Mayn1ac Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Has anyone else see the plans that the UK govt has for the future of taxing road use ? The plan is every car will be tracked by sat. and charged per mile depending on which roads you use, charging more for roads that are congestion 'hot-spots'. With the govts great history for inplementing computer systems nowhere near budget !!!! ARE THEY ON DRUGS ? TOO MANY SCI-FI MOVIES and E-Number Sweets ?and they run the country !!! :rofl: Its simple... admit that your just taxing people more and stick it on the fuel. That way, people who drive lots and use high fuel usage cars pay more.... Without having to put more load on the courts for non-payers and the nightmare of collecting revenue. I though Id woken up in some strange twilightzone world....... These politicians are meant to be the experts... call that an expert suggestion !! :laugh: :rofl: :laugh: :rofl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 It's worse than you think... Ask yourself these questions: 1) Who's going to pay for these "black boxes"? Think about it... They've already said that when those ID cards come in, it will cost us about ?100 each, and they will be MANDATORY 2) Do you really want the government to know your exact location at any given point? Smacks FAR too much of Orwells Big Brother to me... Actually, #2 breaks all sorts of privacy & human rights laws... This rather mad idea of theirs just isn't going to work... Besides, we ALL know that they just won't do away with tax on fuel and road tax, so it's just another stealth tax. I also certainly don't remember seeing this on their manifesto for the election, so where the hell do we get to vote on this? I agree we need to find some way of resolving our traffic problems, but this just isn't it. Bloody labour... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlibbyFlobby Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 If only more people voted away from Labour, they're creating a social divide slowly but surely removing the middle class, making the rich, richer and poor poorer. Anyway on to the road tax issue. Talk about a joke! As if we dont pay enough as it is in this country for EVERYTHING anyway. Its clear they want us to use public transport (Love to see Blair come to work on the bus.) which would just grind this country to a halt (which is what Labour are doing anyway). I think the second they start charging depending on whether or not the road is a congestion hotspot, is the second we see tons more new 'cheaper' roads becoming hotspots instead. With this and National ID cards all looming over us I really think the country is becoming more and more like big brother and one by one our freedoms are going to start being removed, along with our money. We need a big riot to overthrow the ridiculous thing we call the government who lets face it cant seem to solve anything without taxes and removing freedoms! :whistle: btw heres a source. SOURCE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lav-chan Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Yeah, i read about that in the BBC. The concept of taxing people more for travelling more or going into more congested areas is a good one, but it's not good enough to justify a big expensive computer system tracking your every move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Bourricot Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Should have voted Lib Dem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlibbyFlobby Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Should have voted Lib Dem. 586026200[/snapback] Then you'd get taxed by what you earn based on income tax, which is a crappy idea considering many people actually work for their money. I voted Conservative, the only real choice, they've ran this country before, and hopefully they will again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h00nta Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 I can see this causing more friction than the poll tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kriz Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 To put it simply, the government can be right ****s when they want to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferret Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 It won't work ! There's alot of people in the UK, that are in my situation that find it very difficult to pay for petrol, let alone the extortionate amount that this will cost. If the black box goes in, then surley it can come out again ? So many people will rip the box's out - I know I would ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dashel Posted June 7, 2005 Share Posted June 7, 2005 (edited) Interesting thread. This is a great example of getting to see another country's citizens dealing with the boner of the week. ;) ..waiting for the closet authoritarians to say you've gone Henny Penny and there is nothing to worry about. Edited June 7, 2005 by Dashel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlibbyFlobby Posted June 7, 2005 Share Posted June 7, 2005 (edited) Interesting thread. This is a great example of getting to see another country's citizens dealing with the boner of the week. ;)..waiting for the closet authoritarians to say you've gone Henny Penny and there is nothing to worry about. 