King Maz
Part of things
Only 16 left!
Posts: 378
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Feb 21, 2007 15:01:50 GMT
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I won't get a response, it probably won't even get read. That doesn't mean I should just roll over and let the dictatorship have its way.
I will copy my MP in on it though.
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Last Edit: Feb 21, 2007 15:02:32 GMT by King Maz
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Carter
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,535
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Feb 21, 2007 15:15:04 GMT
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Many people wont be able to afford road pricing full stop due to many of the points already posted here. Up until a couple of years ago i had over a 30 mile round trip to work, meant i was caning over 80 quid in fuel a month- just to get to and from work- for me, being an uneducated sort on a poor wage, i was putting in a day and half of work just to pay to get to and from work. I suppose part my problem is i refuse to have a modern economical car. Add road pricing and, well you get the picture.. Also how does the small enterprise survive, e.g. Bob the builder and his two man outfit, thrashing round in his flat-bed? Larger business's could be hit too, i currently work for a property maintenance company that has 30 or so tradesmen, each with their own van, the miles we clock up between us are astounding as we cover the whole of east-anglia. (by the way anyone need anything shifting within this area give me a shout- got a transit flat-bed tipper)
Kind of losing the point of my post now, d'uh, but well.. road pricing bad!!
They are sending out the petition replies in batches so any who havnt got one yet don't be too upset...
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'77 Chevy G20
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MWF
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,945
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Feb 21, 2007 15:21:51 GMT
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Also how does the small enterprise survive, e.g. Bob the builder and his two man outfit, thrashing round in his flat-bed? I would guess the theory is Bob The Builder pays more to get around but gets around easier due to lower congestion and thus can get more done.
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Feb 21, 2007 15:25:48 GMT
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But bob the builder is not travelling at proper peak times Out at 7, in the pub by 3... that's how it works, right?
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Feb 21, 2007 16:09:40 GMT
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well the point to consider is that you won't necessarily be worse off.
Everyone assumes this is the case but they have pitched a commitment early on that "about half" of road users will be better off under the new proposals, whatever they may end up being.
2 years ago BBC Radio 4 got its political analysts and researchers to go through every speach in the commons, every press release, every interview the govt. had done on road pricing and try and work out what the policy would be and then to put together a spreadsheet so people could work out if they would be better or worse off. I got the spreadsheet as part of a "fake consultation" the BBC did for the Today programme.
Bearing in mind the fact that my daily driver was a 1965 7 litre Oldsmobile...
I was better off. Thats bearing in mind one of my roads was rated at £1.50 a mile peak! And also remember my Oldsmobile is pre-1973 so I don't even get the £190 kickback that 1973 & later cars would.
My daily commute is fairly short though...
It was about £20 a month saving for me.
If Iworked it out on the Chrysler it would add to that as the Chrysler I have to pay for road tax right now.
Now you can say, fair enough but thats only the BBC's take on it, but thats exactly the same survey that the email doing the rounds has been quoting saying that a mother taking her kids to school will be £86 worse off and that a florist doing deliveres will be £200 worse off... So you can't have it both ways
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Last Edit: Feb 21, 2007 16:11:44 GMT by akku
1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Feb 21, 2007 16:16:32 GMT
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well the point to consider is that you won't necessarily be worse off. Everyone assumes this is the case but they have pitched a commitment early on that "about half" of road users will be better off under the new proposals, whatever they may end up being. 2 years ago BBC Radio 4 got its political analysts and researchers to go through every speach in the commons, every press release, every interview the govt. had done on road pricing and try and work out what the policy would be and then to put together a spreadsheet so people could work out if they would be better or worse off. I got the spreadsheet as part of a "fake consultation" the BBC did for the Today programme. Bearing in mind the fact that my daily driver was a 1965 7 litre Oldsmobile... I was better off. Thats bearing in mind one of my roads was rated at £1.50 a mile peak! And also remember my Oldsmobile is pre-1973 so I don't even get the £190 kickback that 1973 & later cars would. My daily commute is fairly short though... It was about £20 a month saving for me. If Iworked it out on the Chrysler it would add to that as the Chrysler I have to pay for road tax right now. Now you can say, fair enough but thats only the BBC's take on it, but thats exactly the same survey that the email doing the rounds has been quoting saying that a mother taking her kids to school will be £86 worse off and that a florist doing deliveres will be £200 worse off... So you can't have it both ways At the risk of sounding thicker than mud, If PPM is going to be cheaper than the current system, how can it work?
