Road pricing bill before Commons

[fzbucks]

In the town I live in, nobody I know works there except a mate of mine who is a nurse. Everybody in the nicer bits works outside Rochdale because all Rochdale offeres are sh1t jobs with sh1t pay. I would consider using public transport if it were viable. I have proved to Dang that my commute to a site on the other side of Manchester was NOT VIABLE. If I spend 8 hours in the office, I'm not going to spend half as long as that getting to and from the site. And that would be if everything ran to plan.

DANG was also proven that his utopia of cloud powered trains was not viable for my route - sho he called me a moron

[fzbucks]

All you've proved to me is that you can't be bothered with a long commute on public transport. You consider that not viable, I consider it viable. In fact, I do just that. It takes me just under two hours door to door, just over an hour of which is on the train - time I can use to read, write, study, mindlessly stare out the window at the rather pleasant Lancashire countryside, listen to music or the radio. When I drive I'm limited to the last two, and most the time I'm just concentrating on staying alive.

You can study in the car - audiobooks are a new invention that use soundwaves to communicate the words of a book to your brain via your car stereo and ears - really a marvelous invention.

[fzbucks]

You're just being silly now. One half full train would easily replace 50 cars on the road.

A couple of times a year someone organises a "Bike To Work Day". I've heard cyclists suggest that one of these days we organise a "Drive To Work Day" where all cyclists get in their cars instead. Maybe include train and bus users too. Not sure if many of us would get past the end of the road before giving up, but it could be quite funny to see.

That's because you're all flakes who shake for 10 minutes after driving - send your licence back to the DVLA ASAP

[fzbucks]

Er, how is that me telling you what to do? The original reason I posted on this thread was because people were suggesting that the government should be dictated to by 1.8m people's views when there are actually 60m people in the country.

So did you not sign the petition on the same site FOR the proposed road pricing scheme that was put on the site by the same author of the one against it?

so by your argument less of the 60m people voted for the one for so then surely in a democracy the majority who did chose to vote (by way of petition) voted AGAINST it.

[fzbucks]

That is a bit like saying that feet are destructive. They wear out shoes, they occupy space, they trample grass. It is just like saying washing machines are destructive; they use up electricity, they waste water, they vibrate and shake foundations of buildings and they have to be delivered in huge Gas guzzling "destructive" lorries. You idiot, do you understand what "context" means?. Roads were built and are maintained and modernised for the use of cars which funnily enough are used by "normal" people, so what if they are congested.

vans are often used to carry one person, and lorries are used to carry what can be argued are "unnecessary" consumer goods. You clearly have a thing about cars which you cannot put into any sort of context of an argument, which can only mean that you have an insecurity problem

I think he is against cars because his partner (who wears the pants in his relationship) took his.

[dang65]

Is that a NO then?

Silly me thinking I could better my income by looking or work outside my own backyard.

Well obviously it's a "NO". Public transport isn't designed to take you 170 miles to work. I don't believe that private transport is either. It's just a ridiculous distance. You don't actually commute that journey daily do you? I presume you mean that you stay near work during the week, in which case this debate is irrelevent to you anyway. It's about daily rush hour congestion, which you presumably don't get caught up in anyway?

You can study in the car - audiobooks are a new invention that use soundwaves to communicate the words of a book to your brain via your car stereo and ears - really a marvelous invention.

I was wondering what a lot of drivers are up to. Doesn't seem to involve concentrating on driving anyway.

That's because you're all flakes who shake for 10 minutes after driving - send your licence back to the DVLA ASAP

After my comment about shaking for 5 minutes before I can get out of the car I put a smiley:

Shaking with rage, d'you see? As so many drivers do. As opposed to being relaxed. I reckon most days in my office someone walks in and immediately tells a story about some nutter that's just cut them up, or tailgated them for 10 miles up the motorway, or drove too slow in the middle lane. Road. Rage. Two words that go together so perfectly.

Oh, and you don't commute by bicycle on Britain's roads for more than 20 years if you're a "flake", I can tell you that mate. I also seem to remember a few people citing the danger of being mugged as a reason for not using public transport and the danger of getting wet or cold or tired as a reason for not cycling. Sound like a right bunch of girlies to me. Except there are quite a lot of girls that use the train and cycle to work, so that would be an insult to girlies.

So did you not sign the petition on the same site FOR the proposed road pricing scheme that was put on the site by the same author of the one against it?

so by your argument less of the 60m people voted for the one for so then surely in a democracy the majority who did chose to vote (by way of petition) voted AGAINST it.

