Tolls that have to be paid online

[Fianceechickie]

We live nearish the new Mersey bridge in Runcorn. You can't pay there and then, there are no booths and you have to remember to go online and pay when to get home. Is it me, or is that a neat way of money grabbing? Cheap for the operator who doesn't have to put in toll booths and people are bound to forget, being tired, busy, other things to do and they can just fine you then. DH been fined twice in the last few months having forgotten to pay the £2 when he gets home on evenings he's used it. On one occasion he paid for one trip that same day but forgot he'd driven across it again. You can set up an account but there's a £10 fee and £20 minimum top up. I've seen this on roads in Ireland too. I've not used it because I just know i would forget to pay!

You were the one that used the example of going on holiday.

in response to:

It just makes logical sense that you pay your toll when you use it

I was suggesting that by the same token, why don't you pay for your holiday "when you use it" ?

Okay well you can actually just turn up at the airport and buy a flight. Will cost you though. But people book because it is a scarce commodity. So makes no sense as a comparison.

It's not fair that you should have to use the internet and have an internet device to pay tolls.

OK, let's accept it's not fair. Let's accept that people who are "militantly offline" aren't going to use technology.

Roll on ten years, to 2028. Do you believe that there is going to be a sudden uprising and a return to five pound notes and cheques in envelopes, or that the move to online payment will have increased? Those who are shouting "it's not fair", do you think anyone is listening? So leaving aside "it's the principle", "it's not fair", "what about the orbital mind control lasers", which do you think is going to work better: overcoming your prejudices and using a mobile device, or continuing to yell "it's not fair" and continuing to disengage?

My father-in-law claimed he'd never use a debit card, for reasons which were incoherent. He now uses a debit card, for the simple reason that the cheques that "everyone" would be accepting from now until the end of time aren't accepted for food, fuel or much anything else.

It's a seemingly common process. Change is proposed. Some people decide that change is bad, while 90% of the population embrace it. Because "Won't! Shan't! Not fair!" isn't a good look for people who aren't toddlers, elaborate arguments are constructed about how it excludes the elderly, the disabled, the poor and a range of other sympathetic groups, or that it's encouraging the orbital mind control lasers. That the overlap of those groups with the problem domain is very small, or that there are other solutions, or that the change is actually better (the "computers, what about the blind? eh?" argument appears entirely resistant to the fact that screen readers and online brailers are utterly transformational compared to paper) or that the orbital mind control lasers aren't a real problem is ignored, and the elaborate arguments are made more elaborate to appear reasonable.

We had this over chip and pin: whatever happened to chip and signature? Over mobile phones; the people now saying "I only used my old fashioned phone" are the people who twenty years ago said they'd never have a mobile phone. Over DTV, when there was a large fund established to help "the old people" use digital TVs which was a complete waste of money, as the problem didn't exist: the surplus is now funding rural broadband, I believe. Over direct debit, ATMs, credit cards, computers, telephones, microwave ovens, automatic chokes on cars, and, and and.

Technology changes. Some people dig their heels in. Most people don't. A generation later, no-one cares any more.

It is not as simple as people going waaahhh.

Lots of people have explained why because of age or disability some people can not access services online. Your attitude to that is fuck them.

Technology changes. Some people dig their heels in. Most people don't. A generation later, no-one cares any more.

Arthur C Clarke was more pithy

Lots of people have explained why because of age or disability some people can not access services online.

Whereas my DW, who eyesight is fucked and uses a wheelchair has found the development of doing things online a lifeline. Especially the accessibility features unavailable previously.

Okay well you can actually just turn up at the airport and buy a flight.

Easyjet? Ryanair? Are you sure?

They work on flights being fully booked.

Lots of people have explained why because of age or disability some people can not access services online.

And yet when you ask actual disabled people they say something completely different. The lives of people who are blind have been transformed by assistive technology, particularly screen readers and screen magnifiers.

Can people with certain disabilities use unadapted IT? No. They can't use unadapted cars, either, and where this blowup started was with people who own and operate motorcars. The people who physically cannot use IT, but can drive cars, is a vanishingly small set, and minor adaptations to the IT would fix it (they by definition have good visual acuity, and by definition have reasonable dexterity with at least one limb).

After that it's not can't, it's won't, and yes, my answer to them is "your problem, mate".

^Okay well you can actually just turn up at the airport and buy a flight.

Easyjet? Ryanair? Are you sure^

Of course you can. These airlines all have a ticket office in the airport, or you could book a ticket yourself on your phone. They just need to have a spare seat. They like flights to be full, and they sometimes are, but far from always and if you are stood in an airport and there are Easyjet, Ryanair or any other budget airlines leaving soon with spare seats, they will be more than happy to take money off you to fly with them.

Same thing in Sydney for certain roads and bridges.

Apart from for foreigners, like us, whom the clunky website can’t process and you have to ring them to sort it, locals don’t seem to find it a problem at all. No queues!

OK, I'm happy to be corrected on Easyjet.

I'm not convinced "You can buy Easyjet tickets at the airport, therefore you should shut down current charging mechanisms for toll roads" is a winner, but I now know something I didn't.

cuboidal The issue is not people who are totally blind. That level of disabled people may get help getting adaptive technology. It is people who develop issues which mean they do not qualify for help with adaptive technology, but can not use it. Like my FIL who has had a stroke. He can walk, cook simple meals, but can not manage a keyboard, and cheap voice recognition will not work for him.

I know voice recognition stuff never works for me because of my accent. I would need more expensive stuff. So if I can'y use my keyboard, I could not access online without spending a lot of money.

Do you know how much some of this stuff costs? And most people in this situation rightly prioritise saving to buy a motorised scooter.