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Feb 21, 2007 16:20:12 GMT
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Not "cheaper" overall but less expensive for "about half" of the people. That means the other "about half" will pay more, and indeed some will get royally shafted. Thats how it will work. Or rather I suspect that with the investment in IT to make it work and the governmnets track record with these that it really really won't work...
Also I've been gooberwatching long enough to know that "about half" isn't a precise figure, whats the tollerance?
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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MWF
Posted a lot
Posts: 2,945
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Feb 21, 2007 16:31:07 GMT
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Something that does concern me about this scheme is the rat run effect it could create. I drive directly through Wolverhampton to get to work. Now if it turned out I had to pay a fortune to do so every day I could choose to loop over Wolves via the abundance of small lanes and such that carve through the country side and that may work out significantly cheaper.
Now I reckons I'm not the only person whole think that.
So my concern is once quiet country lanes full of commuters running over sheep, crashing into each other, ruining the peace, going over hedges etc...
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Last Edit: Feb 21, 2007 16:31:43 GMT by MWF
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Shortcut
Posted a lot
I won't be there when you cross the road, so always use the Green Cross Code.
Posts: 3,037
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Feb 21, 2007 17:33:12 GMT
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Also I've been gooberwatching long enough to know that "about half" isn't a precise figure, whats the tollerance? Well for the new housing tax rebanding "about half" was six people in Dundee were better off everyone else was shafted. So that's roughly half, for a given value of half.
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This space available to rent. Reach literally dozens of people. Cheap rates!
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Feb 21, 2007 18:30:56 GMT
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and indeed some will get royally shafted. id better pull my pants down now then, cos i reckon il be one of them.
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Feb 21, 2007 18:59:42 GMT
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Inyteresting you mention council tax, I'll come onto that in a moment...
First thing before I forget is the comparison with student top up fees I have heard mentioned a couple of times wher this car tax is being discussed. The context being "well everybody was against student top up fees and they got that through so they can get this through no matter what".
Well, who is "everybody". I am ambivalent on the subject of topup fees and I know plenty of people who think they are a jolly good idea. I suspect that many people think they are a good idea based on the quote I heard froma chap in the pub "why should I pay for students, they should pay the **** lot themselves, all they do is ponce about for 3 years at my expense doing 2 hours lectures a week then walk into a £50K a year job, ****ers". And this opinion regardless of its invalidity will be common.... A lot of fuss was made in the broadsheet media and BBC but I don;t think it was a big issue for your average mechanic or shop worker...
And I wonder if we are doing something similar here. One of the news programmes commissioned a survey which was on yesterday I caught and according to them 55% of people are in favour of pay as you go road charging if consessions are made on road tax. 53% of people are in favour of pay as you drive assuming it costs MORE so long as any proffits go to public transport. Could the majority opinion really be in favour of it???
The other thing I hear people comparing this to is the Poll Tax, and thats an interesting comparisson because this is actually far closer to the council tax.... Anyone actually remember what the poll tax was?
Back in the mists of time someone decided that the best way to fund local councils was through the "rates". These were arbitary charges made on what the council thought your house was worth. There were no bands, all houses were valued individually and if you were unlucky you could end up with a massive bill. Also the system sucked if you were a pensioner who happened to own a large or valuable house as you'd have to pay these huge bills on little or no income. Now the tories were in power and being as most of thier voters own big houses they thought they aught to do something about it. And that something was the "community charge." The idea was that everybody paid the same because the size of your house doesn't dictate the value of the services you get from the council. Everybody gets their bins emptied etc so everyone should pay the same. And I can imagine the day they thought that one up they thought everybody would be well pleased and how obvious that was and how it was dead fair. Simply because they forgot that a huge proportion of the population didn't actually pay rates (living in rented accomodation for example) and if they did the rates on a flat or small house probably wasnt that much. So a huge number of people were suddenly worse off paying a tax they never had to in the past. This was unpopular and many groups of people united against it. Even rich people didn't like it. I knew a lass who's dad was a doctor. His rates were like £3000-£3500 or so a year on his house whereas the community charge was £175 per adult. "Can't pay won't pay" was the chant, but some people said "can pay, won't pay." Whats evident is that in society there is an element that not everything has to be equal to be fair. The government couldn't see that. When you admit that rich people should pay more you get close to "from each acording to his ability, to each according to his need" and thats uncomfortable for right of centre politics... But I digress...