My argument is that such a tiny proportion of the population doesn't decide on a change in government policy. It wasn't a referendum, it was one of those "Have Your Say" type polls (but referred to as a "petition") and it hardly got any response. Less than 3% of a population of 60m in a button clicking exercise. I mean, 26% of households in this country don't even own a car at all in the first place. That's your 3% outnumbered 8 times even before we start including people like me that do own a car but realise we're getting away with a liberty.

I think he is against cars because his partner (who wears the pants in his relationship) took his.

It's true that my partner wears the pants. She's in control of the house and the kids while I just wander off to work every day. On the other hand, we only have a car at all because it's so much more convenient for her to transport our four children to all their different schools and activities. It's a luxury we're willing to pay for. I could afford to buy another car for myself, of course, but I've never felt the need for a car to commute to work. If I did work up on the moors somewhere then I very likely would buy myself a car, but I'd accept the charges because I know how much damage cars do.

I mentioned to my partner the other day how I'd said on here how badly damaged the roads are and how people had said, "Where do you live then, it sounds terrible". I thought maybe we do live in a really bad part of the country, but she said, "I haven't even noticed, are they bad?" And I'm guessing a lot of other people are doing the same, just driving around everywhere and not noticing the state of the roads. Major trunk roads and motorways tend to be kept up to a pretty high standard as a rule, but I guess they are maintained by a different authority? Take a well used A or B road which isn't a major artery though and take a look at the road surface. Wrecked. Patched up all over the place by roaming council gangs in trucks.

And it's all very well saying, "who expects road surfaces not to get damaged?" but we're talking about destruction here, all over the country. The roads can't take the volume of traffic we're putting on them without being constantly maintained and resurfaced, and the councils don't have anything like the funds or workers necessary to maintain them. At some point, and I'm guessing fairly soon, these roads are going to reach breaking point. They will be come certifiably unsafe for traffic. Except for 4x4s. Lovely.

[fat_chance]

[QUOTE]

Oh dear oh dear. A lot of what you say makes common sense, is well argued and makes its point without needing the use of wild emotive remarks about cars and their users.

BUT, a lot of what you say is again based on lightweight assumptions:

First of all you naively assume that whilst govt set wonderful objectives that they are somehow linked to any form of succesful delivery.. they never are. What you say seems to imply that the govt should be implementing the necessary measures that will deliver these wondrous objectives; they never do. You sound so much like a govt spokesman with this sort of drivel: "We should be proud that Britain is leading the world in road pricing".. Total New Labour speak if ever there was.

It is easy to see that you are London Transport worker. Firstly there is the anti Thatcher bulls**t, secondly there is the assumption that everyone should want to work in the cities, and thirdly there is the air of arrogance that presumes to plan for everyone what you think they need. You work for an organisation matey that is the servant of the people, not the other way round.

Hi DA

I totally agree with you on the government’s poor implementation of most public initiatives. You are correct, I have contracted for TfL and experienced the ridiculous levels of ineptitude and short sightedness first hand.
So many of the middle managers have been there for over 25 years and have lost sight of their purpose, to serve the public. They spend most of their time rebutting claims of poor service and management by politicians, customers and colleagues so never hit any of their weak targets, hence there being so many highly paid contractors doing all the delivery. This is one of the main reasons I decided to quit, it drove me nuts witnessing all the wastage and I was incredibly bored. I welcome any move to increase accountability in the public sector. Ideally through a better public-private model of delivery, not the ‘one or the other’ approach we historically have had. I also left TfL to move closer to developing road pricing systems and technology alongside a global consultancy. Yes, I do have a vested interest in road pricing, but I am a business, I move with the market forces.
And at what point on this board have I declared my political allegiance? If you’re that interested then I will tell you. I have none, I vote for whoever benefits me and my family the best and do the best I can to limit/maximise any government impact, simple as that. I believe that in Britain today, and in the majority of the world, that global economic trends control government policy not the other way round. So I vote accordingly, I have no allegiance or family loyalty to any party, they are totally self-serving, any idiot can see that, they will work hard do what they can to stay in power but if the economic trend and their policy suits me and my life then I vote for them.

