Petitiion to stop 'Pay As You Go' Driving

[Radley]

Hi All



Please read the below and act upon it asap - deadline is 20 February...



Subject: Tax on Cars



Radio 2 talked about the proposed Road Pricing car tax scheme on the radio.

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 the comments only 250,000 people have signed it so far and 750,000 signatures are required to stop them introducing it. 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 Stay at home 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 care about our freedom and stopping 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.


petition

[Fillyjonk]

nope, think its a good idea

[Callisto]

I thought over a million people had signed the petition already?

[Radley]

I've not idea callisto, I got the e-mail today

[Callisto]

I think so if it is the same report I read about it in yesterdays Torygraph. I actually think making driving more expensive can only be a good thing so apologies, but I won't be signing.

[Fillyjonk]

you ae nicer than me cal

8 or 9 people have emailed me to get me to sign so am getting a bit short about it, for which I apologise

cars are destryoing the environment. and the kill lots of people. we need to use less of them, sorry.

[FiachraFrog]

Agree in principle to stop Pay as You Go driving but a petition will NOT stop anything, it only registers people's opinions - it is not legally binding.

[SenoraPostrophe]

I agree with the tax in principle, but I do think the system is silly. why not just increase tax on petrol? This government is suffering from a serious case of delusional technophilia if you ask me. Is there another petition which makes that objection?

[lulumama]

over 1 million people have already signed and the downing street wesbite crashed under the amount of people accessing the petition

[Fillyjonk]

lulu can i pick your brian re doula training sometime ?

[AngharadGoldenhand]

How can making driving more expensive be a good thing? I'm a SAHM and I use my car only for shopping at a supermarket or taking the kids to school.
I usually shop after dropping off the kids as it's in the same direction.

There is no bus service to the kids' school.

If the Government brought in charges for driving, it would not encourage me to stop using the car as I don't have an alternative. It's just another tax.

What they should be doing is bringing in school buses (dh says the roads are about 60% emptier this week) and giving tax incentives to companies allowing people to work from home.

[lulumama]

yes filly, you may, and mars is very helpful, especially as she has RL work ! i am still waiting for my doula uk membership to be processed !! 3 months later x am also thinking about midwifery, or training as an ante natal teacher..i see you are considering similar ! xx must go , speak later


lulumama 21 @ hotmail. com

[Fillyjonk]

"How can making driving more expensive be a good thing?"

seriously?

climate change?

kids killed by cars?

us running out of oil?

Its our kids who are going to inherit this bllx'd up world, you know

[lulumama]

if this does come in, it will do to labour, what poll tax did to the tories IMHO

[Fillyjonk]

lulu you are very kind, I am going to email you later

[AngharadGoldenhand]

Yes, seriously.

Until there are viable alternatives in place.

[Furball]

but there should be a suitable alternative. Where I live, there isn't.

[Fillyjonk]

well petition for those then

put all this energy into petitions for decent bus services etc

i am telling you, we are buggered environmentally and cars are one of the big contributers to it

[Fillyjonk]

imo its all of our responsibilty to fight for these serives

not just "the govermnet£

[Cloudhopper]

People who can afford it will just pay it.

It will force poorer people onto public transport rather than having the freedom to drive.

Once upon a time I would have been in favour of this, having been rabidly anti-car in my youth. We walked everywhere, shopped on the bus etc.

Six months of being virtually unable to walk with SPD, with two little children have changed my mind.

That is why I am against this, because it will penalise people who need a car the most.

[Fillyjonk]

yes but surely they are going to make some allowance for mobility vehicles, most schemes do.

most people are not in the situation you describe, cloud.

I regularly drive to the shops, 30 minutes walk away, becuase I am too fecking lazy to do the walk with 2 screaming kids. When there I see all my local mummy friends...

We are generally far too dependent on our cars and a lot of us need a kick up the ar$e that hurricanes in kensal rise aren't doing for us.

[Furball]

yes but a 30 minute walk with or without kids is fine on the way there, but what about on the way home laden with a weeks worth of shopping especially if any of it is cilled or frozen.

[AngharadGoldenhand]

I couldn't walk home with my shopping - too many bags, arthritis starting in my elbows and shoulders. No bus.

[Cloudhopper]

I'm not denying that fillyjonk, but I just can't help but feel that any discount system would be abused on the one hand and ineffective for everyone who needs it.

My other problem with this system is that because it is designed to tackle congestion rather than emissions, it would actually load the cost onto people living in more congested areas. They would pay more for fewer miles, and people in sparsely populated areas would pay less for higher emissions.

Someone in a 4x4 on a country estate would benefit, and someone in a SMART car in a city would pay a lot more.

If, as they plan, it is cost neutral, it will have the effect of increasing carbon dioxide emissions, not reducing them.

[Cloudhopper]

My other concern is handing any government such an opaque tax-raising scheme. It may be cost neutral in year 1, but watch those costs rise over time.

They will just use it to price the poor off the roads. It is precisely the introduction of the car to poor families in recent times that is increasing congestion. Wealthier people have always driven everywhere.

Making it more expensive to have a car and to drive urban miles will lock poorer people out of job opportunities, cheaper supermarket shopping, choices of childcare, increased personal safety in rough areas.

I could go on.

[eleusis]

MAking driving more expensive can only be a good thing if an alternative mode of trasportation is then more attractive. But the cost of public transport is so expensive and unreliable that there is no such alternative in this country.

I can not walk to work. It is too far. Public transport would require 3 trains and waiting for them would take too long,not to mention the train ticket would be more than the costs associated with the car.

So, adding a tax is simply going to take more money from me and not offer me any viable tranportation options.