Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Except it isn't in the news - government is trying to bury this

2 replies

Freckle · 05/02/2007 17:58

Was sent the email copied below. If you care about freedom and want to avoid more Big Brother heavy-handedness from this government, sign the petition.

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 this time only 250,000 people had
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.

Democracy in action?
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 non working
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
Hope you don't mind me sending it

Tech · 07/02/2007 19:25

I don't really get why people get so het up about road pricing. We ration almost all goods in western societies through prices. So not everyone can afford everything, and we live with that. For some goods (like healthcare) we take the view that wealth shouldn't be a determining factor in access, so they are made free at the point of delivery. It was fine to do that for roads when road space wasn't a scarce resource. But now it is, as is parking space. Also, car drivers don't pay for all the "externalities" as economists call them - the bad effects their behaviour has on everyone else.

I think the incentives in Britain for people that already have cars are perverse. For example, if I want to visit my parents in Leeds from London, I can pay a 75 pound train fare or buy 40 pounds worth of petrol and drive. If more than one person is travelling, the difference is even more stark. That's just insane. If we are trying to discourage car use, either the train should be cheaper, or they should be charging me to use the M1.

None of us likes to pay more for things, but in some senses, that's just tough luck. It's either that or get used to journeys taking longer and longer, and the air getting dirtier and dirtier. Which maybe people prefer and we should let it happen, who knows. I think I read somewhere that the M6 toll is basically empty while the M6 next to it is snarled up because no-one will pay the 3 quid to use the toll road and they would rather sit in traffic. Is that true. Dunno.

No easy answers maybe?

Tech · 07/02/2007 19:28

No, I'd get shot. Do as told. Do as told. Do as told.

Watch this thread for updates

Tap "Watch" to get all the latest updates

End of posts

There are no more MNHQ posts on this thread