Petitiion to stop 'Pay As You Go' Driving

[Radley]

Hi All

Please read the below and act upon it asap - deadline is 20 February...

Subject: Tax on Cars

Radio 2 talked about the proposed Road Pricing car tax scheme on the radio.

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 the time of the comments only 250,000 people have 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.

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 Stay at home 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

I wonder if Tony is forging ahead with this just to ensure Labour is voted out, and hence Gordon gets the record for the shorts Prime Minister position ever. Hey, I wonder, who has the record for the shortest time served as PM?

My personal opinion is that driving is a privilege and not a right. Other European countries manage with toll roads etc and they have higher taxes which is ploughed into the public transport system. The status quo in the UK in unsustainable.

I would like to see for myself the details of the proposals that the govt will be proposing.

PS I drive btw and use public transport.

Speedy, I'm actually quite happy to get out of my car and onto public transport -- just as soon as it is reliable affordable.

I can't realistically take 3 trains to work. It would take too long and cost too much.

If this scheme took the money and actually handed it all over to the rail for them to build tracks, upgrade trains, improve schedules, etc. than I wouldn't mind it so much.

I do not understand why public transport is under the control of the private sector. I find it strange that in order to improve public transport, we call on government to do so which means they use our taxes but railway companies, for example are owned privately. All private companies do is close down non-profitable services, increase prices with no discernable, reciprocal increase in service for the customers.

The Tories strategy of starving our public transport infrastructure of investment and then flogging it off cheaply was a huge mistake, imo and we are reaping the results of that shortsightedness.

I don't actually agree with your view of privatsation. I think government is far more wasteful, and hence costly. I would say that the problem lies in the contracts that have been written. Let's take water for example. I was all split up and each company gets it's region, but no one is really responsible for maintaining the pipes... eh? Why not? That should have been part of the deal. Same goes for rail. If you own the company that operates the trains you ough to be responsible for the schedules, the pricing, etc. But, they just say, oh it's not my fault. Too many holes in who is responsible for what. And too easy to hike up the prices without providing value.

Speedy, I agree with you. Huge mistake to destroy public services. Has led to a world where transport is in a mess, there are few public loos, there are very few park keepers or public officials of any sort around who could keep boisterous children in check and nip any trouble in the bud. Etc. etc. etc.

But the Tories never pretended to give a stuff - Thatcher said any man over 30 who travelled on a bus was a failure. Those who voted for them must have had some inkling of what they were doing.

British Rail was many, many times cheaper than the privatised rail system. My father opened a whole station (Snow Hill, in Birmingham) for less than it would now cost you to buy a sodding footbridge. The more companies that are involved, the more everyone can hike up their prices. And the more complex contracts get.

I wonder what mr keep it real green Cameron would do with public transport...

NO I bloody well won't sign! Sooner weall cut down ondriving the betterall round! With speedymama on the view thatdriving isa privilege not a right!

I know Snow Hill station as I am from Birmingham originally. Wow - what a man!

My neighbours drive their 8 and 6yo to school. The school is literally 7 minutes walk from the house and there are pavements. That is one of the reasons we have an increasing obesity crisis in this country. People would rather drive than walk. Madness.

and people wonder why Londoners are the thinnest in the UK? It's because they walk/take public transport& walk. If you use yr car all the time,you'll get fat, full stop, don't care if it isn't PC,it's bloody obvious.

Thank you, Speedy! My dad worked for British Rail his whole life until it was broken up. Like most people there, he was a real railwayman who was devoted to his job. Hence persuading BR and the councils to build Snow Hill. Sadly privatisation got rid of all the people who knew how to run railways or gave a toss about them. (And sadly for me, he refused to do a management buyout on principle and so didn't make squillions like some other people.)

Signatures are now at 1.7 million.

road fees not definate

"It was Barbara Castle, as Transport Secretary, who sounded the Routemaster?s ultimate death-knell in 1967, by nationalising the buses, legalising OMO (one man operation) and giving subsidies to anyone buying standard rear-engined buses."

One man operation has lot to answer for imho

the decline of the railways has got to be one of the saddest things ever to happen to Britain.

It could surely be turned round if investment in it was prioritised. But I think New Labour is fundamentally pro-car-lobby (anything to please corporations eh)

So, why don't we give the congestion charge to the railways???? Oh, I know. It's because the congestion charge is really a revenue generating scheme and not for the purpose of getting people onto the trains.

Oh, god! People exhale CO2. Let's tax 'em.

absolutely eleusis

The railways represent a de-individualised form of transport (despite the classing of carriages)- I think that's partly why they're totally undervalued. & bus networks too (though maybe not by Ken.)

Didn't Thatcher once make some dreadful remark to the effect that 'if a man finds himself on a bus after the age of 28 (or something), he has failed in life?'

but a railway can't get me to within 10 ft of my work. whilst i puff away on a fag and listen to nirvana/southern fm.

god damn it! i want my car. i pay enough feckin tax.

hAH,well i pay my tax to fund fag-dragging,car-driving, non-walking lazybones too then!
£60billion a yr of our money goes on NHS to treat obestiy-related illness! Any complaints about thatanyone?

still I you the Nirvana!

My DH and were talking about the way poeple lived in victorian times (his first degree is in history -- specilising in Victorian times). He was telling me that in spite of the crap that they ate back then, they were healthier. And this is generally put down to the fact that they walked a lot more than we do now.

I think this is a valid point. We would be healthier if we walked more. But public transport needs to be a viable option. It need to be affordable and it needs to get me say a mile within my destination.

Can't believe Kurt Cobain topped himself almost 13 years ago.

I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard he'd copped it.

I was camping out w/a bunch of rock climbers outside Austin, TX and we were listening to independent radio and getting stoned when the DJ interrupted the broadcast and announced the news.

Well come the May election I am voting for expat, you need to get into the Parly and kick some arses - that alone should keep you busy for, oooh, about 10 years!

We have to drive to get anywhere, the public transport here (and lack of) means that if I wanted to visit my parents it would take 2 1/2 hours for what is a 20 minutes journey, taking 3 buses in total. Even my parents, who no longer drive due to ill health, find it hard to use buses as the services have been run down so much in their area.

We also have to take dts to school, yet there are people living less than 2 miles from the school who use the car. I wish I could walk them there.

I do not want any form of tracking device on my car. I do not trust this government one iota, especially not when they promise to put the money from this extra tax into public transport. They have had 10 years to start something and failed miserably. Buses are a joke, trains need a loan to use. This tax would probably work fine and dandy in London, which is where they have in mind for all their policies.

I don't see what is wrong with the current system. The more you drive the more you pay through fuel tax, the bigger nastier car you have the more you pay through car tax. People travel at certain times because they have no choice in when they start work and unlike London we do not have a proficient transport system in place.