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.

But none of those places will have ULEZ as they're not a London borough.

But anyway @Dibblydoodahdah if you have to pay the ULEZ on the occasions you venture in, it would be a payment of £12.50 per day for a non-compliant vehicle regardless of how many people are in it.

That seems reasonable for an occasional journey involving a number of people enjoying the convenience of using their own vehicle rather than public transport.

Or you can get a ULEZ compliant vehicle and pay nothing or go somewhere else. It's up to you.

Theydon Bois isn’t rural, it’s about 10 minutes from Sheesh from TOWIE.

@limitedperiodonly well I’m sure they were happy to get rid of you. I’m not from
Essex but I love living here and have always felt very welcome in the 20 years that I’ve been here. The area that I live in is not as rural as where my family are from in the Highlands of Scotland but it’s certainly not a suburb of London. There are three farms down the lane that my house is on and it’s seven miles to the nearest town.

Do you what? I thought I covered that when I said this:

I used to live under Epping Forest District Council in Essex which is a London suburb but not a London borough.

But perhaps I wasn't clear

@limitedperiodonly I won’t have to pay as my lovely big diesel guzzling 4 x 4 is compliant!

There's no need to be snippy. We live where we live. Sometimes it is our dream home and sometimes it is just where we end up.

I don't know where you live and you don't know where I do. But I think most people would agree that somewhere with a tube station is not rural.

That's all anyone asks.

@limitedperiodonly you were the one callling people names. Epping is my nearest tube station but it’s a 30 minute drive away and where I am is definitely rural. And I didn’t just end up here. I chose to live here because I didn’t enjoy living in London.

@limitedperiodonly the point is that I can afford a compliant car but lots of people can’t. ULEZ impacts those on lower incomes the most and, quite frankly, as the previous poster was alluding to it’s distasteful that people from other countries can fly in their super cars to cruise around central London which has fantastic public transport whilst some people who live and work in the outer areas are going to struggle to get to hospital appointments and their places of work because they can’t afford to upgrade their cars or pay the charge itself.

I’m zone 5 and the public transport, whilst quite cheap, is crap. Getting into central London, not so bad, but a journey that’s about 15min in the car going across zone 4/5/6 areas can easily be 50 minutes on public transport.
My non compliant car, due to age, is certainty less polluting with its very light usage and low fuel consumption than a lot of compliant vehicles.
tbh if it’s true that only 15% of vehicles are no compliant I think the ulez expansion will make fuck all difference. 85% of vehicles will be just the same. 15% at best will be replaced by slightly less polluting cars. All the building sites and heavy vehicles will remain. Probably a chunk of those who do invest in new cars will drive them more, to justify their outlay.
If there’s a 2% change I’ll be shocked, and if there is that change in air quality then it’ll be offset with manufacturing and scraping vehicles (the points when a car polluted the most).
It’ll be a big expense to the poorest, and just like is already seen centrally, it’s a policy that’ll make fuck all difference to air quality.
The big things that are actually needed are policies that reduce car usage. Better public transport in outer areas. Cycle infrastructure expanding outside the inner areas. Generally disincentives for all short car journeys

That's nice. I'm glad you like where you live. So do I. I'm not going to have a fight over it like a teenage boy scrapping over post code wars.

Similarly I don't care about your gas-guzzling 4X4. You can drive what you like as long as you pay the correct charges. It's not me who's paying to fill up the tank.

@limitedperiodonly no you quite clearly don’t care about other people which is why you’re not bothered about how much the ULEZ charge will impact some people on low incomes in the outer area. It’s not going to impact me personally but I can still empathise with those that it will.

oh is that the point now. I thought you were boasting about having a "lovely big diesel guzzling 4 x 4". I must try to keep up.

I don't care what you do or drive or where you live so long as you obey the law. I'm sure you do that.

It might be distasteful to you and the other person whose friend's dad might not have been able to visit her in hospital but actually could, that incredibly rich people from other countries can fly in their super cars to cruise around central London, which does have very good (I'd hesitate to say fantastic) public transport, but it's neither here nor there.

What they are doing by importing a car is legal. If it's compliant with ULEZ, and we have no reason to think it isn't, then that is all right if they drive it in the central London ULEZ. If they commit a traffic offence, which some of them might, that is up to the police to deal with.

If it's legal it's nobody's business but their own. And in the scheme of things it's vanishingly small. A bit like having robust but legal political views and having your bank account severed by Coutts.

All I ask is that people who drive into the existing ULEZ areas comply. If the area is expanded I think they should also comply.

If they want better public transport whether or not they want to drive as well, they should vote in national and local elections according to those policies.

I'm not sure it will work but it is the only thing you can do.

Or you could take direct action and glue yourself onto tube trains or walk incredibly slowly in front of cars.

@limitedperiodonly but it doesn’t matter to them whether it’s ULEZ compliant or not…because they can afford the charge. That’s the point. Meanwhile in outer London someone on minimum wage could have to pay £25 if their night shift spans two days. You actually think that is reasonable?!

Oh how silly of me. When you said "I won’t have to pay as my lovely big diesel guzzling 4 x 4 is compliant!" I thought you were boasting about your lovely big diesel gas guzzling 4 X 4 not empathising with the little guy waiting for the bus.

Isn't that what you meant? Please clear it up.

