Holy Ghost

thanks ollyk - "spoofing" looks interesting.

the surprising thing is that, according to a survey published by reuters this morning, only 16% questioned are totally opposed to governmental GPS tracking.

i suspect that's because few people actually realise the implications of the government being able to follow you around and record your movements. same goes for ID cards: do we live in a nation of ignorant, complacent sleep-walking sheep or what?

OllyK

16% of a whopping 1050 people surveyed - hardly representative, and I doubt it was intended to be either.

Holy Ghost

sure. surveys & surveys! i suspect mass awareness is a real problem tho' ...

Vegescoob

Sadly, I am inclined to think so.

Leslie

I wonder why the greenhouse gas pollution caused by aircraft is never mentioned. the amount of hydrocarbon fuel burned by aircraft every day is staggering but aviation fuel is still tax free! Is it that big business is being protected and they are using the easy excuse of car pollution to sqeeze all that cash out of the motorist?

I find it even more incredible when I see the government is now going to pay teenage dropouts to attend a course on how to get a job with travel allowances, child care and food all paid and also a free gift of an Ipod worth £170! They also get an extra £100 if they sign on again!

The marketing director says it is not bribery but really"incentivisation". A rose by any other name!

We really are being taken to the cleaners by this lot.

Les

hedgehog

Which greenhouse gas is produced by aircraft and since when has man started impacting upon climate Les?

Science rejects any implication that we are changing climate, though it does accept that climate changes by its nature. Of late the greens have been harping on about melting Alpine Glaciers, for example, and telling us that this is positive proof that we are all doomed. Here is what science is saying on the subject:

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/inte...357366,00.html

Business as usual.

The environmental argument is a very strong one in terms of its impact upon the uneducated masses as they will believe anything they see on TV and the more "exciting" the news the more likely it is to have an impact upon them. The climate is changing. Over about a third of the earths surface it may be getting somewhat warmer, over the rest it is looking like it is getting somewhat colder. This green stunt, for example, was designed to demonstrate global warming by paddling across the Arctic Ocean:

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsst...1121/story.htm

It failed because the Arctic has had an "unusually" cold winter. In fact things have been so cold in the Arctic, and the cooling trend is such, that it may lead to a northern ozone hole as documented in "Nature" two weeks back.

In a way I agree with the point implied by your post Les: even if man were having an effect on the climate why attack only motorists? However, motoring is one of the few modes of travel where you are not monitored and so can do as you like. The Copenhagan Declaration (which John Major signed up to) also declared private transport "socially divisive" and stated that everything possible should be done to remove this option from the great unwashed. ("The car is a major cause of social exlusion and its use must be curtailed by all means available")

When you add up all these factors the situation becomes very politically complex as both the left and right want control over transport. The greens, who are a very vocal lobby largely to the extreme left, have jumped on this bandwagon and the politicians from either end of the spectrum have been happy to use them and have seen that they can make hay from the climate change story.

The "congestion" story is also weak because traffic numbers in London, for example, haven't increased in 20 years (People tend to "self regulate" away from congestion and this is the most likely reason for this) and yet we are told there is more congestion. Of course the only way this could happen is if the "congestion" has been created and the system of traffic calming, bus lanes, road narrowing and traffic light phasing to cause snarl ups has been designed to give the appearance of "congestion" with no increase in traffic volume.

With the green story and the congestion story both eliminated, or easily solved by some engineering work, this leaves only the control aspect.

Perhaps the most useful parallel comes from the means by which Stalin sought to control all forms of transport. Even public transport caused him problems as the peasants were coming into towns on trains and selling food and the like to the proletariat. Such events resulted, to some extent, in the need for a watered down version of the ideal and, in turn, this produced "War Communism" and the "Plans" both of which contained scope for private enterprise. Stalin also put very effective controls upon access to private transport in place. Of course the extreme right also saw the merit in such things but the Stalin example is very clear cut, well documented and is physically quite close to what is happening in the UK today, though poor Stalin didn't have the technology.

Which brings me back to your point Les, you were right after all, it isn't about congestion, or the environment but there is a lot of political stuff going on and the average law abiding citizen who wants some freedom to go about his business doesn't really fit in any more.

the moose

But I'd like to reduce congestion, and think that there's some merit to the debate we're currently having. The amounts seem high, the technology looks flaky, but overall, what else can you suggest, because we have to do something soon to prevent gridlock in ten years time?

Me, I'd simply go for variable tolls in city centres, paid for with a DART tag type device.

Boost II

iTrader: (1)

**** - my little sister works for Leeds City Council doing environmental science stuff. She is into air quality, traffic policy, all this stuff. Don't think they take much notice of what she says but maybe I could turn her to make sure this thing fails From what I've heard though the politicians will probably "decide" whether it works or not, regardless of all the time and money that goes on proper research and regardless of public opinion.

hedgehog

First of all the survey they are quoting from was carried out on behalf of a company called Detica who are into "information intelligence." They are basically IT consultants and you can see a profile of their Head of Transport here:

http://www.detica.com/indexed/Expert...GrantKlein.htm

Note that he doesn't provide Detica with fleet cars, he provides monitoring systems for your car.