In a growing cycle - ‘save in boom’, vote left. In economic downturn ‘spend in gloom’, vote right. That’s just me anyway. I’m attempting to indicate my rationale, not preaching any of my methods. (I do think Labour are done and dusted though)

[fat_chance]

"To me, all the government are doing is pre-empting a tipping point in economic activity caused by private motor vehicle congestion." Sorry but all the government are doing is trying to stay in power and gain influence and control that will enhance their own vested interests. Let us now always remember that these scumbags (aided and abetted by their nasty little self serving departments such as London transport), whatever they do they do for their own benefit first and foremost. Let us also remember that whenever they undertake any task they do so with utter incompetence.

Again, agree with you on this Government Issue DA. I believe that government departments realise they are so poor at delivery that road pricing will be outsourced as much as possible. The press will be on them so heavily during these trials that the only way they can save face and deliver is by relying on the private sector to do it.

I don't share as much belief in the free market as you seem to though. I think that people can easily lose sight of practicality and quality of life in their pursuit of profits, comfort and status. Humour me if you will for a moment whilst I explain the moment I was swayed to a sharper method of accounting for congestion. My wife and I share a train to work in the morning. We live within Zone 3 of London and because everything I need is within walking distance from where I live, pubs, supermarkets, café’s, doctors, schools e.t.c for the last 3 years we have done so without a car. My wife is a teacher at near by school (we moved here because of that) that allows her an easy commute and for me a reasonably quick commute to the city and thus a better chance of having a easy commute to various contracts (I realise that not all of you have this luxury but that is why I chose to live here). One particular morning, as with every morning, there was a stand-off for right of way on our single lane street (it is double laned but there are cars parked on both sides due to ‘lack of parking’ initiatives by our business friendly borough). As always there was much honking of horns, gnashing of teeth and a bit of road rage. As we walked to the train station (not 200 yds away) we passed a family in a big flash Merc, at which point one of the kids started yelling and waving at my wife. She was a pupil, being driven to school from our street and they were stuck in a logjam involving 6 opposing cars. I couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. As my wife is at a prep-school in Zone 2, most of the parents are fairly wealthy middle class (bankers, lawyers and medium sized business folk e.t.c) so you would assume fairly clever too. It takes my wife 10 minutes by train, or 15 minutes by bus to get to school, door-to-door, and on either mode, there are plenty of other school kids and professional adults sharing the commute but still seats left over. This family had been in this logjam for atleast 5 minutes before we passed them as I had been watching curiously from my lounge window whilst waiting for my wife to put on her face and it wasn’t moving anytime soon. And since I have been at home a lot more lately, I have noticed it happens at least 3 times a day on my street alone. Tell me, as I’m yet to pin point it, but how can freedom be mistaken for practicality when you drive your kids to school while living within walking distance of a train station and frequent bus services into the city and past the school (of which are free to under 16’s in London) generating unnecessary congestion, slowing down commercial vehicles and buses and effecting business, just because someone believes they have the right to drive their family 5 minutes up the road in a comfy car? The reality is, in London anyway, that a decision to drive and take up space on an already congested road DOES have a large effect on everybody else including you and the economy, yet it is not accounted for in any way!
My wife’s school has now turned their carpark (which is also the kids playing courts BTW) into a temporary drive through, parents now have 30 seconds to drop their kids off and leave as at present, parents use the drop off time as a networking/social outing, consequently jamming up the adjacent streets, queuing to get in and more importantly taking up valuable football space for the kids before school starts.

One other observation I made last week whilst going for a stroll on my lunch hour away from the house, was the unbelievable number of nice cars parked in the surrounding streets throughout the day. I’m not gloating about my neighbourhood at all, on the contrary, I have 6 housing estates within a square mile of me but also have a lot of middle class wealth who have cashed in on the property and banking sector boom. What I didn’t understand though was, why are there so many relatively expensive cars (2 Porsche Boxsters and 3 BMW Roadster among countless 4x4’s in the street parallel) parked up whilst everyone would be at work. Most of the cars were covered in tree blossoms indicating they had been there longer than just the day, atleast 2-3 days. Which lead me to assume that they were weekend cars, or in fact a leftover car from someone who has moved here and realised its easier to take the train or bus to work, but don’t want to sell the car as ‘it looks cool’ and ‘I can still use it on weekends…’ Being the economist I attempt to be, I pondered how much stronger and unique our local economy would be if people spent their money on local business rather than on foreign made cars, which sit parked on the side of the street for 80% of their time, doing nothing but depreciating. Maybe our high street wouldn’t be as much of a clone as the rest, full of franchises selling cheap crap, maybe people would spend enough to generate sufficient income for independent traders and local suppliers to compete and generate jobs. Maybe property prices would go up by the intrinsic value of a car, atleast then that money would be appreciating and not depreciating (and decaying from bird poo) on the side of the road, under the cherry tree. Maybe not, I’d like to find out though.
I’m sure the owners of these lovely cars only drive them on weekends to ease their guilt of purchasing it in the first place. Which may explain why the local traffic is worse on a Saturday. If you live near good public transport, why not hire a car for the weekend if you need to go somewhere, you still have the freedom to do that, and probably more cash leftover as a result? Once again, I realise you all don’t share the same local factors as I do that generate my opinion but if you don’t live in a congested area, I don’t think the impact of accounting for congestion will have as large affect on you as it would on me IF I chose to drive.

