EiW

'Working' 35 hours???? I'm counting on the legislation restricting hours in the office to 35. 35 hours working would be about 70 days in the office, even more for MattW in my experience.

r32

I think every one is concerned about congestion and the effects on health and the enviroment.
But you cant remove the need to travel, so this will just generate revenue, it will not reduce congestion by much. The only way to do this is to provide economic alternatives to travelling in a car. What will happen to inner cities? They will degenerate. You wont go there to shop, you will go to the Meadowhalls and Bluewaters of this world. Companies will move out of towns and cities and build in green or brown belt so that their employees can still get to work, and so they dont have to whack up their wages to compensate.
This at a time when the SRA (strategic rail authority) are looking at pricing custmers off the rail network because they have too many customers.
There must be a good alternative, the Government seem to be missing this point unless its just another stealth tax!

Leslie

I think OllyK has a good point. We pay so much in so called "road fund tax" which was its original name, that it really is about time that our road infrastructure was improved. To hell with the nut crunchers who are dead against more or better roads for their own selfish reasons.

Not only will they bend to the Greens and the lefties who don't like us to have the freedom that we get from our cars, but of course they are raking in the cash hand over fist to bolster up their own obscene salaries and allowances etc. So much of our money is being thrown away for jobs for the boys in useless quangos and given to weird lefty organisations to keep them in check from bothering the small cabal which dictates our lives to us. And of course it will cost £0.5 mill to entertain the health officials from the Eu at a conference here later.

No government is perfect of course but this lot really do take the candle!

Yes Suresh, Heath, the chap who lied to us about the future aims of European government, did propose road pricing but did he say it should be done by monitoring everyone's position and destination? That would not have been possible at his time and would have had to be done by toll booths. Maybe you can tell us how he was going to do it of course.

Anyone who believes that all fuel tax and road fund tax would be abolished would be liiving in cloud cuckoo land. They are aiming to make a big profit from this and Darling said yesterday that he evisaged that VED and fuel duty would be "reduced"!

Les

Nimbus

So with the various prices for roads and time of day I assume they will publish a map with all the roads (however small) with their charges for each hour of the day? That way we can plan the cheapest route by taking to the raural roads as much as possible turning what was once quite country lanes into noisy, smelly, heavly congested, accident prone roads. While the motorways (the safest, quickest, most economical roads) get left to those few who can either afford it, or don't pay (crims, goverment officials (could be classed as the same))..

MattW

Ahhhhh! but what if pricing was not fixed. So on Monday you take the rural road but everyone else is doing the same so you get charged £1.34, on Tuesday you decide to go via the motorway but so do everyone else......oooops!

OllyK

Oh yes - I see a plan, base the daily charge you pay based on the actual level of traffic that did pass along that road during that day! Play the road lottery folks, the only winner is the government!

boomer

Rather than waste BILLIONS on this fantasy scheme, why don't the government spend all this money on making public transport completely free? Catch a bus or train from and to anywhere for nowt!!!!

That way the tree huggers and lentil munchers will be happy, those "middle of the road" folks can "make a difference", and the vast majority of hard working decent folks can get on with their jobs and lives without interference from the state

Of only

mb

stiscooby

This country is getting seriously fecked up!!

Everyone should have the ***** (like they do in other countries) to all stand together and say no, bollocks, we ain't paying that....... protest or do something to stop it.

The problem is with many people in this country, as already mentioned, they can't be bothered to do anything about it so they will just bend over and take it up the ****.

Can't see this working myself, I mean the GPS units that are used at the moment don't work 100%... I think there will be too many problems with units which will lead to people being fined when they shouldn't be etc etc etc and with the amount of cars in this country that would be using this system, it would probably all come to a grinding halt.

If they monitor your speed also then there will be no point even having a bloody car, because 90% of people will lose there license within the first few weeks!

Jerome

Although this will not affect me, it is depressing to see what NL is doing to the UK. Every time I start to miss dear old Blighty, something like this comes along to realise I'm far better off where I am.

I think AndyC has the best idea, flexi-time. Start giving companies incentives to let their employees set (within reason) when they work. If the companies don't implement this, maybe some form of legislation to force it.

Also home working should be encouraged. Allowing more people to work from home would be even better. Especially someone who sits at a PC all day. Mount a webcam on the monitor if you don't trust them to be at their desk. Monitoring their productivity is pretty easy as well.

Flexible hours and home working wouldn't just free up many roads from congestion, it would also make public transport less unpleasant because it wouldn't be as crowded.

I also agree with getting rid of bus lanes. Firstly, because they cause much of the congestion, and secondly, because they are dangerous - they are one of the reasons buses are 20 times more dangerous to pedestrians than white vans.

