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Original poster

Arse: according to Ken LIvingstone my car is so unGreen I'll have to pay £25 congestion charge

241 replies

TheDullWitch · 13/02/2008 21:12

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6146442.stm

It's only a blardy Volvo estate, not a 4X4 and actually I'm Mrs Public Transport and must have only driven it into the congestion zone 3 times since charges started.(And we re getting rid of it anyway in two months.)

But that ruling will just lead to lots of richer families buying a second, runabout car which doesn t have to pay the charge. Which is hardly Green. Whilst lots of poorer families will never be able to use the one big family car they need.

OP posts:
redadmiral · 15/02/2008 19:14

Talk to tourists . (I've been using London transport for 23 years if it's relevant.)

Peachy · 15/02/2008 19:26

Our old car fell into it- expensive car that can easily afford it my arse, cost £800 on ebay!

Presume our new one does too (mitsubushi space wagon, V reg)- 6 seater. with four kids (well soon) what are we supposed to do, buy a smart car and put two on surf boards behind?

Thank goodness for non-London domicile is all I can say....

nancy75 · 15/02/2008 19:29

peachy you need to learn to ride a bike like they do in the circus, you pedal, get the kids to balance in formation on your shoulders!

Peachy · 15/02/2008 19:33

Could just get them to surf on the rook perhaps? MAybe the baby carseat, and as DS3 has a specialist ahrness sure he'd be safe....

TBH irrelevant to me as Ic an't imagine drivcing into London, but there have to be plenty of famillies like ours there, surely?

The 2 litre espace- if it had any smaller an engine you'd have to push it up hills its that heavy. Trust me on that! It needs it!

needmorecoffee · 15/02/2008 19:58

I lived in London for years Nancy.

spicemonster · 15/02/2008 20:09

God I'm getting really cross now. Do you pay 300 quid road tax? No? Then you won't have to pay 25 quid a day to drive into London. It's perfectly simple. My nephew understands the concept and he's seven. Avail yourself of the facts before whining.

What makes me laugh is that people who drive band G cars have been penalised for years by the road tax people but I've not seen hundreds of threads moaning about that. What you think about Ken is irrelevant (or it should be). We need less CO2 being pumped out in London and this is one way to make that happen.

I live here and have done for 20 years. I use public transport virtually every day and I also own a car which I use a couple of times a month to visit my family. I have only ever had one horrid experience on public transport here when I was attacked once on the tube by a mentally ill man (he kicked me). I have never been vomited on, seen any fights or anything other trouble. I can only conclude that some of you have been very unlucky. TBH I know more people who've had problems with vile behaviour on commuter trains but no one is suggesting that those people drive.

I think some of the attitudes on this thread are at best selfish and at worst childish. We are all going to have to start making sacrifices and compromises if we want our children to inherit a world they can grow old in. Grow the fuck up.

foxinsocks · 15/02/2008 20:19

and the person levelling the accusations of being childish ends her post with 'grow the fuck up'. Charming.

nancy75 · 15/02/2008 20:45

lets get real here, this charge is a tax, it is not about pollution or emisions it is a way to get money out of the people that can aford it. The new charge, it is estimated will stop about 9,000 of the highest polluting cars driving in to london each day, its is not thought that it will stop the other 21000 and nor would they want it to. It is predicted that the new charge will bring in between £30 &£50 million of extra revenue each year which will be used for road/cycle route maintenance and be put in to public transport. if this was about the environmental impact of these cars the band g charge could and would be much greater - you could even ban them all together and impose huge fines BUT this is not what has been done. If they stopped people driving in to london they would not be able to fund public transport - this is win win, it looks like they are doing something for the environment (although it is much reported the effect will be negligable) and they get more money out of people.

DeeRiguer · 15/02/2008 20:46

He, the Kennster, has changed it from congestion to co2 charge..so they said on news last night
luckily it has the same starting 'c' letter so might not cost too much more to change signage etc...
even cheaper if they get some reprobates to spray paint it on
so, does that mean it does not operate on hours basis (6 to 6.30) or whatever and works round the clock based on your emissions?
anyone know?

to be fair to him the pollution does need tackled i can taste it sometimes and his statistics said it took 8 months of average londoners life..

to be fair to us, he should never have got rid of beloved routemasters...

nancy75 · 15/02/2008 20:49

its the same hours - maybe cars dont pollute after 6pm

policywonk · 15/02/2008 20:56

Broadly agree with RedAdmiral et al. No-one is expecting everyone in London to stop driving, but it seems to me that motorists have had things their way for the last 20 years (road tax really does not cover the true costs of car transport), and now it's time to give motorists some rather sharp inconvenience to get them on to public transport.

I'm sure Ken's policy isn't perfect, but I do admire him for going ahead with road pricing when everyone said it would be a political disaster; people in London are broadly supportive of it see here.