It was these moments among others that made me start to realise that free markets and practicality are not one and same and don’t always lead to a better quality of life.

Whilst I agree with your arguments that support road pricing I believe that they are introducing it not as a means to tackle congestion but as an excuse to extaort more tax from the hapless public. If on the other hand they were to tot up all the money that they spend on road transport and return it to the people and THEN introduce road pricing then fine.

But you seem to forget that the most simple and efficient way of making people pay for car usage is to tax us through use of fuel. This would be an incredibly easy way to encourage people to move away from engines that burn oil, reduce the need to use the car etc etc. The problem with that is that the govt would have little need to set up new departments, build more computer systems, employ more people etc etc.

How much more tax on petrol will it take to convince people to stop driving? I only did a quick search but found this site put together by the Australian Treasury comparing taxes across the globe.
http://comparativetaxation.treasury....ve_Summary.asp

The UK already has a very high fuel duty compared to the rest of the world, and from memory I think petrol costs 30p/litre the rest is tax. Besides, all that would do is force people into Hybrids and electric cars, which is good for the environment (assuming it’s from a clean source) and foreign policy but it still does not tackle congestion! People will still get in their comfy electric cars and clog up the streets unnecessarily.

[wendigo100]

It's bad enough being faced with long posts that would take ages to read (and most people cannot be arsed to read), but when you know they are from trolls...

[dang65]

Look we all live and share this planet to be happy and to achieve this objective we need to interact and cooperate with one another. There is no need to feel guilty as much of our guilt is foisted upon us by others in order that they may control us. We have every right to use roads, as much as emergency services and haulage firms. There is nothing to feel guilty about. You are either a victim of "guilt by manipulation" or you have a vested interest of your own by supporting new tax raising measures from the govt. I will presume the former.

If we want to use the roads far whatever reason (within the law) then we have every right to do so. Who judges as to who has a more legitimate use than the next man? The laws of the markets dictate that congestion will sort itself out. If roads are too clogged then people wont use them which in turn creates new alternatives for technology and business to deal with problems (which is all that a business does).

Man, there's some serious rambling going on here. So, are you saying that it's actually a good idea to allow the roads to clog up because then technology and business will come up with an amazing alternative solution for us all to move around? Maybe teleports?

So going on to your points I will counter as follows:

As for simply dumping all other car related taxes and putting the whole lot onto fuel, well that option is completely unrealistic:

1. The vehicles hit the hardest by that would be commercial transporters, the police, ambulance, fire, delivery vehicles etc etc. You would be hitting industry and essential services far more than the actual problem drivers - the private car owners who have no genuine justification for driving other than that it makes their lives easier. Having some kind of "red diesel" style discount for the commercial and essential users would be impossible to police and a black market in dodgily obtained fuel would take off big time.

Industries and essential services only run if the employees can arrive at work efficiently in the first place. Congestion charging just adds to costs thus contributing to inflation.

Well, most the people I'm talking about - haulage companies, essential services, delivery vans - can and do work whatever time of day they like. They can and do simply avoid the hours when everyone else piles on to the road. They don't have to "arrive at work efficiently" in the first place because they already are at work when they're on the road. If you dump all charges and taxes onto fuel then these people won't be able to avoid the huge price increase even if they drive around at 3 o'clock in the morning.

2. The same fuel is used by generators for concerts, for lawn mowers, for pumps, for marine engines and god knows what other machinery. The price of many things completely unrelated to road damage and congestion would suddenly have to increase.

