Road Pricing on BBC Have Your Say
 

Please add your comments. Lots of like-minded people out there.

http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thre...20060418215939

Clare

The Tele today reported that road pricing was going to cost most motorists more! Now there's a shock:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...18/ixhome.html

Can't see anyone really getting 'that' bothered about it. In relative terms, motoring is rather cheap these days. Think what %age of income it takes to run a car now compared to 20 years ago.

People (here and elsewhere) have been 'getting up in arms' about cost of motoring for the last 10 years but guess what, we're all still here, all driving fast and expensive cars. If it were really that bad, then we'd all be downsizing on a great scale.

Petrol will go up to £1.50 in a few years easily (we're almost 'over' the pyscological £1/litre barrier now), tax will be £3/400 quid and road pricing will become more frequent and expensive. We WILL keep paying it as we can afford it. Once we can't afford it (I mean REALLY can't afford it as opposed to 'don't want to afford it') then cost of motoring will stabilise or come down. However it's got a fair bit of going up before it comes down.

Once cost really becomes an issue and you 'HAVE' to drive then you'll have to ecomise elsewhere, less holidays, less consumer goods, home improvements, lower mortgages (how many bedrooms do you really need) etc. People will have to prioritise rather than spend spend spend. We've had it good for 20 odd years but it's gonna get worse with high house costs and mass comsumer debts and so on. Motoring it just one of these factors.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love motoring to be cheap for ever as I love driving but reality will at some point need to be faced.

...wearing a hair shirt... living in a cave.....

the future is bright... :eek:

Boo, hiss, everyone stone Dracoro, etc etc...

I don't think I want to pay much more for motoring. I don't do many miles in the week and am currently looking at cycling to work due to my company not providing parking for me in town. However, with a small child to get to school and the British weather, how knows how long I can sustain that plan!

However, this is going to have a direct impact on my standard of living and to be honest, I don't want that. My partner drives 100 miles a day to work. He earns more money than he would be able to get in Northampton. If road charging on the M1 came into force at the rates they are proposing, then it would cost him over £30K a year.

So, our options are for him to take a lower paid job near home or to move closer to work. We might be able to afford a 2 bed flat down there ;) Plus, I would have to give up my job because that's close to where we live now, and I couldn't pay the mortgage on my measley public sector pay.

Anyway, this is just fleecing. Perhaps we shouldn't have a good quality of life. Perhaps we don't deserve it and should all go on the dole because we can't afford to get to work. Well done Mr Blair :thumb:

I live in the countryside, over a mile to the nearest local shop which is not a hardship by bike, but try getting into town for a supermarket trip - public transport is extremely limited to say the least.

I also work in London, some 75 miles away. It is my choice to live where I do and work where I do, why should I be penalised for it? By necessity, it will hinder the choices of where people can/can't live with a gravitation back towards towns and onto over-priced and unreliable public transport.

The rich will just carry on paying, its those for whom this (cost) balance could make all the difference, that will suffer.


Oh & I heard a spokesperson on Transport in the Lords for one of the major parties the other day advocating the use of accelerometers in defining road-pricing (amongst GPS etc). So the harder you accelerated/braked and went round corners could affect your costs. WTF :eek: :confused: So we would now have people joining motorways at 20 mph in front of 40-tonners doing 55 just so as not to have to pay more tax? Recipe for massacre :rolleyes: