Gazboy Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I would gladly accept road pricing as a way to prevent congestion if there was an alternative to using your car!! My average speed over a week is 22mph....... 22!!!! When the hell does anyone drive at 22mph? There are 11 sets of traffic lights on the 3 mile stretch of road between my house and work. Dude get a bike- it's only three miles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M4RK RZ Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Dude get a bike- it's only three miles. exactly ! I would love to bike into work but its 8 miles through sheffield hills - ide pass out and get there looking like a wet kipper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Income tax, car tax, petrol tax, per mile tax (COS THATS WHAT IT BLOODY IS !!) I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Dude get a bike- it's only three miles. I have a bike, and will be using it next week, or maybe walking, because next week is the start of the missus' new job which is 1.5 miles away, so I don't have to drop her off in Portsmouth (8 miles away) and come back on myself every morning and evening!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazboy Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place. Yeah ok! Remember you will still pay vat on the petrol, so it will still be 35-50p a litre. Petrol duty IS road pricing- the more you use, the more you pay... if it ain't broke don't fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 But your a monkey, im amazed you can open an e-mail lol Still haven't had this Email through! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethr Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place.They might get rid of Vehicle Excise Duty, but I bet they'd just reduce Fuel Duty so that the Treasury could raise it whenever they needed some more of our money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian C Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place. Are you mad? Since when would Herr Blair remove a tax on the motorist?! All existing ones will stay, this will simply be added on. I stopped reading halfway through as well, it was so full of shit. Here is a couple of points: "we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015" That's over 8 years = 17.5bn a year. Bear in mind that's going to be a huge overestimation as it's a political promise (a lie, in other words). Anyway, the govt gets £53bn a year from taxing the motorist, and that's before scamera tax and freedom tax er I mean road tolls er I mean congestion charging. So while they claim to plan to invest £140bn across 8 years, our tax burden will be AT LEAST £420bn. So where is the other two thirds going then? How is this some sort of 'reward' or 'sweetener' when all they are saying is "and in the next eight years, we will piss away 66% of you motoring taxes on things nothing to do with transport". And you realise that £140bn is for "investment" which really means "speed cameras, traffic calming, black box tracking networks, road humps, congestion charging" as you could file all them under "investment". If you're a c*nt. Which clearly, they all are. "congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services." So charging those businesses for every trip in and out instead is going to buoy them up no end isn't it Norwich has just got funding to trial freedom taxing, so I'm bloody annoyed about it, ergo big rant coming up. Knowing the rubbish bus service we have all too well, it seems the one thing the advocates of congestion charging gloss over is this: You can A) drive from a local village 15 miles out in your car to work and back in 30 minutes. In the warm, with choons on, whenever you want. You can pop out to a shop or store or take home something bulky in said car as well - very convenient. Or B) you can walk 1.5 miles to the bus stop in the freezing rain, wait for a bus that only comes every 30 minutes, and it doesn't show. Wait another 30 minutes, bored, cold and wet, get on it, pay more for the bus fare than the car would have cost in fuel, sit by scumbags who stink and shout "fuck" a lot, and take 1hr 40m to get into work. Well, get dropped off a 20 minute walk away from work. Repeat for going home. Forget about visiting shops or any other flexibility. Now that's the two alternatives. Would you choose B) over A) in order to save £5? No, you wouldn't. Of course not, most people wouldn't. You'd have to be mad. So charging 'only' £5 won't cut much of the traffic, so no noticeable congestion reduction. Therefore it doesn't achieve it's aims. But it does make a lot of money. If they wanted to cut traffic, act like you are serious and make it £50. I bet that'd clear the streets. Get them out of power. -Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angarak Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Considering that trains seem to be cancelled every time the wind changes direction for 'safety' purposes, if we all left our cars at home and used public transport to get to work the country would be FUBAR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveK Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Considering that trains seem to be cancelled every time the wind changes direction for 'safety' purposes, if we all left our cars at home and used public transport to get to work the country would be FUBAR. I remember a few years ago, the 911 was my only car and I also had an R1. Both were being serviced in the same week. At the start of the week, I dropped the R1 off to be serviced, walked to the station to catch the train to work and.... found it had been cancelled. A couple of days later, I dropped the 911 off to be serviced walked to the station and... found it had been cancelled. And then they cancelled the next one as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kopite Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 My mate's car broke down a couple of weeks ago, he works about 10 miles away. Had to get a train at 5:45am to get to work for 8:30 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLicense Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 