Pay as You go Road charge plans

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clivetheitman
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Post by clivetheitman »

Whats wrong with sitting in a traffic jam?. why do all these so called traffic experts think slow moving traffic is so bad. I quite enjoy sitting in the car listening to the radio on the way into work, and for those who dont they can stop using their cars and free up the roads for us. the reality of traffic is if there is a road avalible for people to drive on, they will use it. if you cannot drive along it, people will eventually either use an alternative route or stop traveling along it. ever since man built the first city with roads there has been traffic congestion the ancient greeks and romans used to moan about it so why should it be any different thousands of years later. ahh well, back to listening to capital radio and relaxing at the traffic lights.
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Post by martyhopkirk »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by wilkobob</i>

Ha, stop congestion and use public transport,<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I would love to use public transport - for one thing I might stop getting my car vandalised by the very people I am supposed to be helping. There in lies the problem - as a CPN I just cant get around all the clinics etc on busses / trains / trams in time. It would also at present add about 1 - 1.5 hours to my journey time to and from the clinic each day.
Whaterver is introduced one thing is certain, we will end up paying more - if the scrap road tax and put it on fuel, we will pay more, black boxes will cost us, and so on. I can see the attraction in returning to using my plack 90 for commuting....
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Post by rbruce1314 »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Kowalski</i>

Generally I'd agree with you that public transport isn't good BUT...
London is 300 miles away from Newcastle, that's 3 hours on the train (+/- 10 mins depending on which train) or a minimum of 4 hours in the car plus traffic and stops. The only time I use the train so to go down to London, its faster than the car and compares well on cost too, unless you've got more than 1 person to transport.
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typical londoner[:D] (i am an ex-londoner) From Gloucestershire Newcastle is 4 hours by train and 3 by car! Exeter is 2 1/2 by train and 1 1/2 by car. Only London is 1 1/2 by train but cant be beaten by car. In every case train fares work out (a bit) cheaper for one person but far more for two or more. Only difficulty in parking makes the train more attractive for intercity journeys, and I am speaking as one who will use the train if at all possible.
So for us country dwellers public transport is hardly ever a realistic option, regrettably.
The reality of road charging is that the technology will not be able to be made to work for years yet (M5 and A38 separated by 50 meters in places) and there will have been at least one general election, not to mention civil liberties and the European court of Human Rights as mentioned above
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Post by Kowalski »

I'm not a Londoner and never have been, I live 20 miles to the north of Newcastle, outside of a town called Morpeth. From Morpeth it is faster to Newcastle by train, and definately faster to London too but I've got to get to Morpeth first which is a 20 minute walk. The East coast main line is about the best engineered piece of railway the country has (from Darlington south to London, further north is another story) and generally it beats the car but ONLY if your destination happens to be accesable from the main line. As soon as you venture off its route e.g. accross the Penines to Manchester or cross country to Birmingham the car wins hands down.
Some years ago I lived in an even more rural setting than I do today, about 10 miles further into the wilderness. The village I lived in had 6 buses a day plus the school services. Gradually the bus services got consolidated, the separate school bus service got consolidated with the public services until last I heard, the current state of affairs is 4 buses a day, 2 of those being one way (8am into town only, 6pm out only, the other two buses do the round trip i.e. out from town then back).
Morpeth has a fairly good bus service into Newcastle, slower than the car and much slower than the train but fairly regular but the bus station is a 15 minute walk from home, so comparing a bus ride into Newcastle with a drive, the car is much faster and no more expensive than the bus, cheaper in fact if two people are in the car. Public transport is fine if its convenient, i.e. goes from where you are now to where you want to go but where I live that simply isn't the case. The car works around you where as you have to work around the limitations of the public transport system.
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Post by ActivaV6uk »