The choice to drive your car in London is still there - driving in London has not been made illegal. It's just that the scales have been weighted against it.

spicemonster · 15/02/2008 21:05

A very sensible post policywonk. As you can see I get rather too aerated about the subject (especially when the people who are moaning don't even live in London!)

policywonk · 15/02/2008 21:20
spicemonster · 15/02/2008 21:48

policywonk - living in surrey is fine (ish). As long as you're not moaning.

DeeRiguer · 15/02/2008 22:02

oh policywonk
you can take it on the leafy commuter belt chin cantcha?

Sycamoretree · 15/02/2008 22:13

Have not read entire thread but....Err, don't pay the charge then - it's obviously deterring you, and guess what, THAT"S THE POINT OF IT. It doesn't matter to the planet whether it's rich or poor people who are put off driving into London...it's still choking on our selfish fumes...

policywonk · 15/02/2008 22:58

(Hello Dee - are you Hairy/suzy in disguise? My family is Welsh (both parents) but they made a break for Surrey just before I was born.)

DeeRiguer · 15/02/2008 23:19

well, you might say think that, i couldn't possibly comment

needmorecoffee · 16/02/2008 20:39

Nancy said 'ets get real here, this charge is a tax, it is not about pollution or emisions it is a way to get money out of the people that can aford it. The new charge, it is estimated will stop about 9,000 of the highest polluting cars driving in to london each day, its is not thought that it will stop the other 21000 and nor would they want it to. It is predicted that the new charge will bring in between £30 &£50 million of extra revenue each year which will be used for road/cycle route maintenance and be put in to public transport.'

Stopping 9000 is over a third. I thik sthats fab. And the extra revenue sounds great for public transport too. Whats the problem?
Routemasters - very touristy but not accessible for wheelchair users. Don'tmiss them at all.

nancy75 · 16/02/2008 20:58

if ken wants to introduce a tax he should call it that, yes it is 30% of the higher polluting cars, but only around 5% of all the cars that drive in to the zone. if 9000 more people will be getting the bus they will need more buses of course some of these people will simply buy smaller cars, so more buses and more smaller cars will both cause some pollution meaning the actual amount will only be reduced by about 3%. there is also the chance that people who live in the zone and own these cars will infact drive them MORE (if you had to pay £25 per day wouldnt you want to get your money worth?).
This scheme is being talked about as though it will make a huge differance - IT WONT. So on kens own figures the environmental impact will be very small whilst the financial gain to his administration will be huge.

redadmiral · 16/02/2008 21:51

Not sure about your figures, Nancy. Presumably some people will choose to walk or cycle for example, some people may change their behaviour longterm by choosing schools within walking distance, etc. We could argue about the figures and what might happen all night. What I'd be really interested to know is what your personal feelings are about cutting down car use generally? I've just been reading another book review talking about how we ALL have to make large changes to our way of life in order to reduce the impact of climate change and pollution, and cutting back on fossil fuel consumption is the main way to do this. I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just don't really understand how a parent can not want to do something about this.

nancy75 · 16/02/2008 22:49

believe it or not we live in a very green household! i would like to see some areas of london be completely car free, and i would like to see our city get the transport systen it deserves and needs - i know there are more buses but the tubes are still awful as are the commuter trains in to central london. I would also like to know why fares on tubes/trains have increased year on year above the rate of inflation but the service has got worse? I have a friend that lives in zone 5/6 and is lucky enough to have a parking space at her work in zone 1, its cheaper for her to drive and pay c charge than get the train, its ridiculous. My issue with this new charge is that it is just political bandstanding, like i said in an earlier post if they want to stop people driving these cars make it soo expensive that nobody will drive them and dont confine these charges to london. As for the figures the predictions are from ken not me!

sushifan · 17/02/2008 00:27

I can't even begin to express my anger. Insert curse words here.... We have a fairly new very small Band G car and we live just barely in the congestion zone. I drive the car MAXIMUM 5-7 miles a day (school run). But a car with slightly lower emissions (we are just barely in Band G) can drive for hours a day and pay a fraction of what I do.

Moreover, this is a rubbish, stupid, idiotic and UNFAIR law you can't just drop this on people it should not apply immediately. That's fascist-style rule. When we bought the car there was no law. And in fact, for the last 2 years, we didn't have a school run and it was used for about 10-15 miles a week unless we went on a weekend trip.

I am pissed off. thanks Ken. We will lose a lot of money.

sushifan · 17/02/2008 00:34

--- actually not even 2 years old. And now I'm angry with my husband for getting this car with its zoom-zoom engine that we only take advantage of about once a month.

nospringchicken · 17/02/2008 09:21

Not read all the thread but

  1. Surely all the extra smaller cars will add to pollution more than the reduction gained by a few larger ones ceasing to go into the central zone /
  2. The election for mayor is coming up soon; will ken get re-elected anyway ?