The only way I can see any kind of "per mile" charge actually easing congestion is by reducing the number of cars on the school run. Which IMHO would be a good thing, and I think we can all agree on that. However, they seem to be missing a point here. The reason why there are a lot of cars on the road at the "rush hours" is that in general people are getting to and from work. As Blair mentions himself, public transport, even with all the investment they've got planned, isn't going to cut it. So what's the option then? People working from home, or working flexible hours? How does that help business? If anything it puts additional strain on business. I mean where do they think the money is going to come from to fund any congestion charge or "pay per mile" schem? If I got hit by one of these, I would have to approach my boss and ask them for a salary rise that offset the additional travel costs. How does that help business? The statement about building new roads doesn't work, and traffic soon grows to fill the new capacity, is IMHO bollocks. It's the previous and current governments lack of foresight that has caused the current traffic volumes to massively swamp the current capacity. If the current road network was twice what the demand was, then there wouldn't be a problem. The fact is that the small amount of capacity increase that they have provided isn't enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garethr Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I don't understand why they seem to think that people want to sit in traffic jams. For at least 50 years British governments have connived at creating a society which depends on personal transport -- Supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres instead of corner shops -- Economies of scale applied to create larger and more centralized offices, warehouses, and factories (remember factories?) so that we have to travel further to work -- Inner cities left to rot while planning permission is given for huge housing estates which are miles from any facilities -- More and more economic activity crammed into the south east so that house prices go through the roof and people have to travel silly distances from home to work -- The rail network dismantled and what's left privatised and allowed to charge preposterous fares -- Privatised bus fares which make it cheaper to drive And their answer to a system which is completely screwed up? Another tax disguised as a green initiative, because undoing the last 50 years would be too difficult and expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lambertpig Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 i have never voted in 21 years [OOPS][/OOPS]but i will this time to help remove these wankers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place. Yeah right. Public transport can't cope now, let alone if everyone left their cars behind and started to use it. Labour have been in power long enough to get things right and it's still a shambles. Garethr makes some good points IMO. If you're not in a city centre then public transport just isn't a viable option, but even if you do it's expensive, dirty and rarely on time. The local bus fare in my home town has more than doubled in the last few years and the service is just as poor. Last time I got one I was frozen as the heaters weren't working. That goes for the train I took too. I won't even go into the rude staff that could barely speak English. I take the train to work every day in Japan. Twice a train was late because of a suicide on the tracks, and one train was cancelled. That's in 10 months. You can set your watch by the transport here, I'm absolutely serious. It's effortless to use too, although absolutely PACKED at rush hour, but it still works! Here's some ideas: 1) Let kids walk to school or take the bus, there's no need to drive them. Didn't do me any harm. Christ I sound old, and I'm 31... 2) Let more people work from home. How many office staff need to be in an office? With modern communications it's just not necessary. I sit at a desk writing and loading code and sending Emails all day, no need for me to travel to work to do that, I could stay in bed ! 3) Sort out the traffic light sequences. I read somewhere that a number of London cabbies were convinced that the light sequences had been changed to cause more traffic a while before the congestion charge was proposed... Conspiracy? I have no idea, but I wouldn't put it past them. What really worries me is the invasion of privacy. Sure, they say that the information won't be stored and shared but it only takes another hastily rushed through anti terrorism law to change all that. Look what happened after the petrol protests. Tolls are bad enough, costs me around 25quid in tolls just to drive to my girlfriends house in Japan which is 50km away. More than I spend on petrol if the roads are busy.... There is no way on this earth I'm driving a car with a tracking device, ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markjodrell Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Some very good points there Nick. Hold on a mo while I get my soap box out............................................................................................................. The problem in this country is that people will not stand up and be counted, generally. BUT , I honestly think that this time if the government do bulldoze this "pay as you go" policy through, against public opinion they had better brace themselves. Remember the poll tax, there were riots on the streets in some areas.I think there could be a repeat performance, at least I certainly hope so and on a greater scale. Big brother, I am a non smoker however in principle I do disagree with a goverment telling people what they can and cannot do, providing it is legal to do so.Its the thin edge of the wedge. Today its smoking, what next, when you can or cannot drive and where you can or cannot go and at what time you can or cannot travel.They would know to if you broke the rules because they will be monitoring every move you make via a little black box in your car. Tony Blair is so arrogant, nearly 2 million people voted against this on the petition but he has disregarded it simply because its not going to happen tomorrow, thats utter crap, the people who have voted have voted against the principle of the policy and not the finer points which have yet to be finaliased. Tony Blair, you aint seen nothing yet, wait until Gordon Brown is holding the reigns, more left wing and in favour of the distribution of wealth and openly against people getting "rich" through inheritance......... which brings me on to inheritance tax, but then again............................................................................................................................. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 We're all trying to find an answer in the box again though, PPM tax, changing working hours, more roads, less traffic lights, public transport, etc... The only answer, as I've said before, is mass culling of the population! OK that's a bit harsh, but we really do need to do something about the population explosion now before it gets infinitely worse!! So many of lifes little problems would be solved if people stopped having so many bleedin kids!! Put a tax on how many children you have don't give people MORE benefits for having more kids!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ellis Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 So many of lifes little problems would be solved if people stopped having so many bleedin kids!! Put a tax on how many children you have don't give people MORE benefits for having more kids!!! I'd go even further than that! You need to pass an exam to drive a car and join the army, have your life scrutinised to buy a house, yet if you want a kid, any throwback retard can have one! I think everybody should be tested to see if they're capable of having, coping with, bringing up and raising a kid properly in the first place. Thickies are obviously out so scumbags can stop interbreeding and raising jail bait! After that, we can all start goose-stepping around and using blue contact lenses and dying our hair blonde!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Maybe an IQ test when you leave school and every 5 years afterwards, then your IQ denotes which 'band' you are put in relating to how much tax you pay for your children - the thicker you are the more you have to pay out if you want to populate the species with your stupid genes!!! Does anyone want to set up a petition? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONKEYmark Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 some great posts here. i travel 10 miles each way to work do 3 12 hour shifts and any overtime.it takes me about 30 mins each way in car.a guy who lives up road catches 2 buses to work and takes over an hour each way and he has to do 12 hours work.its a long day on public transport for him. all these taxes are crazy.its like your pay rise dont go up to cover all the basics you need to live.petrol keeps going up.its like you got to work harder and harder so they can take more off you. look at how much gas and electric has gone up and they drop rice 17% and think they giving you something back. i voted labour when they got in power i thought they might do something for the hard working people who get off there arse and work.never again will i vote for them. they never listen and seem so arrogant.i once went on a bus,it bleeding stunk and i felt dirty.places like the ikea complex up near my work are a waste of time going to as the huge amount of traffic is so bad. GET THE FOOKERS OUT i was proud when all the fuel protests were about years ago.like country was standing up and saying enough is enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M4RK RZ Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I know you're angry, but if you were taxed per mile, the petrol tax and car tax would be scrapped in its place. Angry I dont think is the word mate, these sum my thoughts up better.... Bewildered Dazed and Confussed Lost Hope Dictated to Pressured Spy'ed on Individual privacy FREEDOM LOST 1.8 MILLION people signed -do that many even vote for these idiots? But yet they will not listen to a larger majority than what voted them in ?? Someone said - "i was proud when all the fuel protests were about years ago.like country was standing up and saying enough is enough." Bang on that mate, the people of this country could knock the goverment clean off their fat ass wages (from the tax we pay). They were shitting themselfs over the fuel protests. And i was having a nice day too ............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Well thats what they've said, whether you chose to believe them is your choice at the end of the day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M4RK RZ Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I dont believe them - not one bit my 2 year old lad makes more sence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbeh Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Do you honestly believe they'd leave in existing taxes and introuduce this new one? No want seems to want the road pricing idea anyway even when they are saying they'd scrap the other taxes.. so how are they ever going to sell it to the public. It doesnt make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamer Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I dont believe them - not one bit my 2 year old lad makes more sence. Have him run for office, I would vote yes, it can't be much worse then it is now. Do you honestly believe they'd leave in existing taxes and introuduce this new one? No want seems to want the road pricing idea anyway even when they are saying they'd scrap the other taxes.. so how are they ever going to sell it to the public. It doesnt make sense. Yes, to your first question Lie, cheat and make promises they can never keep, to your second part. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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