Ok IMHO especially in this area (Redditch Worcestershire) public transport is a joke. I use to have to commute 8 miles a day to work this is a 10-15 minute drive even in rush hour but a 1hour to 2hour journey by bus, also now some of the local buses to areas of this town don’t run to local locations after 6pm! also the trains from here have to go through Birmingham as there is only one train line from the town I’m in to any ware and that goes to Birmingham and takes 30-45 minutes. to get to London it takes 3 -4 hours for just under 100 miles! partly because you have to go to Birmingham first and the cost of the ticket will be at least £50 which is almost exactly the cost of going in the V6 Xantia at about 100+ miles per hour (so at 70 its about £15 more expensive that driving and as we have 2 links to the M42 (J2&J3) we can get to London in around 1h 30m. thus fare there is no point in using public transport ad its more expensive and much much slower! also interestingly because of the designee of Redditch (new town with a development corporation - road system designed by some one who understood traffic management but didn’t drive (over 30 years ago now)) the town it self is totally free flowing, you can get any ware in the town in under 10 minutes and you have the choice of local roads or dual carriageways...
Good road planning is a must and better public transport must be put into place if they thing they can add any more cost to driving. I wish that the English population wasn’t such a push over as we really do, do nothing when it comes to our government ripping us off.
Rant over
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Post by rbruce1314 »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Kowalski</i>


Public transport is fine if its convenient, i.e. goes from where you are now to where you want to go but where I live that simply isn't the case. The car works around you where as you have to work around the limitations of the public transport system.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Exactly- that's what I think I meant to try to say [:D][:D][:D]
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Post by DervDonkey »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"> also interestingly because of the designee of Redditch (new town with a development corporation - road system designed by some one who understood traffic management but didn’t drive (over 30 years ago now)) the town it self is totally free flowing, you can get any ware in the town in under 10 minutes and you have the choice of local roads or dual carriageways...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Used to be similar in Telford - until the "responsible" folks on the council decided to install a contraflow bus lane on the town centre's free flowing one-way system. A few weeks later, they install some traffic lights in an attempt to stop the cars exiting the town centre car parks from colliding with speeding buses going the wrong way... and there's more madness, they've ruined what was once a very car-friendly town. It all strengthens my belief that some (if not most) congestion is actually <i>engineered</i>.
The village in which I live is 10 miles from the nearest railway station, and is "served" by half a dozen buses a day. For me, public transport is a non-starter.
Road charging will fail, and fail miserably. Everyone's talking about technology for this and technology for that - but have you noticed that as technology improves its capabilities, the <i>reliability</i> of the said technology goes rapidly round the U-bend? How many new hospitals (or even... new roads?)could we build and run with the colossal amount of public (our!) money they're going to waste on this crackpot lunacy? Wasted it will be.
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Post by CitroJim »

IMO and TBH, most congestion is "made" by stupid traffic calming measures and road layouts designed by dobbins who clearly know not what a road is, what it is for and certainly have no clue as to how it should work efficiently. Roads clear of artificial hazards and sensible, free-flowing junctions using flyovers and cloverleaves as appropriate will clear most congestion at a stroke.
Then all we need to do is discourage one lorry from overtaking another 1/2 an MPH faster than the one it is trying to pass and then the motorways will be a lot more free-flowing too. Keep 'em to the inside lane perhaps?
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Post by Homer »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by citrojim</i>


Then all we need to do is discourage one lorry from overtaking another 1/2 an MPH faster than the one it is trying to pass and then the motorways will be a lot more free-flowing too. Keep 'em to the inside lane perhaps?
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Or remove the limiters which keep them within a couple of mph of each other perhaps?
Why are L(H)GVs limited to 56mph when the speed limit (for that class of vehicle) on a motorway is 60mph?
It might also lead to a few less drivers falling asleep and squshing people on the hard shoulder.
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Post by Stuart McB »

Who's with me, come the revolution boys, come the revolution. To night I'm scratching the names of all the local & Central goverment bean counters, a**e lickers & sickaphants on to incredibly cheap bullets by the light of a free trade candle in my nulcear fall out shelter. To night I shall live like a king on baked beans and boiled ham as tomorrow we die the death of a thousand deaths, stuck in traffic around Birmingham with the boss listening to KERRANG FM!!! (Help)
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Post by Kowalski »