So the Community Charge was replaced by the Council Tax, based on bands with a maxium level unlike the rates so Tory voters in big houses didn't go back to paying huge bills and the population was placated.
Some think it was all a plot. Bring in something really unpopular and then replace it with something less unpopular and everyone thinks the Council Tax is great!
In this situation thought he Poll Tax xomparison is a little odd because what we have now in road tax is more similar to the poll tax itself. IE single payment regardless of income or useage....
What is interesting is the way that council tax was brought in, and I suspect some similar trickery will be used with pay-per-mile. See the tories had just raised VAT from 15% to 17.5% (itself unpopular but faded into insignifcance next to the poll tax protests - we Brits can't protest about 2 things at once) so the government had extra cash in the kitty from this otherwise unplanned expansion of revenue. For the first few years the additional VAT revenue was used to subsidise the Council Tax in sort-of-secret. this made the Council tax seem fairly cheap and helped people accept it. Over the years the call on the VAT revue was greater elsewhere so the subsidy ended. Hense council tax has gone up loads in recent years. And the great thing is central government can blame the local councils for spending too much and walk away unstained by this.
I suspect something similar will be done with pay-per-mile. Some secret secondary funding stream will be factored in for the first 2-3 years and when we see the prices when they unveil it we'll thank "thats not so bad, I might even save some money" and then when its in and law and nobody can do anything about it they'll remove the subsidy and the rates will rise....
Not massively in one go, but a bit at a time. After all they don't want to stop us driving as that cuts revenue. Its like cigarette tax. Something like £80 billion is raised off smokers. They'd stop us all tomorrow if the put fags up to £50 a pack. But they don;t want to. They want to screww us for as much as they can. So they put them up by 10p, 20p, 15p just enough to raise extra revenue but not enough to make you say "sheete, thats just too expensive, I quit". Petrol duty and road tax and pay-per-mile if it ever comes will be just the same....
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Miller
Part of things
Posts: 87
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Feb 21, 2007 19:24:55 GMT
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Something that does concern me about this scheme is the rat run effect it could create. I drive directly through Wolverhampton to get to work. Now if it turned out I had to pay a fortune to do so every day I could choose to loop over Wolves via the abundance of small lanes and such that carve through the country side and that may work out significantly cheaper. Now I reckons I'm not the only person whole think that. So my concern is once quiet country lanes full of commuters running over sheep, crashing into each other, ruining the peace, going over hedges etc... This is what concerns me about the scheme. The town where I live used to be part of the main road that connected cornwall and west devon to the rest of the country and every year in the summer the whole town would come to a grinding halt (not to mention the lorrys pounding though the town centre everyday). Eventually a bypass was included as part of the "new" A30 and now all traffic is directed around the town. If people had to pay lots to use this main road at peak times the government would also have to up the cost of driving though small towns like this to stop people from trying to save money by cutting though them. This would in turn mean that residents of these towns which currently have useless bus and public transport systems and no current conjestion problems would have to pay rediculous amounts just to pop down to the shops or else suffer from mile long tail backs as thousands of people try to save money by taking the "backroads". I doubt even our goverment would let this happen but its something my parents (who are disabled) are quite worried about. I do agree that something has to be done about city conjestion but currently public transport in lots of the cities near me is a joke and if the government are going to charge people in this way then that money should be directly put back into effectivly sorting out this service. However if the governemnt start charging silly amounts to use the very main A roads designed to help relieve conjestion then something is very wrong. It also worrys me that however muchgood faith this is started up in, the goverment will probably take every oppotunity to shaft us even more than it currently does. The whole "big brother is watching" thing makes me feel uneasy too.
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Feb 21, 2007 21:45:46 GMT
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Road pricing could be enabled by doing the following; abolish Car Tax per se, extra tax on fuel and make the MOT more of a roadworthyness test. Therefore, those who use their cars the least pay the least, those who kane it all over the country pay for the prilivlege.
As for congestion, it is as much down to years of half-ar53d town planning as anything as it seems nowadays all new shops etc must be accessable only by car with public transport not even given a second thought. Over here we have a perfect example with a huge shopping centre totally bypassed by all public transport, even though a main railway line runs within 100yds of it! We are also suffering 'redevelopment' by one of the Governments 'redevelopment agencies'; they still haven't worked out what we need most is an extra river crossing, not 'controlling traffic' over the existing ones....another stupid idea is to truncate the railway line 300m further out from the town centre, remove public transport links from in front of it and create 'public spaces' instead. What I would love to do with a bagful of C4......