586027024[/snapback] I think our country has alot to worry about with people in government suggesting ideas like this and ID cards, which will effectively remove are civil liberties. It begs the question why do the government really want to track our vehicles, or have our fingerprints and iris details in a database? Lets face it, if they charge us 2p to use one road, but ?2 to use another (per mile), where are you going to travel? Then small roads will become congested instead, which inturn will force up their prices, the transport industry and all businesses using transport wont bother. Awesome idea :rofl:: Edited June 7, 2005 by ziadoz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted June 8, 2005 Share Posted June 8, 2005 Mark my words... Should this really STUPID idea be passed into law, there will be riots far worse than the poll tax riots of the 80's. I was too young back then to take part, but this time... Why should the government care about paying for transport like this. THEY all get carted around in chauffer driven government cars so won't have to pay, and if they're late, they'll just radio for a police escort & put the lights on. Once again, the average person on the steet is given one up the arse by a government which shouldn't even be in power... :angry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shibby Posted June 9, 2005 Share Posted June 9, 2005 this is a stupid idea and won't work they can not inforce it and will have probelms. it will only do what they want and thats get money. if they did charge everyone to use a motorway people will use country roads. which have alot of bends and are very small. this is just going to bulid traffic up on them small roads which are in no fit state to handle any load. it will also cause even more deaths on the road. by forceing people of the motorway they are forceing people to risk there lives. motorways in my view are much safer then country roads. if they the boxes were in a car people will remove them. theres only 3 ways i can think of and still they would cost to much. 1. build toll booths - not possile with the current roads 2. make police search cars or a device which will show that a car has not got the device. this will cost more man hours and force local police to spend money on said devices and cars to do the job. the system would not have a benifit in this case as the money made would have to go in to the police to fund the searching. 3. the most likey option but still going to be expensive. is a speed camera type pole. it sends out signals to cars and if it doesn't not get a signal back take a photo. - flaws because how is every device going to be compatible with the camera or network. and most likey prone to faults. so really this is not possible it can't and will not work. who ever thinks these ideas up? a simple 17 year old can come up with ideas but even then they can be broken! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h00nta Posted June 9, 2005 Share Posted June 9, 2005 Trust a UK govt. to decide on the most expensive/unpopular/unworkable/unfair solution to a simple problem. As usual the people that can least afford to pay for such a scheme, the same people that are also likely to be the ones that are doing the bulk of the WORK which keeps the economy ticking over, are the ones taking the biggest hit in the wallet. It would be so much simpler just to add the cost to fuel; less expensive, needs no extra investment, no new (untried) technology, and at leats then the heavy fuel user gets hit in the wallet. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one concerned by the sinister nature of the govt. in it's Orwellian attempts to keep us all under surveillance - how long until our children are DNA sampled at birth and fitted with tracking chips? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildk Posted June 9, 2005 Share Posted June 9, 2005 it will also cause even more deaths on the road. by forceing people of the motorway they are forceing people to risk there lives. Sorry could not resist this, but aleast that would cut congestion!!! Anyway, where i live the public transport is diabolical, and the large majority of people in this area could not get to work on time, There needs to be a massive boost in public transport to make it Safe, reliable, and economical so that there is an effective alternative to the car before somthing like this is even suggested. i read a report recently that it now takes longer on some journeys by train than it did in the 1920's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlibbyFlobby Posted June 9, 2005 Share Posted June 9, 2005 I agree people who travel more should be financially hit harder than those who dont, but this is NOT the way to go about it. Perhaps the fuel charges and road tax should depend on how much you drive instead of your car type. The way I see it if this idea sticks we can look forward to some protests or even riots, but definately economical damage. "I predict a riot" :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincent Posted June 9, 2005 Share Posted June 9, 2005 LONDON ? Congestion on British roads has become so bad that government officials are proposing a dramatic measure to stave off what they call "L.A.