Some years ago some bean counter did a cost analysis, journey times (and driver wage costs) verses fuel saved by driving more slowly, and 56mph came out as optimal.
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Post by Stinkwheel »

I only have one thing to say and that is..............
"its a bad idea, technology does not exsist at this moment to make it totally possible" and whats more anyone ou there who actually voted for these jokers has only them self to blame.
Rant Over.
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Post by AlWilliams »

From what I have seen on this road tax based on milage issue, i'd expect an offical milage check to be taken from the elclectronic MOT documentation, now that it's being rolled out to test centres.
I understand the views here but is it really fair to expect someone travelling a couple of K per year getting to and from the shops to pay the same road tax as a travelling salesman?
I put this out for comment, personally given the proportinal affect on road deterioration, emmisions etc, I'd expect my road tax to be greater for a higher covered milage in a year from previous.
As for GPS vehical tracking etc, that'll cost more, way more than the ID cards coming.
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Post by Kowalski »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by AlWilliams</i>

I understand the views here but is it really fair to expect someone travelling a couple of K per year getting to and from the shops to pay the same road tax as a travelling salesman?
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Don't you realise how much tax you pay on fuel?
On diesel its 47.1p per litre then VAT at 17.5% on top (of both the tax and the fuel). The end result is about 75%. I spend over £1200 a year on fuel, that's over £900 in tax. Road tax is insignificant compared to fuel duty, the fuel duty is what makes me drive a fuel efficient car.
If you compare tax raised from transport to tax spent on transport you realise how much of a cash cow motorists are.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
• Motorists in the UK pay £42.2 billion to the Government in taxation: fuel tax £22.1 billion; Vehicle Excise Duty £4.6 billion; VAT on vehicles £6.8 billion; VAT on fuel £5.6 billion and company car tax £3.1 billion
• Just £6.7 billion was spent on UK roads infrastructure in 2003
• 92 per cent of all passenger travel is by road
• 6.5 per cent is by rail
In 2002-2003 (the last period for which statistics are available), government spending on the rail infrastructure (£4,241 million) exceeded investment on roads ((£4,228 million),
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The figures above don't mention buses but over 30% of the cost of operating buses in the UK comes from the tax payer too.
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Post by howiedean »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Kowalski</i>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by AlWilliams</i>

I understand the views here but is it really fair to expect someone travelling a couple of K per year getting to and from the shops to pay the same road tax as a travelling salesman?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Don't you realise how much tax you pay on fuel?
On diesel its 47.1p per litre then VAT at 17.5% on top (of both the tax and the fuel). The end result is about 75%. I spend over £1200 a year on fuel, that's over £900 in tax. Road tax is insignificant compared to fuel duty, the fuel duty is what makes me drive a fuel efficient car.
If you compare tax raised from transport to tax spent on transport you realise how much of a cash cow motorists are.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
• Motorists in the UK pay £42.2 billion to the Government in taxation: fuel tax £22.1 billion; Vehicle Excise Duty £4.6 billion; VAT on vehicles £6.8 billion; VAT on fuel £5.6 billion and company car tax £3.1 billion
• Just £6.7 billion was spent on UK roads infrastructure in 2003
• 92 per cent of all passenger travel is by road
• 6.5 per cent is by rail
In 2002-2003 (the last period for which statistics are available), government spending on the rail infrastructure (£4,241 million) exceeded investment on roads ((£4,228 million),
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The figures above don't mention buses but over 30% of the cost of operating buses in the UK comes from the tax payer too.
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I think this is where the problem lies originally fuel tax and road tax were there to pay for the roads, over time tax raised from motorists has been used to pay for the welfare state etc.
With this in mind any Government can't afford for revenue to be lost due to reduced car use however we all know the Government have to be seen to do something to reduce CO2 and conjestion. IT'S ALL MAD
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