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Rover Metro - The TARDIS - brake problems.....Stored Rover 75 - Barge MGZTT Cdti 160+ - Winter Hack and Audi botherer... MGF - The Golden Shot...Stored Project Minion........ Can you see the theme?
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Feb 21, 2007 22:07:06 GMT
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Some interesting reading here folks. As Pog says, the problem is society. I'm frankly baffled as to why some people consider it fine to work so far away from home - this is the big difference of late and is the reason that Friday rush hour (and Sunday EVENING!) is the worst time to be on the roads. I'll be doing this style commute myself while we are between houses but as a long term thing? No thanks. I'd rather have a life.
It isn't just working hours either though. Try driving around on a Saturday and you'll find urban roads packed, especially if shops are nearby. Get a grip folks and buy online!! Let someone else suffer the traffic.
Once tried driving across South London on a Saturday and was appalled by the state of the congestion. That was a few years ago too.
People really do need to change their entire lifestyles - not just catch the bus to work.
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1986 Citroen 2CV Dolly Other things. Check out my Blog for the latest! www.hubnut.org
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Feb 21, 2007 22:18:27 GMT
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Get yerself a Rangey.....road pricing? You can keep your stinking roads, I'm going across the fields to work
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Colonelk
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,742
Club RR Member Number: 83
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Feb 21, 2007 22:38:34 GMT
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Some very interesting reading and points in this thread TBH I think if a lot of the ideas were combined in this thread were put together (school buses, home working etc) then it should make a decent impact. Alistair.... I know you say the effects of the school holidays are exaggerated, but some schools really need to get their act together! If you think a large number of cars are taking 1 kid to each school, a single double decker is a good 40 cars off the road. I know those numbers are true guesstimation, but there are 5 large schools in the area in which I work and I curse the school runners every day!
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Its not the effect of the holiday... thats real enough... its that the cause/effect link is probably not what we think it is.
I was thinking about this last night. Its all wrong. For example if you have a company car you are actually rewarded the more miles you drive it with greater tax breaks... And yes, they still give bigger tax breaks for bigger engined cars...
If I want to have a meeting with someone from say our Mansfield office I can either phone them or I can get in my car and claim 54p a mile expenses to drive there and back...
Theres dozens if not hndreds of things the govt could do to encourage eco behaviour in transport for busioness if it want to, or if it dared.
Silly little things you don;t think about - buy roses at Valentine's Day? I grow roses as a bit of a interest and I know how Februsary is the one month n the year I can guarantee having no blooms. All those roses you buyin the flower shop or Asda were grown in South or Central America (Bolivia is apparently a big rose grower) and then they come over in refridgerated aeroplanes... Insane.
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1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Feb 22, 2007 17:23:47 GMT
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Bumping this back to the top with a fun link. Journey plannerGetting to work by bus would take me an hour and 19 minutes as opposed to 31 minutes by car. and i can either arrive 23 minutes early or 8 minutes late.
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Feb 22, 2007 18:29:46 GMT
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My trip to work tomorrow.....
Leave my house 0730, drive 17 miles to work.... Car: 25 mins Bus: 1hr 18 mins
Leave work 1330, drive 17 miles home. Car: 26 mins Bus: 1hr 9mins
No explanation needed. ;D
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Feb 22, 2007 18:55:12 GMT
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Push Bike average: 25 mins, set off arrive bang on! cost: better diet for the day/more energy-arguably free. (£1.15 P/W maintainance plus clothing) Car: 15-30 mins if theres no serious accidents or blockages Cost: (rough running cost 2.74 p/d) + £1.50 petrol p/d bus: 35 mins although 10 mins less in bed plus 10min walk = 45 mins (10 mins lateplus if it misses much lateness. cost: weekly pass = 1.60 p/d or daily £4 Summary at a glance Car is cheap if you ignore running costs but costy when you don't. Bike is by far best bet but remind me that on those cold mornings when i'm knackered and i have already forked out to run car! Bus isnt bad actually from here, read Metro paper and wake up slowly, but i'm too used to my independence, and its a fair wait to get home. Sticking with bike n car
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it doesn't matter if it's a Morris Marina or a Toyota Celica - it's what you do with it that counts
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