Petition against road pricing

HugoSP

This impassioned e-mail recently arrived in an inbox of a relaible source on another forum. These are edited highlights:-

" READ THIS...it takes less than 2 minutes to read and sign. ITS IMPORTANT. IT WILL AFFECT YOU IF YOU ARE A DRIVER.

Sign and send on to all of your mates, because before you know it the nice gentlemen will be taxing us for breathing and that's no longer the joke it used to be!

It was stated on the news that one of the reasons this proposal has been suggested was to raise money for possible road building and improvements to existing roads. It should be noted: of all the money currently collected by the DVLA for road fund licenses, only 23%- 24% is actually spent on road building and improvements!

The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having
to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it.

The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver.

A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will
know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you
can expect a NIP with your monthly bill.

If you care about our freedoms and stopping the constant bashing of the
car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website

Sign up here:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

Mods - I apologise for the double posting. It originally got in the wrong forum first time around, could you consider this as a sticky and please remove the other posting for me

alanrowell

Is there a petition pro-road pricing?

crossleydd42

I see nothing in favour of a system which:
a) would seem to be far in excess of the current road tax system, and
b) is regressive - charging the same for a given amount of usage regardless of the relative wealth/poverty of an individual.

eg: It would seem that, in order to make a six-weekly visit to see my merntally - handicapped brother, off-peak I shall. as a pensioner, have two journeys only before I start to pay an excess over my road tax. and that on top of the excessive fuel duty imposed by this government. And it is quite impractible to go other than by car.

Bad luck, Norman, you'll only get a visit every 3 months in future. I can't afford to pay any more.

saintjanet

I have signed it but not sure if these petitions do any real good.

HugoSP

I think it's the right thing to do to raise awareness of this issue. Road pricing was first muted by the government as a method to reach its Kyoto emmisions target by 2020? The initial mention was to structure it so that it cost the taxpayer no more or less than the current VED and Fuel tax that we pay at the moment, but to target high mileage drivers to dissuade them from taking journeys that they don't need.

Interestingly, i unerstand that France has already hit its Kyoto target. Why? Because they have invested heavily in nuclear power plants and the like. whilst we in the UK are now being hit with all the costs associated with reducing our emmissions in building, motoring and other industries/lifestyle elements, in France it is business as usual.

Why, because successive UK governments - regardless of political party, have failed to see beyond the ends of their noses. They have invested for now, cashed in the golden geese, and now the current government has been caught out with an outdated and unviable public transport system, which they are trying to justify an investment programme that waits for demand to be several times over capacity before money is spent. Such programmes applied to public transport have failed drastically in the past with people using cars.

When this roat pricing scheme is introduced public transport companies will respond as they always do - they'll put the fares up. Come 2015 we will have little option but to not travel at all.

Firstly manufacturing (or rather what's left of it) will suffer severely as rising employment costs, associated with the money workers will have to find to finance their trip into work, reduce profit margines and force some companies out of business. Then we will be at the start of a major economic depression. Service industries and retail will start to suffer due to disposable incomes in some households being wiped out altogether. This will then have a direct effect on the financial institutions. Sterling will suffer against other currencies so at least our goods will be cheaper for others to buy - well they would but we won't be making any.

Finally the governments fiscal stranglehold on the country will bring our economy to its knees as no one can afford to travel to work, transport goods or indeed do any business at all. This will bring about mass unemployment - the likes that we have never seen before. Crime will soar and the government will suffer a huge shortfall in taxation as they'll be no income or activities to tax. Hence there will not be the resources to deal with unprecedented poverty or crime rates.

This country will be bust by 2020 - and it will not be the place I would want to live in.

Invasion would seem a very attractive proposition

Podder

I think something has to be done, we all moan about congestion but then complain when a proposal to solve it is made. Unless it becomes far more expensive to use the roads it will all grind to a halt in a few years - it's not far off in some areas now.

Podder

Totally agree albertross - the govt. should start by increasing road tax to at least £500 pa, this will get rid of a few casual drivers.

iolanthe07

Things can't go on as they are. There has to be some sort of effective road pricing to force people out of their cars and onto public transport/push bikes/shank's pony/ car sharing - whatever. Of course this will bear heavily upon the poor, especially the rural poor, but when has this ever bothered anyone in government? If it doesn't hurt, it won't work. And a spy on the dashboard might slow down the idiots who drive past my house at 60 mph in a 30 mph limit.

HugoSP

I agree that we have to change our ways and I agree that the government needs to be involved in a key factor.

What worries me is - remember the Poll Tax? Families went from paying £350/ £400 p/a rates to £2,000 Poll Tax in a few cases. My wife (then girlfriend) and I had our local taxation bill more than double overnight.

Only after nationwide civil unreast and the unseating of a certain prime minister did the government finally admit that they had got it wrong, then introduced the Council Tax. This was scaringly similar to the rates that the Government said was unfair and needed to be scrapped.

This was only after £millions of taxpayers' money was completely wasted on a failed and flawed taxation system that had its obvious major drawbacks.

The way this government is approaching this problem has worrying simularities.

I would be happy with a change in taxation so motorists pay extra where we have a number of viable options. For example, where effective park and ride schemes exist in cities, or where there is effective public transport alongside major commuter routes. If I had to pay £5 plus parking to drive into Plymouth, or pay £1 for all of us to use the Park and Ride - well that's a no brainer.

If we're into reducing carbon emmissions then lets assist householders in providing renewable energy generaters 9solar panels/wind turbine generators and the like). As the technology reduces in cost enabling householders to buy these devices then we will burn less fossel fuels, become less reliant on a volatile energy market and save ourselves money at the same time

Indeed, there are calls from self build groups for the government to insist that new homes built has at least one source of renewable energy. Unfortunately such legislation plus encouragement of existing homes to fit them would not appease the likes of Transport 2000, but would probably be just as beneficial in environmental terms.

AMO

The proposed system is fair. It requires all vehicles to have one of these devices and ensures that even drivers outside of the U.K. pay to use the roads.

The British public are concerned that rather than paying a one off cost to use the roads, by changing it to PAYG will result in it being more expensive. This is most likely to be true, but it will also be fairer at the end of the day.

AMO

saintjanet

AMO wrote:

The proposed system is fair. It requires all vehicles to have one of these devices and ensures that even drivers outside of the U.K. pay to use the roads.

The British public are concerned that rather than paying a one off cost to use the roads, by changing it to PAYG will result in it being more expensive. This is most likely to be true, but it will also be fairer at the end of the day.

AMO

Figures of £1.30 PER MILE have been quoted to travel in peak times ,that would cost me about £250 per week to go to work,that does not seem very fair to me!!!