unclebuck

In the light of comments on this thread:

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...=433301&page=2

about there being 'surveys and surveys' Let's see if we get a different result to the 16% percent against road charging quoted by conducting a Scoobynet poll.

Dream Weaver

It depends what sort of miles you do each year and how it would be done.

If it was paid annually like road tax and based on mileage I wouldnt mind, but if it was alongside tax and you had to have gadgets in the car taking CC payments then it would be crap.

Freak

In principal its a good idea

the reality will be a rip off and an unworkable mess!

Can you honestly see the govt scrapping fuel duty, and unleaded costing under 25p a litre???? will never happen.

Anywhere else it could work- but in the uk? noooooooooo

OllyK

You perhaps should have added a survey (assuming it isn't taking its time to show up).

I don't have an issue with paying for what I use, I object when the government want to use methods that allows the collection of a whole load of additional data about my movements that are irrelevant to charging me for road use.

Also combine this with the other suppoed big issues of pollution etc and there is nothing there to take account of this. I still think taxation via petrol is the fairest way to collect the funds and it is also very hard to actually get round travelling in a car without having bought petrol

MattW

Would be an expensive economic nightmare, although I don't in principle have anything against charging e.g Road Tolls.

Hanslow

No - based on the current proposals.

Possibly if something workable was introduced.

Vegescoob

No.
An aspect no one has mentioned is that, by making the cost of car travel more expensive and moving people towards public transport, the cost of that public transport can be increased significantly. So long as it costs that little bit less than car use the Government can argue that that is the better method.
While probably seeing a greater tax take also.
Then of course you will need your ID card to use public transport.
All in the interest of security of course.
I could write the bl@@dy script.

Leslie

Everyone seems to be assuming that VED and fuel tax would be abolished. On the day this was published, Darling said in an interview that he expected that VED and fuel tax would be "reduced".

The VED we pay goes into the Government's coffers and they spend approximately 20% of it to maintain the road system.

The road charging scheme will be a way to make huge sums of money from us all and also a way to know where we are at all times should we leave our homes.

Les

FlightMan

Darling wa son Radio 5 this morning and Nicky Campbell asked him 4 times, will tax on fuel and VED be scrapped.

He dodged the question everytime, so theres your answer.

He also said that rather than forcing people off the roads, road charging would "encourage" motorists to use busy roads at times, other than rush hour.

Moron. The only way to reduced rush hour congestion is by encouraging working from home and flexi time.

Am I in favour. No!

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

No

We are charged too much already, of which a fraction is re-invested. We already have a pay as you drive tax in the fuel duty, so this proposal must only be a smokescreen for the real reason for fitting monitoring devices in our cars.

I will never fit one.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Absolutely NOT
I'm sure my employer will be happy if I turn up at 10am and go home at a time to avoid "rush hour".
Just another way to tax tax tax the road users.
And people voted them back in........

unclebuck

Sorry got called to a meeting before I could add the Poll, but it's there now.

moses

i think its time someone sorted out the goverment they already use us as cattle and destroy us financially i cant believe the b@stards are gonna start charging a pound something a mile, wtf r they doing they need to be slaughtered

Geezer

How would this system work for business related travel? I travel to W Yorkshire and Edinburgh regularly, so will I have to record exact times and roads as well as mileage? The satellite certianly won't know I'm on business, so when I get charged, how am I going to quantify what is personal?

[bends over and drops pants, waiting for government offical]

Geezer

TelBoy

You're asking the opinions a performance car site fraternity?

What will you do with the heavily biased results??

Dream Weaver

So how long til the Mad Max era, where we all hide our performance cars in garages and bring them out at weekends untaxed, uninsured etc and the roads turn into total anarchy as well

lightning101

Chavs are doing it 7 days a week now. "But we don't need to look anywhere apart from a computer screen" to catch you.

BOB.T

I don't see how they can say paying to use a road will reduce congestion but it's not another tax, penalty or an attempt to price people out of cars, it just doesn't stack up! Maybe when you pay the road magically gets better?

How much is this gonna cost us, if it's a penny a mile that's gonna be at least 1500 quid a year I'm gonna have to find...I'll bare my **** if they drop road tax and tax on fuel...and who pays the GPS gizmo, not Tony I bet and I bet there'll be an annual subscription to the GPS operating gubbins!