I care about other people but chiefly I care about myself. Most of us do, don't we? Don't you and your lovely big diesel guzzling 4x4 in the wilds of Essex? I grew up in Essex. I love it but people who grew up in the Highlands would not describe it as wild.

Don't give me any of that old nonsense about what I "clearly" think. You don't know.

That goes for where I live now and where I used to live. It's the same but the difference is that now I am older I understand the implications of environmental impacts upon my health and upon children and those yet unborn.

I want to be able to breathe. I want young children with developing lungs to be able to breathe, I want old people with emphysema to live a bit longer. That goes for inner London or outer London where I used to live.

You are free to do whatever you want but if you want to drive into ULEZ you will have to do it in a compliant vehicle or pay the penalty. If your borough is one of those ones challenging ULEZ and you support it, then I wish you well.

@limitedperiodonly when have I ever described Essex as wild. Essex is a very big place and some of it is rural.

And where did I say that I grew up in the Highlands of Scotland.

And you’re contradicting yourself. On one hand you’re happy for people in central London to drive around in super cars with complete disregard for pollution but then you say you care about people’s lungs.

The extended ULEZ zone is ill thought out because it impacts areas with limited public transport and those on the lowest incomes will suffer the most when they can’t get to work or essential appointments.

@limitedperiodonly and as far as my own car goes I was making the point that it was compliant despite been large and diesel guzzling. Shame you can’t see the irony.

The Royal Marsden hospital which is a specialist cancer centre is 100 yards inside the new ULEZ zone. Khan was asked many time to just slightly change the boundary so that the car park is outside the zone but he refused. That's compassion for you. Someone having cancer treatment, potentially not able to work has to pay £12.50 everything they go for treatment.

@Grapefruitsquash it’s terrible. There are lots of people who live just outside the M25 who have to cross into the ULEZ zone to attend their nearest hospital. My FIL asked for patient transport when he was having chemo but was told that none was available so it was either drive or spend hours on public transport.

"The extended ULEZ zone is ill thought out because it impacts areas with limited public transport and those on the lowest incomes will suffer the most when they can’t get to work or essential appointments."
I agree. Some areas of Greater London are very rural, and in the south east (Bexley and Bromley who were against the new ULEZ area), there is no underground. Some areas are OK with buses, but some rural areas are very sporadic with buses.
People think because it is a Greater London Borough that it must be 'In London', but not necessarily.

You're going to have to point out the irony to me. You choose to drive what you describe as a "gas guzzler". As long at is street legal and you commit no driving offences and it complies with the emissions in certain areas like mine it's nothing to do with me what you want to do.

Same as someone driving a £1 million Bugatti Veyron round Knightsbridge. It's probably ULEZ-compliant but if not I'm sure they will be charged £12.50 day. Obviously, that is less than nothing to someone with a car worth £1 million but then again, there aren't that many people driving million pound cars but quite a lot of people driving old bangers that should not be polluting our lungs.

The words "gas guzzler" were yours, not mine. If, for any reason, you think the fuel consumption of your vehicle is not acceptable, then you should sell it and get something more appropriate. Again, that's your decision, not mine.

Fuel consumption isn't the point of ULEZ - air pollution is.

Anyway, it's coming in.

@limitedperiodonly So you don’t care if the Bugatti is compliant or not, as long as the owner pays the charge. Well that shows how much you really care about people’s lungs. And you still haven’t addressed the issue of the impact on those with low incomes who have to travel to work and hospital appointments in areas with poor public transport. Some of the cars that are impacted are less than ten years old, they are not “bangers”.

But I imagine Bugatti Veyrons are ULEZ compliant as is your gas guzzling vehicle. ULEZ is not about fuel consumption but about emissions.

Do you not care about children with developing lungs or people with chronic lung conditions such as COPD or those like me who don't have them but don't wish to get them?

Do you not care about this bright-faced little girl, Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, or worry that your children or you might become like her. Possibly not because you don't live on a main road in Peckham. But Asthma is common and it's lethal.

My sister in Essex has got it pretty bad and has been in hospital more than once. Like you, she has a ULEZ compliant car so it won't be a problem. Well, not the car but the asthma might be. People really underestimate asthma. They think it's being a bit wheezy and nothing that a puff on the inhaler can't solve. They are wrong.

Why do you care more about people's right to drive polluting cars more than people's right to breathe clean air? They are often the same people which is why I have consistently called for the Government to step in with a decent scrappage system to help people.

But they are not interested in doing this because they think the only chance they have of winning the next General Election is playing games. Basically, they're not interested in you or your welfare or the people you claim to care for. Just your X in the box.

https://news.sky.com/story/ulez-starmer-wobbling-on-ulez-says-mother-of-girl-who-died-due-to-pollution-12926432#:~:text=Sky%20News-,ULEZ%3A%20Starmer%20'wobbling'%20on%20ULEZ%2C%20says%20mother%20of,been%20campaigning%20for%20cleaner%20air.

Those of you saying you have low emissions or zero emissions cars that would be charged in the ULEZ are mistaken. It is based on the individual emissions of every kind of vehicle- it's not a blanket charge on all petrol cars past a certain age or all diesel cars built until 2015. That is just a rough guide. Check your car before worrying unnecessarily. https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/cars.

i had my first pregnancy in London and the midwives advised we walk down side roads, avoiding busy roads wherever possible because the pollution crosses the placenta and damages the baby before it's even born. We simply have to reduce pollution in cities, even though it is hard.