h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6160877.stm

"Pay-as-you-drive road tolls are an unavoidable answer to Britain's traffic congestion, a government-commissioned report is to say."

Surprise surprise. The government have identified another cash cow, so expect to see a lot more of these "reports" and "studies". It's all absolute boswolox.

Why, to my knowledge, is no other country in the world contemplating this? We don't have the most congested roads. We don't have the highest car ownership. We do have a government that taxes everything in sight, again and again and again. Road Tax more than paid for the pitiful roads network we have several times over. When people started taking note of this and asked where the extra money was going, they just changed the name to Road Licence.

Pay per mile will seriously damage the economy. Every truck, every van, every company car will be hard hit and it will inevitably lead to higher prices for everybody. They're drooling at the thought of £28bn to play with and I can abso-positively say in advance that only a fraction of this will go to trains & buses.

I do at least 30k a year in a company car. It's a Prius so my company only pays £30 road tax a year. Road pricing has been quoted at up to £1.20 per mile. Even if it's only 25% of that, there's no way my company could absorb £9k a year in extra costs. This will be passed on to customers. Or my job and all the jobs like mine will go. There's probably half a million jobs like mine in the UK - that's £38bn in income tax that the govt is risking, not to mention the £114bn in disposable income being removed from the economy. With costs going up across the board and interest rates rising as we go into recession, where are half a million extra jobs going to come from to replace those lost?

This is tax instead of ideas. We do not have the transport network we need for the 21st century.

Some proposals:

Decentralise Govt Offices into the provincial towns - spread the jobs around and it does two things: it reduces intense concentrations of traffic and it also cools down the overheated property market in the South East.

Stop spending billions on vanity projects like the Olympics and the millenium dome, spend it on infrastructure where it is needed.

Limit cars to 2 litre engines.

Make hybrid cars etc affordable - zero rate tax if necessary.

Ban women drivers, that's half the traffic gone at a stroke.

Make rail freight an affordable option for supermarkets. The 100 mile stretch between Perth & Inverness saw a major drop in traffic when the supermarket started shipping by rail.

"Why, to my knowledge, is no other country in the world contemplating this?"

Hong Kong (or possibly another asian city) has been doing it longer than London.

Thanks Arnie, I never knew that. Is it pay-per-mile or congestion charging?

In Singapore you have to pay a daily fee (it was $30 in 2003) for a permit to drive in the down town area.

Ah, that's different fom what is proposed here, although Herr Livingstone (sometime Mayor of London) is extending the congestion charge area in London despite promising faithfully that he wouldn't.

>Ban women drivers, that's half the traffic gone at a stroke<





It's been nice knowing you, SWL™!

I like to live dangerously

>Ban women drivers, that's half the traffic gone at a stroke.

Hopefully we can all see that one as a joke when it pops it.



...it is a joke, right?

But seriously. 1.20 a *mile*?? That's chronic. It means for me to go an visit parents for Christmas it'll cost me over three hundred pounds *each way*. Happy ing Christmas, Mr Brown.

Only the other day I was deploring how far many people commute vast distances to work, and the huge strain in puts on resources (I walk to work in a little over ten minutes). This proposal, however, is *not* the answer.

"Why, to my knowledge, is no other country in the world contemplating this?"

Could be because many other countries already have other methods for getting money out of motorists - Motorway tolls are the obvious one.

In response to your proposals...

Decentralising the Govt.

Seriously bad idea - ok, it might have the effects you note, but the other major problems with decentralisation is that you end up with multiple agencies doing the same work in different locations around the country - a lack of coherence is then inevitable and you end up spending more on on wages, infrastructure and everything else you could imagine.

That's how it works in France, with each 'departement' running a lot of its own offices - instead of one state run black hole dealing with vehicle licencing, you've got nearly a hundred over here... Instead of one agency dealing with passport applications, you've got literally thousands of offices.
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Limiting cars to 2l engines - wouldn't do anything - motor manufacturers are quite capable of producing 400-500 hp 2l engines.

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Make hybrid cars etc affordable - zero rate tax if necessary.

I've never been totally convinced as to whether hybrids are worth the effort... After all, there's no such thing as a free lunch - (or energy can neither be created nor destroyed) and unless you're accelerating hard and braking often, you're never going to charge up the batteries - and avoiding being leaden footed will probably save you just as much in the long run.

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Ban women drivers, that's half the traffic gone at a stroke.

Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!

I would expect it would just be motorways, no?

So this would be the same as in France and a few other places.

Indeed, I would go further than that, and argue that they will end up doing it selectively, on busy roads at busy times. That would have more the effect of evening out traffic flows a bit, more than actually taking much traffic off the roads.

Just in passing - moving gvmt staff out of London - this has already been done for nearly all staff where this would be possible. Moving policy staff out of London is a bit pointless, as they just end up spending hours on the train coming back in for meetings.

sprout

It is selective for busy roads at busy times, but it will include a charge for quiet roads at quiet times too.

What is worrying me (other than a requirement to have a tracker in my car) is that they keep saying on the radio that the money could be reinvested to improve the road and rail network. I could be wrong, but didn't the tories sell off the rail network a few years ago? So we'd pay more tax in order to supplement the dividends paid to shareholders of TOCs? Not keen on that plan...