You should also note that the question which gave the 16% figure was as follows:

In-car electronic devices that locate your vehicle and electronically deduct a charge from your account are one way that road-user charging could work. Which of the following potential benefits would encourage you to consider having such a device fitted to your vehicle?
Base: All respondents (1,075)
%
Enable the emergency services to quickly locate you in an accident 27
Automatic discount on the road-user charge for all who have the device fitted 24
Save hassle of repeated payment transactions 21
Help insurers understand how you drive and potentially bring down your personal insurance premium if you are a good driver 20
I do not have a vehicle 17
Bring you real-time traffic information relevant to your journey 15
Provide proof that payment has been made 13
Provide information on and directions to places such as petrol stations, historic sites, car parks and restaurants 9
I already have such a device in my car 1
None of these/Nothing would make me have an in-car device 16
Don’t know 5


As you can see the question wasn't actually a simple "would you fit one of these" and by the time most people got to the "no way" option they had probably already ticked a box. Another survey done today, with a simple "would you..." question and a sample of 2500 people saw 83% say "no way."

Note, also, that the questions give you some indication of the ways in which the satellite monitoring systems are to be used for purposes other than just Charging and ISA.

Hanslow

Stop people having kids and allow the population to drop in the UK

Holy Ghost

that's enlightening ... and encouraging ... and depressing.

so insurers can spy on you too? cool.

hedgehog

One of the ways this was going to be "sold" to us was always to be through the insurance companies. As has been discussed this can't be rolled out overnight but the government hope, or perhaps are encouraging, the insurance companies to offer policies to motorists who accept a spy in the car type black box. This has been tested, certainly in Ireland, with the "user" downloading their black box using the phone line and a modem. However, they hope to have more sophisticated and automated methods available soon.

Young drivers, who stand to pay substantial insurance bills, will probably be the first and, from the perspective of the government, the most valuable targets of such a scheme as they will need the black box to stand any chance of getting insurance. In turn this produces a generation of motorists who have never known anything other than automated tracking of their movements and actions.

Other questions in the survey also asked about which vehicles should be banned from the roads altogether during rush hour. I hope we all meet the government requirements for rush hour road access folks? If not then don't expect your car to start before 1030 and expect it to have a little siesta between 1630 and 1930.

fast bloke

At the current rate of GPS progress it seems that it will be very difficuly to jam it. My last GPS reciever would get confused if a small bird flew past about 2 miles up. My new Tomtom still picks up a signal insude the microwave inside the house

drumsterphil

iTrader: (1)

Whats the bet that drivers made up 16% of the survery population, non-drivers the rest............

Lies, damn lies and statistics

SPEN555

I have a GPS based snooper in my car. It can't pick up a satelite where I live as it's to hilly!

StickyMicky

i will be hooking my gps unit up to the dog

the moose

Yes, but that's just finding ways of dealing with the cars we have at present. Build more roads, and more cars will come (to paraphrase Wayne's World II). The ultimate solution, I suppose, is to concrete the entire South East.

Or we could encourage people to (shock, horror) walk or cycle, to car share, to avoid journeys, to live closer to work. Basically, and despite us all moaning about how much it costs, car ownership has become far more prevalent and cheaper. We now have to deal with the consequences, and that doesn't just mean building more roads, though this will no doubt be part of the solution.

hedgehog

I agree that we need lots of solutions and that we must review all the options. However, the volume of traffic in London has not increased in 20 years the only thing that has changed is the way it is managed. The "congestion" has been created by traffic calming, traffic lights which are phased to introduce congestion, pinch points, bus lanes, cycle lanes and the like. The "congestion" has been engineered into the system so that something has to be done about it.

In general people avoid congestion if they can and this is suggested as the reason why the volume of traffic in London has not increased. People use the most efficient and effective method of transport for them. Removing this choice and introducing a control system is unlikely to improve things. Again we can look at the example of the USSR where the government attempted to control everything. How well did they fare? What was the standard of living like? Did it work?

The basic principle behind evolution would tend to indicate that, by and large, humans are very good at choosing what is best for them even without chips, cameras and satellites.

SD

Sorry, but when the airports get full because it costs Wayne and Waynetta Slob £2.50 to fly to Spain for a holiday we build more runways. Aircraft fuel isn't taxed. When the roads get full because people NEED to get to work we draw the line on road building and introduce stupid charges like this one. Talk about hypocracy.

Simon.

Jerome

I wouldn't be suprised if these black box systems would eventually require you to insert your ID card - probably hooked up the ignition so you need your ID card to even start the car.

As well as everything else that has been mentioned already, how can you budget for the cost of car ownership when you will not know what any particular journey will cost? Maybe the idea is to make people have to sell their cars to pay their road charging bill.

LC Geezer

Am I being thick here? 12000 x 2p = £240 doesn't it?

Leslie

As I said in an earlier post LC Geezer, but what would be the average of the road pricing charges that the car would incur during that 12,000 miles? it would be a good deal more than the basic 2p for sure.

Hedgehog,

The gases emitted by aircraft engines will include a big percentage of CO2. Whether I agree that there is climate change or not due to the effect of those gases, I am using the Authorities' own argument against them because they are using that excuse to take motorists to the cleaners.

Les

OllyK

Yup - monumental finger slip on the calculator!