Beware - changes in parking regulations in University Area

warmhands.coldheart

tara747 wrote: »

.....FWIW, I'd be in favour of scrapping VED and adding it onto fuel duty instead. That way, those who drive (and pollute) the most would pay the most. What is your view?

I'd second that!! A lot less bureaucratic too..

almillar

and shopping doesn't cause 56 deaths per year in Northern Ireland!

Hold your horses/cars/bikes!

My driving didn't cause any deaths. That's a driving standards issue, not a driving numbers issue, which is what we're talking about. I absolutely agree that 'motor taxes' should contribute towards the health service, environmental budgets etc, to offset the impact 'motoring' has on these things.
Pedestrians, cyclists, horseriders are more than welcome to use the road without paying a penny, fine by me.
I would disagree with the TOTAL amout of motoring taxes not paying for our roads, I think they would pay for them many times over. Put simply, I don't believe your assertion that drivers are being subsidised by non drivers. Don't just seperate out VED - think of the tax we pay on buying a car, insuring, 80% tax is it on fuel?, parking charges, maintenance.
VED being lowered for low emmission cars isn't about running the road network, it's about the environment, but it's a good thing. Lowers the value of a lot of cars, and sends them to the scrap heap sooner, which I don't think is very good for the environment, but overall, good. BTW it's not moneysaving to pay £10,000 for a car to save £180 per year in tax ;-)
I disagree about scrapping VED. You've made the often used point that people will do PAYG tax - the more you drive, the more fuel you use, the more duty you pay. Well hold on, we do that anyway, just with a baseline tax at the start. I'd also mention that plenty of people are kept in jobs administering VED but I can't defend it any other way...

tara747

almillar wrote: »

Hold your horses/cars/bikes!

My driving didn't cause any deaths. That's a driving standards issue, not a driving numbers issue, which is what we're talking about. I absolutely agree that 'motor taxes' should contribute towards the health service, environmental budgets etc, to offset the impact 'motoring' has on these things.
Pedestrians, cyclists, horseriders are more than welcome to use the road without paying a penny, fine by me.
I would disagree with the TOTAL amout of motoring taxes not paying for our roads, I think they would pay for them many times over. Put simply, I don't believe your assertion that drivers are being subsidised by non drivers. Don't just seperate out VED - think of the tax we pay on buying a car, insuring, 80% tax is it on fuel?, parking charges, maintenance.
VED being lowered for low emmission cars isn't about running the road network, it's about the environment, but it's a good thing. Lowers the value of a lot of cars, and sends them to the scrap heap sooner, which I don't think is very good for the environment, but overall, good. BTW it's not moneysaving to pay £10,000 for a car to save £180 per year in tax ;-)
I disagree about scrapping VED. You've made the often used point that people will do PAYG tax - the more you drive, the more fuel you use, the more duty you pay. Well hold on, we do that anyway, just with a baseline tax at the start. I'd also mention that plenty of people are kept in jobs administering VED but I can't defend it any other way...

1.
I'm not saying that your driving caused any deaths. What I'm saying is that there were 56 deaths on the roads in NI in 2013, and the vast majority of those were caused by driver error.


2.
Why do you oppose scrapping VED and replacing it with a simpler additional tax on fuel?


3.
I'd be interested in looking at the figures for total motoring-related taxes if you (or anyone) could get them together. Though I'm not sure that parking charges or maintenance would count.

What would you compare them with? The total cost of building and maintaining the roads? What about motoring collisions? I read somewhere that each road death costs the UK economy almost £2 million - and with 1,754 road deaths in 2012, that's seriously expensive.

Anyone fancy crunching the numbers??

Witless

Or you could put it into context by quoting other death causes and their costs, like alcohol, drugs, violence?

dmxdave

There was me thinking this thread was about...

Beware - changes in parking regulations in University Area

Witless

dmxdave wrote: »

There was me thinking this thread was about...

Beware - changes in parking regulations in University Area

And there was me thinking this was a money saving board, and parking for free was money saving ...

warmhands.coldheart

Witless wrote: »

And there was me thinking this was a money saving board, and parking for free was money saving ...

Nothing in life is free. Someone has to pay for it ultimately !!

tara747

Witless wrote: »

Or you could put it into context by quoting other death causes and their costs, like alcohol, drugs, violence?

If you recall, almillar said: "motorists put a stash of money in tax into the government" - and then asked whether this entitled them to park wherever they want for free (!).

I pointed out that smokers and drinkers also contribute a lot in taxes. Smoking and drinking do indeed cause deaths, but so does driving. And not just deaths, but life-changing injuries. Aside from the human tragedy of all this, there is the cost in pounds and pence. And I doubt that motoring-related taxes would come close to paying for it.

Remember: each death on the roads costs the UK economy nearly £2 million. Goodness knows the cost of caring for the seriously injured people for the rest of their lives.

These are the official PSNI road collision figures from financial year 2012/13:

http://www.psni.police.uk/annual_report_police_recorded_traffic_collisions_2012.13.pdf

Key findings from 2012/13



During 2012/13 there were 5,766 injury road traffic collisions. These collisions resulted in 9,019 casualties, of whom 53 people were killed, 779 people were seriously injured and 8,187 people were slightly injured.



The number of persons killed or seriously injured was 832, twenty-six lower than the previous year. The difference is comprised of one more fatality and 27 fewer persons seriously injured.



Pedal cyclist casualties have increased by 26.0% over the past five years, from 208 to 262. The number of pedal cyclists killed or seriously injured in 2012/13 was 60, the highest figure since fifteen years ago in 1997/98 when there were 66.

tara747

dmxdave wrote: »

There was me thinking this thread was about...

Beware - changes in parking regulations in University Area

Yes, these threads do have a tendency to go off on a tangent sometimes - but in this case, we are managing to stick fairly closely to the original topic...

Witless wrote: »

And there was me thinking this was a money saving board, and parking for free was money saving ...

It certainly is money saving, but there are simply too many cars for every motorist to have a free parking space.

If you're going to be annoyed at anyone, start with those who use their car for every trip, no matter how short. There would be a huge reduction in congestion if people were willing to use their legs the odd time.

As I said, anyone who is concerned should lobby their MLAs and make transport a major issue at the next election. There should be longer hours for the park and rides, better public transport in all areas, better cycling infrastructure etc.

warmhands.coldheart

tara747 wrote: »

......If you're going to be annoyed at anyone, start with those who use their car for every trip, no matter how short. There would be a huge reduction in congestion if people were willing to use their legs the odd time..

Funny, I was speaking to someone who had been at a "consultation" about residents parking and that's exactly the issue that came up. One, lets say larger lady, was giving off that her Daughter, who lived 4 streets away but outside the proposed area, should get a residents permit as she was at her house nearly every day......... As you say, heaven forbid she should have to walk a couple of hundred yards