What are roads built for if no one expects them to wear FFS? Why use a concert hall if all that is going to happen is that it is going to wear out over the years? Why are lawn mowers more important than cars? cutting a lawn is very low down on "human needs"

I answered the wear and tear issue in the previous post. As for whether a lawn mower is more important than a car, that wasn't my point at all. What I meant was, lots of other services, including the council cutting the grass in the local park (or your favourite golf course being maintained if you're that way inclined) will have to increase their charges as well, even though the actual problem we're trying to deal with is the massive congestion on the roads.

3. The process of obtaining a Vehicle Excise Duty paid license disc ("road tax" was abolished by Winston Churchill; it hasn't existed for decades) to allow you to take your car onto the public highway includes showing proof of insurance, MOT and ownership of the vehicle. Are you suggesting dumping all of those safeguards too?

Where on earth did I say that?

These are points I'm making about putting all duty on to fuel. I'm not quoting you, I'm asking what you think will replace a license disc? Will everyone still have to obtain such a disc, but "free of charge" funded via the fuel duty?

4. At the moment, people are at least penalised in some way for owning more than one vehicle. If the only charge was on fuel then people could own a different car for every day of the month and only pay for the fuel they used. How tempting to have Defender for a bit of off roading, a convertable for summer weekends, an estate car for family trips to the seaside, a powerful saloon for commuting. Where the hell would everyone park?!

So what? as for parking. If they cannot park a car they wouldn't buy one in the first place. And why this obsession with penalties?

Well, if you're going to ask "so what?" to people owning as many cars as they fancy buying without incurring any penalty beyond the price of the vehicle then we're obviously so far apart in our ideologies as to make further discussion pretty much pointless.

How would you feel if, say, 50% of the population were suddenly able to afford helicopters and flew them to and from work, and to Tesco to do the shopping, and to take the kids to visit the grandparents? Do you think you would just shrug and say, well they're perfectly within their rights to fly around everywhere making an incredible racket and frightening all the birds away so that we've got a plague of insects. They can afford it, good for them. Or do you think you'd be permanently shaking your fist at the sky and turning up the volume on your mp3 player?

That's what private car drivers are doing - causing noise, destruction, danger, stink... and looking down on anyone that doesn't drive.

5. How about tourists and commercial vehicles from the continent? They'd pay their own local vehicle taxes over there, then come over here and have to pay absolutely enormous prices for fuel to get around? No one would come. Not only that, but they'd probably close their borders to us that wouldn't be paying any taxes to own a car, but would be taking extended motoring holidays around Europe using their comparitively almost free petrol.

They already do. If you read any publication in the haulage industry then you will see that the likes of Willy Betz are already playing this game as well as employing cheap Romanian drivers who "double up" on trips in order to bypass the working hours limits.

I'm sure these companies do play all sorts of games to avoid regulations and keep prices down, but how would the do it with sky high fuel prices? Are you suggesting they fit enormous fuel tanks to get them from Dover to Liverpool and back without ever refueling? Wouldn't that reduce their freight capacity a bit? And tourists? What kind of tricks do they pull at the moment? Can you imagine if it was the other way around and when we popped across to France for a family holiday in the Dordogne or something we found we had to pay twice the price for our fuel because the locals had got rid of licence charges and motorway tolls and so on? How would you get around that? It would add another 2 or 3 hundred quid to the price of your holiday.

You could always try persuading the whole of Europe to follow the same scheme, but I suspect that Point 1 would be the decider there really.

I actually agree with the principle of charging for road use, but the prospect of these self serving idiots in government getting their hands on another large infrastructure project horrifies me.

We as a society have moved beyond regarding our government and state instituions (or at least we should have) as a great big nanny (though they see themselves in this role), there to pat us on the head if we do some good and there to spank us or penalise us if we do something wrong. Unfortunately their vision of what is right and what is wrong is driven entirely by their own self interest.

Yes, it's really difficult for me to argue against these last points I do concede. However, many aspects of government are for the good of the people as a whole, and usually those that genuinely aren't will be so unpopular as to be repealed quite quickly. I believe that ID Cards will go that way, and it's just a pity that so much time and money is being wasted on setting up the scheme in the first place.

An issue like congestion and overuse of private cars, however, really does need to be dealt with, and I maintain that road pricing is nowhere near as unpopular as you imagine, just that the people that are in favour of it don't need to be vocal because it's what the government is going ahead with anyway.

I suppose this awaits to be seen though, and if I'm wrong and there is some kind of mass uprising against road charging then I'll just have to accept that. Doesn't seem to have happened in London though, and that's where the loudest gobs in the country are.