New Road Tax proposal

[Gooders]

All,

 

Got this through the good old e-mail. Interesting and I have signed the petition, last count 1,277,000 ish. Not sure if this is the right place to put this but think it could do with max publicity.

 

If you drive a car in the UK, please read -

Sarah Kennedy was talking about this proposed car tax scheme on Radio 2.

Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the 'Pay As You Go' road tax.

The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it and 750,000 signatures are required for the goverment to at least take any notice.

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.

The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill.

If you are concerned about this Orwellian plan and want to stop the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible. Sign up if you value your freedom and democratic rights -

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax

Gooders

[Bailiffchaser]

The government knows how to talk a load of bollocks doesnt it !!!

[Bailiffchaser]

just an idea. Can somebody not draag the government in for their shady advertising of proposals ? as the way they do it is out of date ?

[PriorityOne]

Have just signed it.

[Bailiffchaser]

I Signed On Monday !!!!

[tevion]

just signed it

[give_me_it_back]

Signed. This is criminal!

[MrShed]

Signed or not signed, I cant see this ever becoming law. At least, not at the rates bandied about.

[give_me_it_back]

I think there would be a huge public uprising.

[MrShed]

At those kind of rates, they may as well just outlaw cars and be done with it!! It would become the most hated tax ever introduced, even more than poll tax, and it would descend the country into chaos. Even Labour arent that stupid!!

 

With regards the proposals, out of curiosity, who would still object to it IF the rates were changed? I would not AS LONG AS the average driver(10-11k per year) would end up paying about the same as they do now - in fact I would probably support it.

[PriorityOne]

Signed or not signed, I cant see this ever becoming law. At least, not at the rates bandied about.

 

 

I can remember joking that the Poll Tax would never become law...

 

When it came into force, my household bills shot up by around £150 a month ....and that was without the huge hykes in motgage interest rates that were happening at the same time. It's a miracle I survived at all... lol.

 

Don't ever under-estimate the government....

[raverbaby1]

Trouble is with the UK we just accept what we're told, look what happened when we tried to oppose the fuel tax rise we made a small point then rolled over. If this sort of thing happened in the states there would be riots, we need to put our foots down a bit more. Little by little our freedoms being taken away and we're just being given more boundaries i think. Why should we be limited to where we are allowed to drive by this new charge? Some it may not be a problem for, but what about oap's or single parents on a budget?

[MrShed]

Raver you hit there on an inherent problem with the CURRENT system. There are massive fixed costs on motoring, which apply whether you drive 1 mile or 50000 miles a year. Car tax, insurance, the cost of AGE BASED depreciation are just three. The only real variable cost is the petrol cost. This makes motoring taxation a very regressive taxation system - in other words, it proportionately taxes the lower users MORE. Surely this is more hard hitting on the likes of OAPs and single parents then the proposed system? At least in comparison with other drivers, maybe not in comparison with their incomes.

 

Note I do not for one second actually support the system proposed in its current form. But I would support a considerably more progressive system, whereby the biggest users pay the biggest cost, and visa versa. I consider it unfair that my grandparents, who maybe drive 2000 miles a year, have to pay exactly the same costs as me(in fact less, as my car has lower emissions) before they can even step into a vehicle, when I drive 12k per year. And the same as to why I should pay that, when someone driving 50-60k a year would again pay exactly the same.

[Gooders]

Apparently all 1.7 million of us that signed the petition have got/will get the following response by TB

 

Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website.

This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.

It made clear that congestion is a major problem to which there is no easy answer. One aspect of the study was highlighting how road pricing could provide a solution to these problems and that advances in technology put these plans within our reach. Of course it would be ten years or more before any national scheme was technologically, never mind politically, feasible.

That is the backdrop to this issue. As my response makes clear, this is not about imposing "stealth taxes" or introducing "Big Brother" surveillance. This is a complex subject, which cannot be resolved without a thorough investigation of all the options, combined with a full and frank debate about the choices we face at a local and national level. That's why I hope this detailed response will address your concerns and set out how we intend to take this issue forward. I see this email as the beginning, not the end of the debate, and the links below provide an opportunity for you to take it further.

But let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so. We are, for now, working with some local authorities that are interested in establishing local schemes to help address local congestion problems. Pricing is not being forced on any area, but any schemes would teach us more about how road pricing would work and inform decisions on a national scheme. And funds raised from these local schemes will be used to improve transport in those areas.

One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.

Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015. This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue.

Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains - helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers now help to keep motorway traffic moving.

But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.

One option would be to allow congestion to grow unchecked. Given the forecast growth in traffic, doing nothing would mean that journeys within and between cities would take longer, and be less reliable. I think that would be bad for businesses, individuals and the environment. And the costs on us all will be real - congestion could cost an extra £22 billion in wasted time in England by 2025, of which £10-12 billion would be the direct cost on businesses.

A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.

Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would entail.

That is why I believe that at least we need to explore the contribution road pricing can make to tackling congestion. It would not be in anyone's interests, especially those of motorists, to slam the door shut on road pricing without exploring it further.

It has been calculated that a national scheme - as part of a wider package of measures - could cut congestion significantly through small changes in our overall travel patterns. But any technology used would have to give definite guarantees about privacy being protected - as it should be. Existing technologies, such as mobile phones and pay-as-you-drive insurance schemes, may well be able to play a role here, by ensuring that the Government doesn't hold information about where vehicles have been. But there may also be opportunities presented by developments in new technology. Just as new medical technology is changing the NHS, so there will be changes in the transport sector. Our aim is to relieve traffic jams, not create a "Big Brother" society.

I know many people's biggest worry about road pricing is that it will be a "stealth tax" on motorists. It won't. Road pricing is about tackling congestion.

Clearly if we decided to move towards a system of national road pricing, there could be a case for moving away from the current system of motoring taxation. This could mean that those who use their car less, or can travel at less congested times, in less congested areas, for example in rural areas, would benefit from lower motoring costs overall. Those who travel longer distances at peak times and in more congested areas would pay more. But those are decisions for the future. At this stage, when no firm decision has been taken as to whether we will move towards a national scheme, stories about possible costs are simply not credible, since they depend on so many variables yet to be investigated, never mind decided.

Before we take any decisions about a national pricing scheme, we know that we have to have a system that works. A system that respects our privacy as individuals. A system that is fair. I fully accept that we don't have all the answers yet. That is why we are not rushing headlong into a national road pricing scheme. Before we take any decisions there would be further consultations. The public will, of course, have their say, as will Parliament.

We want to continue this debate, so that we can build a consensus around the best way to reduce congestion, protect the environment and support our businesses. If you want to find out more, please visit the attached links to more detailed information, and which also give opportunities to engage in further debate.

Yours sincerely,

 

Tony Blair

So still not getting that warm and fluffy feeling from the response:-| tho

Gooders