-style gridlock."Under the plan, drivers would pay for using every single road in the country. Satellite and Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment would track vehicles, charging drivers according to the route they take. Busy roads at busy times could cost up to the equivalent of $2.30 a mile, according to preliminary proposals. Small rural routes would cost a few cents a mile. The idea, to be formally unveiled today by Transport Minister Alastair Darling, would be unprecedented in its scope. Several countries have talked about "road pricing," or variable pricing, for decades, but nothing on such a scale has been considered before. A pilot project similar to the British plan began in the Seattle area late last year, but results won't be reported until 2006. The Puget Sound Regional Council's Traffic Choices pilot project involves about 500 volunteers whose vehicles have been fitted with tracking devices, which are being tested and calibrated. Starting July 1, tolls will be deducted electronically from prepaid accounts based on what roads the volunteer drivers use. (The money in volunteers' accounts is supplied by project managers; if there's any left when the project ends, the volunteers get to keep it.) The council will use study results to gauge how people's driving behavior might change if they had to pay by the mile. Cities from New York to Moscow, meanwhile, have been watching London's landmark congestion-charge plan with interest. "It's a national issue now," a British government spokeswoman said. A British government study found that road pricing could reduce congestion by 40 percent, she added. A fully functioning nationwide system ? involving roadside devices that monitor every journey of every vehicle ? would still be a decade away. But the government hopes to legislate it in the next couple of years. Over the weekend, Darling said Britain has to decide in the next five years whether such a system is feasible "because if we don't do anything, then we will face gridlock in 20 to 30 years' time." Some are grumbling about the plan. Motorist groups protest, saying it would favor the wealthy. Environmentalists complain that charging for travel on congested highways could simply switch traffic to quieter country roads. Other critics said it would infringe on civil liberties. The impetus is a simple case of supply and demand in Britain. Demand for roads has risen as vehicle numbers have increased more than tenfold in the past 50 years, to 28 million. Yet supply, in the form of road capacity, has increased by only 20 percent, according to Philip Hale of the RAC motorists organization. "We can't increase much more because of the island we are," Hale said. "You can fit Britain inside Minnesota. We can't build our way out of this ... But we can manage the road traffic we have." London has discovered that. Two years ago, it introduced a flat tax equivalent to about $9 for driving into the city center. Today, it reports congestion reduced by 30 percent, traffic down by 18 percent, and hundreds of millions of pounds raised to improve public transportation. Indeed, a three-mile journey across the zone could take more than an hour before the charge was introduced in February 2003. Now it can be as fast as 20 minutes. Traffic is notably thicker on weekends, when the charge is not levied. "We're convinced it's been a success," said Alun Shurmer of the Transport for London Authority. But he added that the London program could not be implemented nationally. It works via a network of 700 cameras that record license-plate numbers and check them against database lists of those who have already paid. The national plan would work differently. To survey that number of roads would require too many cameras. Instead, every vehicle would have a black box to allow a satellite system to track its journey. Tolls would be automatically calculated, and possibly deducted from prepaid accounts. The new tolls would partly replace existing motoring taxes: a flat tax on car ownership and steep duties on gasoline. The upshot would be that occasional motorists might end up paying less to run their cars. Heavy road users would pay more. The RAC estimated it costs the equivalent of $9,000 annually to keep, run and maintain a car in Britain. Britain's Transport Department study found the plan would cost up to $5.4 billion a year to run but would gross $16 billion annually. Professor Stephen Glaister, an expert in transportation policy at Imperial College London and a road-pricing advocate, said the cost of the technology may prove prohibitive. "It may turn out that it isn't worth it in anywhere other than the most-congested places." The idea of road pricing is not new; a 1964 government report said charging vehicles for every mile on congested roads would "yield substantial benefits" and envisaged fitting all vehicles with meters triggered by roadside scanners. But the idea has been rejected repeatedly because it was unpopular with voters and expensive to implement. Some alternatives to road pricing include better public transport, fuel rationing or stipulating an annual mileage allowance for each motorist, with charges for extra miles. Seattletimes.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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