Help needed to stop Govt's New Pay-per-mile Tax

Voyager2002

I am amazed at the stupidity of people who initiate threads like this, and who sign the petition. This is not about making driving more expensive: it is about how the various taxes that motorists pay are shared among different motorists. Road pricing means that those who pay the most are those who choose to drive on the busiest roads at the busiest times -- and I stress the word choose because those are the routes that are best-served by public transport. Thos who need to drive long distances on empty roads, typically in regions of the country where public transport is poor, would be far better off under a system like this than they are at present. Thos who would be likely to lose under this system would have the option of taking public transport, and also saving. Those who use public transport on such routes would enjoy speedier journeys because of reduced congestion, as would those who choose to make such journeys using their own vehicles. Basically, everyone wins!

The opposiiton to this measure confirms that when people switch on their ignition they switch off their brains!

Eagle_1

Hmmm the petiton link aint working and when i went to the official site (via gmtv) its not working neither

Voyager2002

albertross wrote:

You assume that public transport is feasible, cheap, sufficiently empty to cope with new demand, and available for the route required. For many journeys, it isn't any of those. We don't all live and work in London.

If the road charge is £1.40/mile, and someone has to drive 25 miles to work, and has to get there between 8-9.30, and has to return at the night, and they get paid an average wage of £70/day, then they will be going to work at a loss, and will have to change jobs, or set off at 4am and return at 9pm. Not everyone can hop on a bus, and hop off, and stroll into work, that's why we have cars.

I think you have just proved my point. The proposal is NOT for a flat charge of 1.40 per mile. It is for a variable charge, depending on which road and what time of day, but ensuring that you pay more for using more congested routes. And it should be clear that routes that have lots of people wanting to travel along them are the ones most likely to be served by public transport.

And consider the alternative: either higher fuel duty (penalising everyone who uses their car a lot, even if they are driving at times and in places where no-one else travels, and where there is no public transport); or higher fixed charges, penalising everyone who has a car, including those who make little or no use of it.