You do like to be provocative SWL....

The £1.20 as I am sure you know is the ball park figure for using the busiest roads at the busiest times. Very frequently different roads at diffenrent times will be cheaper.

I dont know if I like this idea, but I do understand there is a principle at stake here. We use our cars too much, and this is damaging the environment, and we all need to look at how we do this. The truth is the onl thing that is going to make people use there cars less is if they cannot afford it. (So the rich get to use them lots but not the poor, sigh)

BTW, I was given to understand that the pay by mile would actually replace fuel duty so as well the increased charges there owuld be decreased ones as well.

I agree that these sorts of changes are madness without comprehensive changes to our public transport network, but IMHO SWL your is a knee jerk anti reaction seemingly based on your opinion of the current governemt.

FB

The £1.20 is the figure being quoted just now - which is why I made assumptions that it would be 75% *less*

Do we use our cars more than any other people in the world? If not, why are we being set up for this draconian system?

Based on three decades of noting the difference between what governments do as opposed to what they say, I'm not holding my breath about sustained cuts in fuel duty.

If somebody proposes a tax that is going to seriously affect my lifestyle as well as that of most everyone else, of course I'll react. The tax itself is a "knee jerk anti reaction " to a congestion problem.
It seems the only thing that left wingers know how to do these days is to tax & ban things.

We need less government, not more.

It could well be a case of hinting at a high figure with the hope that if they introduce a lower cost, everyone will say 'that's not so bad then'.

There's bound to be uproar from rural dwellers where often there just isn't the option of public transport. One could argue that that's a lifestyle choice for some, but much of the transport system has been pruned since people moved there.

I can see some sense in a tax of this kind to encourage commercial traffic off the roads, but unless there is a realistic alternative, it will merely result in higher product prices.

Overall I think we'll all be paying more one way or another without seeing any significant improvement in services.

The bbc did a trial of it a couple of weeks ago - there is probably a link on the website somewhere. The commuters and delivery drivers did least well out of it as you might expect. The school run mum said it wasn't as bad as she thought, but her kids would be going to school on the bus if it was introduced - so a success there.

Quiet rural roads were costed very low (can't quie remember at what level though) so the commuter that had to drive into a city paid very little for the rural, local roads, and a lot for the busy, congested route into the city.

It'll still cost most people more though.

"We need less government, not more."

So you say, I think we tried that in the 80s and are reaping the terrible cost of what Thatcher did now.

The truth is it is aobut more than just congestion, it is aobut emmisions, the environment ands using our cars less.

IMHO only the most blinkered and selfish people dont see that we have to try and tackle the effects our lives have on the environment. Our usage of cars is a *MASSIVE* part of that.

The thing that interests me about this is that this was proposed by the then National (i.e. *conservative*) Government in NZ in the late 90s. They wanted to privatise all roading , put trackers in every car to monitor mileage, and to charge per mile. Fortunately they lost the next election (not because of that policy particularly but because NZers finally got sick of monetarist policy trampling over social policy) and haven't been back in since.


There are countries that use cars less than the UK - The Netherlands comes to mind. In order to reduce congestion (and carbon emmissions and other pollutants), and to generally improve the lives of city dwellers, you have to put money into public transport systems. This has been done well in many countries.

"IMHO only the most blinkered and selfish people dont see that we have to try and tackle the effects our lives have on the environment. Our usage of cars is a *MASSIVE* part of that"

Rubbish.

This "Scheme" is nothing more than a naked and rabid attack on car users to extort cash from them. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly deluded. If this nutcase idea ever comes in, then I will make it my lifes work to screw it up by taking four hours to drive to work at 10mph down the twisty country roads. By causing one man rolling road blocks, I think that is the only way I can protest.

This morning I spent two hours in traffic to get to a 9.10am hospital appointment for my son (who is 4) The hospital is on a busy commuter route and there are a variety of roadworks along it. We saw the consultant at 12.10pm. If we had been charged by the mile it wouldn't necessarily have cost that much (it's not really that far away) but there is no direct bus route to it from where I live.

My partner, however, has to drive 25 miles, every Wednesday, to take his mum to hospital (she's virtually housebound) and because of the distance uses a motorway. IF the charges are only to be used on busy commuter routes and motorways, the cost would be far too much for either of us to pay. My MIL would have to rely on taxis to get her to and from hospital. Not a problem, possibly, but you can never tell how long you will be in these 'clinics' in NHS hospitals and she would be all on her own (not a prospect my partner relishes as she can spew some rather 'choice' opinions about other clinic users to anyone who will listen - and even if they won't )

Get the public transport system and the roads sorted (so there is less liklihood of people being caught in jams because the Water Board, Gas, Electricity companies etc are doing seperate roadworks) BEFORE you try and introduce yet another tax!

my swipe at the NHS is purely justified, why ask to people to come 9.05 and then not bother to see them 'til 12.10? I know some of these consultants need to see emergencies, but that has always been the case, why not employ more doctors?

The argument seems to go: punitively tax people to force them onto public transport and use the tax revenue to improve public transport.

Why not improve public transport first then offer people a choice?