To wonder what all the fuss is about ULEZ

[Winterday1991]

Hardly anyone is affected, only if you have a very old car. No, you should not be free to pollute the air by driving around in a polluting vehicle and so should have to pay a penalty to do so.

It annoys me as everyone agrees we need to tackle climate change, but no one wants the hit on their life/ change their lifestyles.

From the same report:

”As other cities consider implementing similar schemes, this study implies that the ULEZ on its own is not an effective strategy in the sense that the marginal causal effects were small. On the other hand, the ULEZ is one of many policies implemented to tackle air pollution in London, and in combination these have led to improvements in air quality that are clearly observable.”

My car is not ULEZ compliant. Low emissions, 10 years old, zero car tax, eco setting and only 33000 miles on clock. It is diesel so this is why it does not comply. Luckily our area does not have ULEZ but my mum, sister, brother and daughter all live in ULEZ areas so if I want to visit I either pay £12.50 a day or change the car. No, not going to happen. Luckily my husbands car is ULEZ compliant as newer but it uses way more fuel as bigger. So I cannot see how that will help the environment

Virtually all petrol cars sold from 2005, plus some registered between 2001 and 2005, petrol vans sold after 2006 and motorbikes registered after July 2007 are ULEZ-compliant. Who nowadays has a car older than than 18 years old??

The 90%is calculated on central London where the majority of poorer people don't have cars...the cost of parking, affordable (lol) housing not having parking, and better transport means they can't afford them and can manage better without and the wealthy business etc can afford newer cars. In outer London and surrounding areas the ownership of older cars is higher because it's not as expensive to park, more homes have parking, people travel to areas which don't have good transport to work and getting around on public transport is harder (shit).

Nobody is mentioning the report two weeks ago (or so) on the BBC that it's particles from tyres that do more damage and EVs wear out tyres faster

Yes you used to be able to drive in as far as the North circular now it's the M25 including bits that are not in Greater London ....and Heathrow so watch if you're flying from there.

Are you serious? My 06 diesel is not compliant I cant afford even the £3650 needed for a crap 06 petrol 7 seater....more than I paid 9 years ago....and I can sell my existing well maintained cheap to run car for £250 .....

I guess I'll have to Google it - the MN collectiv is beyond simple rationale on this issue....clearly.

Got plenty of non-ULEZ issues going on down these parts to be getting on with; though plenty of the ULEZ-afflicted opine on the necessaries round here.

On a recent Sussex Tour, whilst marvelling at the great highways and protections given by the South Downs National Park as I saw more grazing cattle from my car window in Sussex than I now see in my local Devon fields, I was completely gobsmacked to see a brand new airport being built at Shoreham - Brighton City Airport apparently.

Levelling Up Budget possibly? Or shifting some pollution from the London City Airport? No matter to us that live in the less 'economically-active' parts.

Ulez extends to the M25. Uxbridge Ickenham and Harefield are inside the M25....they are building HS2 there....they are also building it further in....right to central London and the Lorries are inside the M25 so I'm not sure where you get that info from....but pop along and sit in the grid lock of lorries that are holding up the buses every day by all means.

Thanks jannier - so how does that work for the residents of eg: Reigate & Banstead BC? ASFAIK they are not part of the London electorate and many have no need to travel to London to work and don't.

So how can the London Mayor impose ULEZ Rules outside of his Constituency? Truly just curious, no skin in the game....

Speaking as someone who had to change their car because of implementation on central London (cost £5000 BTW, lucky I had it to spare, a shedload of people don’t) the only way it was implemented “better” was that we had more forewarning. There was no “support” they I can recollect. There was supposed to be a scrapage scheme, but it was restricted basically to groups that were highly unlikely to have cars in the first place. What surprises me is that nobody has remarked that the ULEZ extension is purely a cash grab by the awful Khan to try to keep TFL afloat. He bankrupted it during covid and drivers in London are paying the price. Another thing that surprises me is that nobody has commented that even the group that he commissioned to do the analysis to show why ULEZ was important came
out and said it would make little of any difference to air quality and that Khan tried to bury their report. The sheer bogusness of Khan’s claims are astonishing. Basically he claims that any death from a bronchial condition in London is the result of vehicular pollution. It’s a statistical scandal but nobody calls him out on it.

That’s literally the opposite of the scheme’s point.

