Road pricing bill before Commons

[DodgyAgent]

Actually, they often do cycle to school. It's the mad schedule on days when they have get to all the other places around town and farther afield that cause the problems. As noted previously (you know, in the bits of my posts which everyone carefully doesn't read at all), I have tried persuading my partner to ditch the car, but it's not me that has to run around everywhere at precise times. I've only got myself to worry about. Bit like most commuters...

And so to my point about the 20% on the school run, which no one seems to be capable of grasping. That is that the other 80% don't even have the excuse that they are ferrying sprogs around. They're just ferrying their own fat arses from A to B. At least people taking kids are filling the car up a bit and also are running to a genuinely restricted schedule (school at precisely regulated time -> work as quickly as possible to fit in working day).

I never understand the logic of pointing the finger at school run mums when the people pointing fingers are the other 80% who really are clogging up the road through their own laziness.

The sheer gall and arrogance of this guy. In other words "I am a perfectly legitimate car user and the rest of you are not" Driving to work matey is more necessary than taking kids to school, how else do we generate the wealth required to pay for schools?

he still has not grasped that few people enjoy driving. If your kids are travelling (for sheer personal pleasure) to out of school activities then it is perfectly possible either to move them around on public transport. Or is it sheer laziness on yoyu and your partners behalf in that other people have to occupy your kids. If your kids cut back on out of school activities it would not be the end of the world, however if you could not get to work on time it would be far more damaging.

[DodgyAgent]

I'm starting to catch on to this game now. Whatever I post, five of you post the opposite. That right?

You dont exactly make it difficult for us do you?

[BoredBloke]

"Actually, they often do cycle to school. It's the mad schedule on days when they have get to all the other places around town and farther afield that cause the problems. "


Ahhh so what you are saying is that they would use public transport or their bikes when the journey is a viable one. Which is why we have to use our cars - just like your kids when the journey isn't doable by other means.

[Stan]

But most of the congestion is due to people going to work, unless you coung people like Dangs wife who ferry the kids to school

These people dropping their kids off add more to the congestion as they don't just go from A->B they go A->B->A.

I also think that the retarded road systems (and road works!) cause congestion, in fact if you look at many road systems they seem to be designed to cause congestion.

[dang65]

I guess that's as good a time as any for me to pull out of this debate.

However many times I say... "Yes, like you I do own a car, but unlike you I understand that it is a luxury and I avoid using it personally, especially for routine commutes, and I have done for many years" ...it just gets completely ignored, and you act as if you've found an amazing hole in my argument which will make me gasp at my own hypocrisy. My partner and children are like you. Like you, they continue to use the car because it makes their lives easier. So do I sometimes. That in itself is not under scrutiny (by me).

What is at issue, and the entire point of this thread (which is titled "Road pricing bill before Commons"), is that we as road users do not pay enough to even approach the cost of maintaining the roads, or to compensate for the noise, smell, congestion and danger we contribute to every single day.

People like you just laugh at me when I say it, but the roads will fall apart if this continues. Not the major trunk roads or motorways because they are given priority, obviously. But thousands of other busy roads all over the country are simply crumbling. The money to fix that has to come from somewhere, and fuel and VED don't come close to covering it, and never has, and nor do all the other taxes that contribute at the moment. And now there's more cars than ever before, making more unnecessary trips than ever before (including my family) and drivers seem like as good a place as any to start raising a bit more cash.

It's easy to just sit back and accuse the government of scamming us out of our hard earned to pay to fund their outrageous expenses and pensions, and god knows I'm happy to join in with that, but it's billions we're going to need to sort the roads out. Either people stop hammering them uneccessarily, or they start paying a lot more for what they're doing.

Probably best if I just drive off into the sunset now (possibly over a cliff if that'll make you feel better).

[DodgyAgent]

Next

[Stan]

as road users do not pay enough to even approach the cost of maintaining the roads,

I think that fuel duty alone is more than they spend on roads.

[King Cnvt]

I guess that's as good a time as any for me to pull out of this debate.

Probably best if I just drive off into the sunset now (possibly over a cliff if that'll make you feel better).

Yes dang, your village must be missing you.

[threaded]

I'm starting to catch on to this game now. Whatever I post, five of you post the opposite. That right?

Yeah, you're only worth five. You'll have to come up with much better craziness to earn more.

[sasguru]

No-one has produced a single argument against the fairest way to price - per journey, taking into account distance. The more you drive the more you pay, just like anything else in life. Impeccably conservative, I'd have thought.