" deal

Porsche 911 please...no more that 2 years old...must be the Carrera 'S' (apparently the S stands for 'Significant polution' so it is a must have)...in black with Black leather interior...and must have Sat Nav...

No more that 30k miles

I'll give you £20k cash + my motor which is worth about £28k...

[BoredBloke]

"It's also really not viable to introduce special routes to cater for unusual journeys, like the one TonyEnglish was trying to do (though I maintain that that journey is viable if you could just be bothered with taking the time). "

Your own figures (which didn't include the first bit of the journey) would take 1.5 hours. Adding the first bit brings it close to 2. So 4 hours commuting to do 8 hours in the office. It's not about being bothered, it's about being realistic.

"Well Singapore's version of Electronic Road Pricing/ pay-as-you-use has been in place a number of years now, seems to work OK. Singaporean drivers might not like it but it is proven to work. "

Decided not to answer any of the other points though! Can you tell me any other system where you consume the product/service where you do not first have an indication of it's price. So before I get into my car I would need to know the expected cost of my journey. Without this how do I make the comparison between the public transport 'option' and driving.

So I'm driving to London at peak times. The cost of the train is say £150 for the return. I get in my car and do the trip. I then get hit with a bill of say £200. Obviously under those circumstances I would have used the train - however I didn't know it was going to be more expensive to drive.

[DodgyAgent]

I dunno what you're all getting so wound up about. Most people are cheerfully boasting that they can afford to drive everywhere. Unfortunately you're not paying enough for the privilege of clogging up the public roads and generally disturbing everyone else's peace, so you're going to get charged more for doing so. You've got plenty of cash, so just carry on driving.

Good, as the govt no longer have to pay for roads, it is not unreasonable to expect a reduction in tax. As for pricing it is not the filthy rich on this board who will be hit, it will be minimum wage people like care workers travelling around the country to help old people.

[Vito]

Good, as the govt no longer have to pay for roads, it is not unreasonable to expect a reduction in tax. As for pricing it is not the filthy rich on this board who will be hit, it will be minimum wage people like care workers travelling around the country to help old people.

Indeed...in fact it will increase the price of everything, unless service vehicles (i.e. delivery vans, lorries etc) are exempt, so even non-drivers will be suffering.

Personally I couldn't give a monkeys...I'll pass the extra cost on to my clients!

[Ardesco]

The proposed road charging [tax], it must be said once again, is a penalty for the damage you are doing by driving everywhere in your own personal vehicle.

Really, so exactly what "damage" am I doing that I would not be doing by taking a bus ?

If the government is not going to improve the road infrastructure, or improve public transport WTF should I pay them more taxes ?

[DodgyAgent]

How is it not the same thing? It may be more economical at the moment, but that is unacceptable and it's what's being addressed by the road pricing proposal. If people want to continue with the convenience then they have to pay, and they have to stop whingeing about having to pay. It's the price you pay for the damage you do.
As I keep saying, the public transport system, although it can always be improved, is a lot better now than it's ever been before in this country. For regular commuters over a standard commuting route (say up to an hour on a tube, train or bus) a travelcard is a very good deal. Yeah, for people that suddenly decide they need to travel from Manchester to London the next day the price will be quite shocking - but that is not daily commuting, which is the main point of this discussion.

It's also really not viable to introduce special routes to cater for unusual journeys, like the one TonyEnglish was trying to do (though I maintain that that journey is viable if you could just be bothered with taking the time). Are taxes on alcohol spent on new drinking facilities? Are taxes on tobacco spent on cigarette lighter research? Probably not as a rule.

The proposed road charging [tax], it must be said once again, is a penalty for the damage you are doing by driving everywhere in your own personal vehicle. It's not a special ticket to have new roads built for you. Meanwhile, a lot of money clearly is being fed into public transport, probably by the companies which run the systems, but presumably with large subsidies from the taxpayer.

First of all why is driving a car so unacceptable? If there were no cars then there would many other things that people would be without. If there were no cars there would be no emergency services to help people when needed, there would be no one working in the automotive industries. If there were no cars food production would grind to a standstill. I am sorry to call you a fool but you really do not think your arguments through do you? This rather suggests that the problems you have with cars are more to do with your own personal inadequacies than any true and realistic objective vision of how society should work.

And why is it acceptable to have a public transport system that is now just downright awful as opposed to one that was even worse? it is up to the govt and the transport system to make public transport so good that people choose to travel by it. Having people like you ordering us to use it is what I call not acceptable (what do you know anyway?).

There are indeed some strong arguments for charging people to use roads but I would like to see a commensurate reduction in tax, a means by which poorer people carrying out valuable jobs and a number of other issues to be addressed first.

As for your pathetic "anti car" prejudice that is another argument altogether, so dont try and hijack what is a delicate and interesting debate, in order to justify your own self righteous miserable existence.

[DodgyAgent]

Indeed...in fact it will increase the price of everything, unless service vehicles (i.e. delivery vans, lorries etc) are exempt, so even non-drivers will be suffering.

Personally I couldn't give a monkeys...I'll pass the extra cost on to my clients!

There is of course the "keep poor people off the roads" argument in order to make way for the rest of us. But of course I do not subscribe to that view

[dang65]

As for pricing it is not the filthy rich on this board who will be hit, it will be minimum wage people like care workers travelling around the country to help old people.

Are you saying there are care workers who live in Rochdale and drive to Alderley Edge and back every day to help old people?? Normal people can't afford to do that anyway. They don't do that. They care for old people in their own town, or a short bus ride away. People like midwives and social workers who do drive around the countryside visiting patients... well, they aren't actually expected to pay for their own transport you know.