@Peony654

🙇🏻‍♀️ And what about all the 'little people' that make that possible for you?

tube/bus/train divers
hospital workers (from cleaners to consultants)
delivery drivers
people who work in retail/hospitality

the ones who can't afford to live in central london & work unsociable hours so public transport doesn't work for them, who can't afford to replace their cars.

@@Winterday1991

how does paying a fine make it any less polluting?
Expect a lot of small businesses to go under, don't complain when the ones surviving are too busy or too expensive.

How does charging people who have 0 emission cars help??

Would it affect your vote, though? Would you avoid voting for the party who introduced it? (Conservatives 2016) Or would you avoid voting for the party who implemented it (Labour 2023) OR Would you vote for whoever made it more affordable? (Eg different rates for tradespeople or regular travellers and a scrap page scheme etc)

Or do you feel it’s not that big a deal to affect your voting?

I was rather surprised about how large an area it covers but truly shocked when I found out how much it costs per day! It would definitely convince me to take the train into London travelling in from the South Coast!…. But it seems extortionate! £12.50?! A DAY?!! Air quality matters immensely but it feels like highway robbery!

I feel it only needs to be about £10 a week - it would have the desired effect; use public transport, unless it’s essential or cheaper to drive! 🤔

If you know all the tradespeople in the outskirts of London why don't you ask them? Obviously their costs, like fuel, food & materials have gone up massively & their outgoings like rent & mortgages were based on a pre-inflation budget. So why would you assume they earn enough?

What an ignorant and arrogant comment!

Yes but that's one election, none of the London constituencies have had elections since the introduction of ULEZ, lets see what happens then, or even the London Mayoral elections.

It’s about a fifth of your wages if you’re in a minimum wage or not that much above and needing to drive to work 5 days a week.

Jeez not this shit again. EV tyres have been developed for almost all models that reduce tyre wear. Mine for example last almost twice as long as a comparable ICE tyre and up to 3x longer than performance tyres that have softer compounds.

Also, the BBC aren't telling you about brake dust being a significant contributor to damaging particulates. Yet all EV's have regenerative braking, which eliminates brake dust. My EV has done 75k miles and my pads are still the factory fitted ones. They're likely to last as long as the car.

I don't know about the BBC but a lot of the main news outlets have jumped onto research that claims EV tyres wear 1000 times faster. Obviously that's utter bollocks. If a tyre lasts 15k, EV's would be completely useless and clearly we're not all changing tyres every few miles 🙄

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/electric-cars/running/do-electric-vehicles-produce-more-tyre-and-brake-pollution-than-petrol-and/

I got caught out yesterday driving to Bristol airport from the M5. A section of the A4 is in the CAZ. My car isn't compliant. Frantic scrabbling around whilst in traffic to see how to pay. £9, and then about 5 mins later, we are out of the CAZ. No signage from the motorway that the route skirts the zone, and no reason for that part of the road to be charged, especially if you are not actually turning left into the centre. Pissed me right off.

There's so much mis and disinformation about this it's untrue.

@TheHateIsNotGood the Mayor of London's constituency is London. All of it. There's an election every 4 years. Areas of responsibility include transport and the emergency services. There's a useful website. I don't think he's so worried about votes from the very outer boroughs anyway, they often don't vote Labour. And anyway, it's actually a Tory policy, a long time in the planning.

It's not a climate measure. It's a public health measure. Thousands and thousands of Londoners die prematurely every year from breathing particulates. The cost to the NHS is immense. If your child had breathing difficulties you might think differently. What about their freedom to breathe unencumbered?

Did everyone moaning contribute to the very well advertised consultation? I do feel sorry for people who bought diesels assuming they were cleaner but their ire should be directed at the car manufacturers who lied about their diesel emissions, not a health measure.

We live just on the border of the old and new ULEZ and welcome it.

Trades will just build it into their charging, they're not going to lose business (as if £12 a day makes much of a difference at current day rates!)- and when they change their van they can get a cleaner one. I think the ones we've been using lately all have cleaner vans anyway.

I do think city hall needs to beef up comms considerably. But I'm old enough to remember when the C charge came in and everyone complained then, now it's just normal. People will find the shift painful but in 5 years it will seem normal again.

What an absolutely stupid comment to make, would you like to be forced into paying £12.50 a day just to come off of your drive way!? I don't know what world your living in, and you also don't no yiur facts from your first post!

Are you sure it’s not ULEZ exempt? Most diesels from 2015 onwards are compliant.

Define right wing.