I also think these lentil munchers should be made aware of the fact that buses, on average, produce 28 times the pollution that a car does. Also that the average number of passengers on a bus is 9. So buses are more than three times as polluting per passenger as cars are - assuming all cars only have one passenger.

Sadly, the government aren't interested in anything other than revenue generation and control of the populace.

OllyK

GPS is just 1 of 3 methods being trialed in West Yorks (according to the ABD), they are also trying microwave transmitters by the road side and also camera technology similar to the London congestion charge system.

So much for my plan of accidentally obscuring the GPS ariel if they go for one of the other methods.

Jap2Scrap

Let's hope they go with the camera method eh? Then we'll have some fun when the cloning really gets going! What pikey in their right mind is going to pay a charge like that when with a bit of research and a set of false plates Joe Bloggs of Reddich can pay all their travelling costs for them....

DrEvil

the only way to fairly tax all road users with vehicles that cause congestion and pollution, is via fuel - at least then even vehicles from abroad will get taxed too.

I've got nothing to hide - but I don't like the idea of them know where you've been every time you go out - its an invasion of privacy.

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

That's just it: although the level is undoubtedly a topic of endless debate, the fact is that fuel tax is a remarkably fair one. Drive more miles? Pay more tax. Have a more efficient car? You pay less. Have a weekend toy that spends 360 days a year in the garage? You pay next to nothing (except for VED which is well overdue for scrapping).

And, still we have no idea what those hypothetical people who will cease to travel at peak times are supposed to do instead. The ABD newsletter this month talks of 'demand management' on the trains, because they already can't cope...

CrisPDuk

The railways could easily be made to cope much better than they do at peaktimes, the problem is to do with what's known as 'fixed rake sets', i.e: when ordering new & organising pre-existing stock, traffic managers record the usage on a particluar route over a period of time, then they take the average of the number of users on that particular route and create a set of carriages for that route. The trouble is, the use of that average overlooks one very important factor, a good 50-60% more people than the average are trying to use that train in a mere 15-20% of any calculated time period.
In the 'good old days' before accountants rose to power, traffic manages retained a selection of carriages waiting in sidings, for 'augmentation' purposes, but having them sat around waiting for peak time useage was deemed 'not cost effective' so the practice was erradicated during the 70's & 80's

Leslie

Its all an indication of what happens when you abandon all thought of maintaining, let alone improving the infrastructure. They have found it convenient to avoid spending the VED on the roads as they should do because the nut crunchers tell them not to!
It is costing us all extra money now and they are profiting from it.

Tiggs,

You are entitled to think whatever you like of course, but if you publish a post here telling us about it then I have a right to post to tell you what rubbish it is.

Les

OllyK

Or you do as they do on the Midland Mainline - run longer trains and tell people they have to get on and off from the front 6 or 7 carriages,

Dracoro

Most platforms can service 8 carriages. Therefore the simple solution is to have 16 carriage trains. Train pulls in, empties/fills 1st 8 carriages. Moves forward a bit and does the other 8. Saves having to build longer carriages. In principle this could have problems in busy main stations, but they have longer platforms anyway (or make those ones longer).

SJ_Skyline

They've extended most of the platforms on my line for 12 carridges. Still full to the rafters in the morning though

Dracoro

Oh, and stop bl**dy tourists from travelling on the tube and commuter trains in rush hour with stupid luggage and then getting off trains and dawdling getting in every bl**dy persons way!

They're on holiday, they've got all day to travel so why do it at the busiest times

SJ_Skyline

They should also put razor blades on the doors so when they beep and shut some tard doesn't decide to run up and stick their arm in the door and force the door open

Had a suitcase episode last night blocking the exits, fookin' eejits

Jerome

While we are talking about unwanted passengers (tourists, shoppers etc), I say obese people should also be banned from peak periods. Not only do they take up two seats, take ages to shift their fat ***** on and off the train, but they invariably sweat like loonies.

OllyK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4617315.stm

mart360

ever seen the film animal house.....

the scene where the initiation ceremony is under way..

in the posh house...

the guys in his boxers and gets a huge belt accros the ar*e with a bat..

"please sir can i have another" he cries, and one is duly administered et al...

its a pity that so many on this thread are in this position...

they know deep down that they are getting shafted but there stubborn pride

or percieved loss of face prevents them from admitting the truth..


the best part is when they have been right royally shafted... the majority will

take great delight in saying

"told you so"


M

Jerome

Reminds of the Poll Tax. My father was a really big fan of this, until he got his first bill - which was much higher than his rates bill. He suddenly went off poll tax after that...

Spoon

I don't think it's been mentioned in the 6 pages of this thread but where would the 1.5 million disabled drivers who don't pay road tax find themselves?

There are circa 400,000 vehicles currently being used on the Motability scheme too!

I can't see "pay as you go" being popular there.

Leslie

I would expect them to be exempted Spoon.

Les