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.

Different city, but similar problem. My city introduced a clean air zone and as a result I know several people running small businesses who have had to close their business and claim benefits because they can't afford the vehicles that conform to the requirements. Not all small businesses are raking it in - it's £200 a month. One of my friends put up her charges a bit to cover it, and lost most of her customers, so had to close down. A compliant vehicle would cost at least £35k, the grant for a compliant vehice was £4,500, and her existing vehicle was worthless because it can't enter the zone without paying so nobody wanted it.

Oh, and I should point out that we already had fantastically clean air, some of the best in the country, because of our location. So we didn't need it. Literally not a single part of the area fell into the target emmisions, so we could have had a "non-charging zone".... I am all in favour of lowering emmisions and reducing harm, but I think that there are better ways of doing it through incentives rather than punitive measures, especially for small businesses and private individuals.

EVs aren't great for particulate emissions either. Some research shows they are worse because they are heavier.

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

The net zero lobby have not been honest about how drastic those changes will be, and now people are discovering that they are expected to return to a quality of life close to that of the Middle Ages, and it's going to enormously increase the cost of living. Of course people don't want this forced on them with no say in the matter.

Emissions from the internet and the digital economy are huge, it emits more co2 than all global air traffic, yet no one suggests holding back on internet usage. My inner conspiracy theorist thinks this is because net zero is more about a powerful elite being able to control and curtail the people rather than saving the planet.

Me too. They appear to be based on prejudice and hatred rather than facts.

Because some tradesmen are making multiple visits per day and charge each of that day's customers the full ULEZ charge each.

Our old diesel is low tax blue motion etc but not ULEZ compliant. So we’ve had to buy something else. We are lucky we are able to do so. We were planning to run the diesel until it died as producing cars is environmentally unfriendly so you should try to get maximum usage. Getting stung for £12.50 to go to the supermarket, diy store etc is ridiculous.

Public transport is good here but not always practical.
Some of DH’s friends work as bus and tube drivers. How do you think they get to the bus garage / depot for a 4am shift? Let’s hope their cars are compliant.

We simply can't keep driving everywhere, and we need to reduce car use very significantly (and live in a way that enables this to be done easily). I'm in for anything that helps with that, and I think ULEZ will.

I have a 63 plate small car with only 30k miles on the clock. I had planned to keep it until it was no longer economically viable but now that's not possible.
I don't believe that the ULEZ expansion was in Khan's 2021 manifesto so he has no business expanding it until after the mayoral election next year. He ignored the electorate's views in the consultation last year.
It's a money making exercise and if he was really serious he was would BAN all non compliant cars instead of charging £12.50 a day.

It's bit of a mystery to me how this all works, tbh.

A couple of years ago, I checked my car, a 2001 petrol turbo that gives around 32-33 mpg overall, a bit more on long trips. Whatever website I checked it on, it said it wasn't ULEZ compliant. This was disappointing as I visit my octogenarian MIL fairly frequently, and she lives just inside the London boundary (about 1.5 miles, as the crow flies). There are now only 2 of us who live within an hour's drive and can get to her fairly quickly in an emergency or if she's unwell, so I resigned myself to spending £12 or whatever it will be whenever I went up there.

This morning, a friend who understands all this stuff said they found this surprising, so I checked again, this time on the TFL website, and it appears it's compliant, so I won't have to pay after all.

I assume you mean from particulates braking? All cars brake and EVs tend to 'brake' less because they use the resistance from the motor to slow them down and recharge to a small extent. I'd be interested to read a study that says an EV produces more particulates than an 8 year old diesel car, given the EV has no combustion engine....Can you provide a link?

So the answer is to vote Conservative, who have presided over a massive fall in standards of living and made us all poorer? Maybe if we didn’t have a Tory government, we could all easily afford to pay daily ULEZ fees?

So what happens to all these scrapped cars?

Ive just replaced my diesel with a pre op a year ahead of it coming into my city, before the value tanked.

I have no option but to drive to work as I work shifts, finishing at 02:00, and there’s no WAY I’d be using the car park-ironically right next door to my work’s car park-at 02:00 due to the drug users etc which frequent it at that time.

Id intended keeping that car at least another 5 years, so tell me how this helps the environment, because somewhere down the trade in line a car, which perhaps otherwise wouldn’t have, ends up literally in the scrap heap

Petrol not pre op🙄🤷🏼‍♀️

psying to drive somewhere isnt helping the planet its just a money making scheme

central london is still crawling with traffic people are being stung every which way

The Glasgow low emission zone (a tiny area of central Glasgow) has a penalty of £60 for the first time in it with a non compliant car. Every subsequent entry will incur a fine that doubles every time.

But the number of cars that won't comply is very small. Some diesel vehicles are compliant.

If you got rid of every single internal combustion engine in the UK, not just cars, but lawnmowers, generators, motorbikes, water pumps, the lot. Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK would reduce by less than 2%.

Get rid of agriculture however and you have a 21% reduction.

The ULEZ is not about the environment, it's about Saddie's debt burden. It's simply a revenue raising scheme.

So the Scottish government has put in different criteria.

Khan is just using the same criteria of the original ULEZ and expanding it under the directions of the Secretary of State for Transport.
https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from-grant-shapps-shows-that-government-proposed-enlarging-london-congestion-charge-zone/

And the Tory government are to blame -
https://www.onlondon.co.uk/letter-from-grant-shapps-shows-that-government-proposed-enlarging-london-congestion-charge-zone/

It isn't as bad now.

Under the scheme in 2017 my car was destroyed e.g. written off.

Don't know what happens under the current scheme.

This. My heart bleeds for tradesmen. Not.

I agree.

This will affect businesses on the outer edges of London imo. If you live just outside London, and equidistant between (eg) Bromley and Sevenoaks, and had a non-ULEZ car, you'd go to Sevenoaks to do your shopping, wouldn't you?

As for public transport: I live on the edge of a commuter town in the SE, but can only get a bus to/from the station or town centre between 8.30-2.00 and 4.00-5.30, and not at all on Sundays.

To go to MIL's would involve a taxi/bus, min 1 hour on a train and a 6 mile bus or bus + tram journey. God knows how long it would all take. By car, it's 38 miles cross country and takes an hour or so.

Can you not see how yet again this is a policy which will primarily affect those on the lowest incomes who are already struggling to get by ?

You will need a certificate confirming it's destruction to be able to get the cheque.

It's not just old cars!!!!

I'm zone 5.