Dracoro

You do 150,000 miles a year

BOB.T

You see, under a Labour government education standards can slip even after leaving school!!!!

brihoppy

i hate the current government with a passion...id love 5 mins alone in a locked room with blair, prescott or straw...and i hate the fact that they appear to have targeted the motorist yet again...but what can we do about it...?! obviously there were changes made after the poll tax demonstrations, and with good reason as there didnt seem to be any sense at all to it, but can we take that kind of action when the govt try and justify road charges by saying its for the benefit of the country...?

i just really dont know anymore, and i hate myself for my apathy, but it winds me right up ill tell you that...!!!

brihoppy

although i did have this thought re. goods vehicles, dont know for one minute how practical it is...any thoughts...?!

restrict the movement of HGV transports, etc to between, say 2300 and 0600 on all major roads and motorways, but make diesel available to them at massively reduced cost...this would have 2 effects as i can see...it would appease the haulage trade in their quest for cheaper fuel and certainly would reduce congestion on the roads at most times during the day...

secondly, i think most congestion is caused simply by bad driving, rubbernecking and tailgating being 2 of the main causes...raise the standard of driving in the country and we might be halfway to a solution...!

OllyK

I couldn't vote for "I will never allow any tracking device to be fitted to my car " as I already have one fitted as a security measure. I wouldn't stand for a government issued one though

Iwan

I voted yes but only because my mileage is really low, so it would probably save me money. I'd imagine i'm in the tiny minority though. I'm not so worried about the tracking aspect, i carry a mobile 24/7 so if big brother wants to track me they can already.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Please don't forget that a Government sponsored GPS tracking box with detailed maps in every car, is a pre-requisite for the implementation of ISA ('Intelligent Speed Adaptation'), the technology that physically limits the speed of your car at the prevailing speed limit or whatever other speed is deemed by the system owners to be safe for a given stretch of road.

It would be naive to assume that the road pricing black box wouldn't also include, or be capable of being upgraded to include, ISA functionality. Road charging alone might be a bit less controversial, but it would put the infrastructure in place for even more intrusive measures.

OllyK

The ability exists and I suspect they would need authority from a judge to actually gain that information. The new tracker (unless the bill is calculated onboard) means they will have that information without having to get authority from a judge, it would be un-controlled.

As a matter of interest what is your anual mileage? You only need to do 8,500 on the lowest tolled roads to rack up the same as the road tax. If you do the average of 12,000 or more I suspect you are going to get stuffed.

OllyK

A GPS based ISA system - now won't that be fun when you drive in to a tunnel and loose signal - what's it going to do? The road fatality rate will go through the roof with ISA.

Iwan

I'd say around 4000-6000 miles a year at the moment. Only because I moved house last year and now live about 5 minutes walk from my office. I rarely use the car during the week, it's just a plaything and for going out places occasionally. Put it this way, if i fill my scooby's tank up the Optimax goes off and I start getting det by about the time the tank is half full.

I honestly wouldn't mind the road charging device in my car, if it changed and started being used for ISA then i'd be a bit more worried. Though to be honest it's getting very hard to enjoy driving a car hard without getting caught these days anyway, so again i'm not sure even ISA would be a life shattering problem for me.

I'm not trolling, just giving an honest answer. I'd also agree that this won't be a good thing for lots of people, but that wasn't the question being asked.

^Qwerty^

It's a fantastic idea.

I'm fed up with being stuck in slow moving traffic on the M62, M1 and M621 every morning into Leeds. Using the proposed government figures I've worked out that it will cost me £93 a day in tolls to drive into Leeds and back.
So if I do that over 47 weeks a year that comes to a grand total of £21855. On top of that I'll still have to buy petrol at approx 30p a litre, pay £5 a day to park......... then the other running costs.........

Of course I could catch the train......Ooooo, I forgot, can't do that, because the last train to my local station leaves before I have time to walk from the office to the station. Shame really..... ahhh, just a minute, I forgot that there is no car parking at my local station anyway, or at least not unless you get up at 05:30hrs to get one of the few spaces available.

Maybe I should get on my pushbike and cycle to the station, maybe Mr Darling should try riding a push bike for a mile and 1/2 in all weathers, with two bags (one with laptop)

Maybe Mr Darling, I like all the other people who get stuck in slow moving traffic every morning do it for the laugh. We don't do it because we have to do we? We don't do it to pay the already ridiculous amounts of tax you already charge us for doing just about anything but breathing, so you can finance the complete breakdown in the fabric and morality of this country.....

Mr Darling; your sir are a grade 1, class A *****

gsm1

I doubt they'd use it to replace duty on fuel. That would encourage people to buy fuel guzzlers.
Before all this there needs to be a clampdown on uninsured drivers with stolen/unregistered cars and cloned number plates.