Leslie

Hedgehog has given the full answer SAP, better than I could anyway, I saw a photo of the initial satellite in the paper and it will be launched before long, don't know how many satellites they will need though. It stated that it was for tracking traffic in Europe so it is as Hedgehog says, a European system independent of GPS obviously thought up by the Green influences. there will be variable charges according to the roads you use with £1.34p quoted as the highest rate. You can be sure that a years driving will cost more than our present "Road Fund" tax! Thats only £42 billion of course-of which £6 billion is currently spent on road maintainance!

Les

Clarebabes

I feel sick at reading the above. Totally unacceptable and if there is anything little old me can do, I will do it. I am already a member of the ABD before anyone suggests that.

I really don't think that voting out the labour party is going to stop this if it really is viable, as by the looks of it, the whole of Europe is involved and therefore, slightly out of the government's hands.

I hate the way motorists are persecuted. I hate this even though I only do around 15 miles a day, outside of any major towns, so I probably will not get persecuted as much as some.

My partner, like S_AP drives a 100 mile round trip every day. They are driving at peak times on a motorway which no doubt will be one of the hotspots for the maximum charge. Now, we can't afford the extra £145 a day in costs to get to work. So, what are we going to do? Buy a house closer to his work and get a 2 bed semi in a rough area for the same amount that we have a detached in a nice area? Or is my partner going to have to leave his lucrative job in the south and find a less lucrative one up here?

Either way, it is going to have a detrimental effect on our standard of living and I don't relish the prospect to be honest. I quite like my life.

Bloody nanny state gone mad - George Orwell was right!

GC8

I find fascist crap like this truly frightening. Has anyone read 1984? Wtf is next; DNA testing of all babies; maybe a small implanted chip the size of a matchead like my friends dog has; easy to scan and you wont need to carry an ID card. No one need worry if theyre a law abiding citizen. Freedom to travel is your right in a free country ffs. There seems to be a culture developing where we accept that we governed/controlled rather than realising that the Government administers the country on our behalf.

Power to the People!

Simon

hedgehog

Actually there were recent calls from the administration for all motorists stopped by police, or done for speeding, to have to undergo a DNA and finger print test. Now, I am not sure of the state of progress of this plan and, perhaps, it has been dropped but it was something that the administration called for. I suspect that the operational overhead involved in it was significant and perhaps this is why it has gone all quiet but I also have a bad feeling that it hasn't gone away.

A microchip that can be implanted under the skin and which can be read from some distance is currently being tested in the USA. Persoanlly I suspect this idea is a dead duck as it would not be so easy to update the device to take into account new technology when you can just force people to carry ID cards that can be remotely read and which can be updated when new technology comes along. However it is possible that the implant might be linked by some sort of unique ID number to your ID card so that the card can be electronically tied to the person with the implant.

Leslie

Simon

Its worth reading "Animal Farm" by the same author before "1984". You will have the full story about this lot then. Clever man Orwell.

Les

r32

Remember Poll Tax, if the people (and motorists are people) stick together then these things will never see the light of day, it is (only just) still a Democracy.
If we all roll over and play dead then the future is bleak indeed.

Stick together guys and girls we can defeat this Big Brother....

Aztec Performance Ltd

iTrader: (234)

To my knowledge a speed CAMERA (ie auto NIP) must be fully signposted. When police are carrying out speed checks they do not need to be signposted as they must stop you and give you the 'ticket'.

Bob

jonc

If this charging for road use does happen, only small proportion the general population will be able to afford to run cars, ie the rich. This could mean a massive shortfall in the amount of revenue this would be able to raised compared to the current system or high fuel tax and road tax. Business would suffer, unless consessions are made, haulage firms would be hit hard, cost of transport would rise which would in turn lead to general higher cost of living and taxes would have to be raised to make up for this potential shortfull to pay for this policy and the huge investment in public transport to make this viable option.

This is already demontrated, though to a lesser degree, with the congestion charging already having a similar affect in London. It has been so successful in reducing the number of vehicles in London, its ability to raise the revenue to pay for the implemenation of this system and for improvements to the public transport has fallen short of their projections. Kev Livingston projected that this charge would raise around £100m but has infact rasied £79m. So what are they doing? raising the congestion charge from £5 to £8. This is a catch 22 situation, as they increase the charge, even less people will be inclined to drive into London and therefore even less revenue is raised. Its doomed to fail, well at least I hope so or at least until he get voted out.

maxim

I've got an LE30 fitted to my Skud, ask Senior AP. Proper Bo I tell thee...

hedgehog

I agree with what you are saying and I just can't explain the economics of how this will work. However, the fact remains that they have to get at least £40 billion per year from the "traveller" no matter how they do it.

So, I would guess that they are prepared for a change in the use of transport systems. In your example of the London congestion charge my bet is that the long term plan will be that as the number of people going into the charging area decreases so the cost of car parking at the edge of the area, for example, will increase. You may also find that the roads around those car parks attract a considerable road toll.

Once road charging is introduced then it is likely that many will be forced on to public transport by the cost of using the road. While there are lots still using their cars the public transport will be inexpensive and "attractive." Once people start to abandon their cars then the money will have to be made from the public transport and so, in the long term, using public transport will be no less expensive than driving your car.

What I can't fully comprehend is the indirect economic effects, such as how shift workers will get to and from work and how the charges will impact upon the cost of goods in a supermarket, say.

In the long term I would guess that the economics have to be pretty cost neutral for the government. What is forcing this situation is some nutter Stalinist on a push bike who wants control of your life and who believes that getting motorists off the road is another step on the road to taking this country back to the stone age when everything was lovely and when Greenpeace ruled the earth. This ignores the fact that until just over 100 years ago the average life span was about 40 years, today it is about twice that.

That I can see there is no economic, logical, environmental or social reason why we need to destroy private transport as it has been extremely successful and the private car has changed the world for the better. There is, however, a political reason as the various green pressure groups are very vocal and are a significant force in Europe. As a true environmentalist I recognise that some of their points are valid, though many are utter crap based upon fairy stories, but these "green" policies are merely a smokescreen to hide a bunch of Stalinist nutters with big egos who want control.

In the past we were amazed at people risking their lives to get over the Berlin Wall. Soon many of us who value free thought and freedom of expression might get to understand exactly what drove people to want to climb that wall. While the electronic control is less obvious than the machine guns and barbed wire in the long term the oppression will be the same, as will the effect on society.