A small proportion of individuals are unable to do things most adults can do. The solution is they get someone to help them, not that we always design the world to cater for the exceptions.

Except that we do in some cases. We require new buildings to be wheelchair-accessible, we put bumpy bits on pavements so the small proportion of pedestrians with visual impairments know where there is a crossing, we install loops in cinemas and big meeting rooms to help those with hearing impairments.

Like my FIL who has had a stroke. He can walk, cook simple meals, but can not manage a keyboard, and cheap voice recognition will not work for him.

Clearly he isn't driving, so whether or not he can pay bridge tolls is irrelevant.

But more generally, which online service does he now require where (a) he could use the predecessor and (b) the predecessor has been withdrawn?

Voice recognition is just software, and Alexa/Google are just loss leaders to develop the deep data it works with. Within a few years the capability will have massively improved. Are you saying that your accent is such that "Alexa, turn on the lights" doesn't work for you? Can people understand you on the phone?

I am perfectly happy to agree that provision of IT equipment for those in need is a pressing issue, and we should prioritise that in the same way that a generation ago we prioritised "essential use" telephones. That's a very different issue to "but they can't use it anyway".

And as I keep returning to, the fact that there is someone down the road with a particular handicap for whom a particular piece of IT doesn't work is not an argument for people who are perfectly capable to use to justify refusing to learn to use it.

I find the argument that paying by cash is easier to be really strange, in almost any circumstance I find having to pay with cash the most awkward way of making payment. It requires actually going to a cash point to retrieve cash and then keeping enough on you for whatever you may want to spend, as opposed to just having your bank card with access to as much of your money as you need when you need it.

I never carry cash, on the very odd occasion I have no choice and have to go get cash out and then get change it's a massive pain (thankfully it's rare I ever need to use cash!)

meredintofpandiculation there's a massive difference between doing all we can to facilitate someone with a disability to interact with society in the same manner as someone without a disability (which is crucial for a humane society!) and making changes for people who simply refuse to utilise technology despite being perfectly capable of doing so.

I have zero problems with prices at a business going up so they can spend on a new ramp for a wheelchair. People with disabilities deserve every opportunity to have the environment around them made less disabling. I would take a dim view of a business raising prices to spend money on changing or adding systems for a small minority of people who have nothing barring them from integrating like everyone else but stubbornness.

"And as I keep returning to, the fact that there is someone down the road with a particular handicap for whom a particular piece of IT doesn't work is not an argument for people who are perfectly capable to use to justify refusing to learn to use it."

Said much more eloquently than me.

But nonetheless, people are free to refuse to use normal technology. But they cannot then complain about being excluded and not pandered to.

We require new buildings to be wheelchair-accessible, we put bumpy bits on pavements so the small proportion of pedestrians with visual impairments know where there is a crossing, we install loops in cinemas and big meeting rooms to help those with hearing impairments.

Absolutely. And we should absolutely do that with IT, and we should absolutely drop a hammer on organisations, particularly government and quasi-government organisations, which build web sites which are not accessible for those assistive technologies. As we make our physical environment friendlier for people with disabilities, so we should for our virtual environments. It should go without saying, but it needs to be said.

That isn't an argument for people without any disability beyond apathy, nor is it an argument to arbitrarily limit development just because there are some grounds who can't access it. There will also be some subset of the population who require assistance to use anything, whether by assistive design or in the limit by people helping, and for things other than militant refusal and lumpen indifference, society should pay for that access out of taxation and businesses should be forced if necessary to similarly adapt.

But if ambulant forty year olds want to travel on a London bus and have no reason other than "it's not fair, I want to pay cash, waah waah waah" to get either an Oyster Card or a Contactless payment card, then it's no-one's problem other than theirs. Saying that does not imply indifference to those who genuinely have issues, but the solutions to those issues are almost always already in place or relatively easy to put in place, and the "what about the old folk" argument is being advanced to justify something much less reasonable.

Or are you saying meredin that there's no difference between mr smith who has no choice but to use a wheelchair to get around, and Mrs brown who is making a personal choice to be 'militantly offline'? It's kinda insulting to people with disabilities to imply that others who are disabling themselves by refusing to use normal processes in our society should be entitled to the same level of consideration and adaptation :/

Everything now is for "their" convenience, we have no choice. Welcome to UK Shitsville.

And totally agree with crunchymint:

Lots of people have explained why because of age or disability some people can not access services online. Your attitude to that is fuck them

Lemonshark I was replying to your "are unable". There are people who are unable to use the internet in ways that other people take for granted. It's not a matter of stubbornness, it's a matter of cognitive and physical decline which affects some people, mainly elderly. And there are others for whom it is very difficult. I'm saying there's no difference in Mr Smith who needs a wheelchair, and Mrs Brown who can't get her head round internet banking because it's so different to what she grew up with, and is just that one step too far past the differences she learned with increasing difficulty during her adult years, Mrs Jones, who can use the internet slowly, but whose fine motor control means she can't type numbers accurately, can't use the cursor to highlight stuff to cut and paste, and finds websites time-out before she's got the information in, and Mr Evans who forgets instructions, forgets how to find them in his notebook where he's written them down, and gets confused as to which instruction is which.

There are actually quite a few strong accents in different parts of Britain. Voice technology is in its infancy. I have not tried Alexa. But whenever there is a voice technology option on a telephone helpline it never works for me and i am always put through to the operator.

To make sure everyone can use online services in the future there needs to be a big improvement in voice technology, cheaper adaptive technology and very easy to use options.

Most people who are disabled are disabled through chronic illness as they get older.

And paying by cash is way easier.