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Re: Light weight tool box
Goatboy wrote:I think this thread has gone off topic slightly.
Just a bit 😕
…but going back to Kevin’s post (if we may?) The Highways Authority have already got plans in hand to replace all the ‘A’ Roadsigns and Motorway signs by removing the ‘mileage distance’ and replacing it with ‘the mileage cost’.
For example: Travelling westbound on the M4 junction 12 the sign reads Bristol 75 miles That will be replaced with a sign saying : Bristol £100.50
:rotl:
Re: Light weight tool box
I passed a milkman this morning … in his transit, side door open delivering what most of us take for granted. His trade is dead with this kind of initiative, wonder if he knows!
KevinRe: Light weight tool box
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/06 … ice_plans/
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/roadpricing.html
And a press release from the ABD
> Darling’s Satellite Road Pricing Scheme is a White Elephant, a Trojan
> Horse and a Red Herring, say Britain’s Drivers.
>
>
> The ABD today condemned Alastair Darling’s plans to track Britain’s
> drivers by satellite and charge them per mile.
>
> “Satellite road pricing will be hugely expensive to install, and its
> effect on people’s behaviour has not been properly thought through,”
> said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. “It won’t work – it will be a huge
> WHITE ELEPHANT, and hiding within it is a dark TROJAN HORSE for civil
> liberties, as it means that drivers will be tagged and tracked like
> criminals. It will just be a giant version of the London Congestion
> charge – hugely unpopular and full of perceived unfairness and aggravation for drivers.”
>
> Many of Britain’s roads are congested, that’s true enough. But our
> rail network simply does not serve the needs of the new population and
> business centres which have been constructed around an inadequate motorway network.
> Where they do exist, the railways are also operating at capacity.
>
> “Darling is trying to wave a magic wand at this mess,” continued
> Humphries. “But he is not a fairy godmother – road pricing is just an
> excuse to delay essential investment in transport infrastructure for
> another fifteen years. Road pricing is just a great big RED HERRING –
> another way of blaming drivers for congestion when it’s really down to
> the investment and planning failures of successive governments.”
>
> This scheme is just tinkering with the problem at huge expense. The
> only way it can cut congestion is to bring in punitive charges which
> reduce personal mobilty and adversely affect both the economy and
> peoples quality of life.
>
> The idea should be consigned to the dustbin before any more time is
> wasted.
>
> Notes:
>
> Analysis of the Practicalities of Road Pricing
>
> Darling’s scheme involves charging differing amounts per mile with the
> stated aim of discouraging motorists from using the roads at busy times.
>
> This idea is flawed, not least because people already have a built in
> time incentive to avoid congestion, so where they can they already are!
>
> The charging can work in two basic ways – varying the charges by time
> or by route. Neither of these will show significant benefits. It can
> also have a very simple structure or it can be flexible, which brings
> a whole new set of problems. Darling and his advisors simply haven’t
> thought these problems through.
>
> Varying the charge by time, like the London Congestion Charge, is just
> going to charge most people more to sit in the same jams. It has been
> tried on public transport, with higher peak time rail fares and
> concessions only applying off peak. We know it doesn’t work – the peak
> time trains are still full and the off peak ones empty, because people
> need to get to work! A full train moves as quickly as an empty train,
> so there is no built in incentive to travel off peak. With roads, that
> incentive is already there, so those who can avoid rush hour already do!
> This means the effect of peak time/off peak charging differences will
> be much less on the roads than on the railways.
>
> Varying the charge by route, like the M6 Toll, will just mean that
> people use the cheaper route and that becomes congested, while the
> more expensive route becomes an empty expressway for the wealthy or
> the occasional leisure user. That’s exactly what’s happening with the
> M6 Toll and it means that the overall roadspace is being used less
> efficiently. Applying this sort of scheme to existing roads will just
> move the congestion from one place to another and waste everyone’s time in the process!
>
> Bringing in a flexible charge that automatically changes to
> incentivise the less congested route is doubtless seen as the answer
> to these problems. But it isn’t.
>
> People cannot plan their journeys in advance if they do not know how
> much it is going to cost. The only benefit is in last minute route
> changes, or leisure trips where there is some time flexibility. The
> traffic information technology to deliver these choices to drivers is
> already available and will be universal in ten years.
>
> Road pricing, at a huge cost to both the nation’s finances and its
> citizens civil liberties, will do nothing but make the country a less
> efficient and more unpleasant place.
>
> ENDSAnd then from other news….
Conservative MEP Philip Bradbourn has today accused the Government of secrecy and spin over the Transport Secretary’s revelations on his plans for road charging. Mr Bradbourn, who was Opposition Spokesman on a European Road Pricing Plan some five years ago, reveals today the extent to which Alastair Darling has been working in cahoots for over two years with the European Union on this very issue.
Speaking from Strasbourg today, Mr Bradbourn, Conservative Transport Spokesman in the European Parliament, said:
“I have documentary evidence of secret meetings which took place two years ago at a hotel near Heathrow Airport between HM Customs and Excise, the Department for Transport and a German tolling company in which the issue was debated and a contract for the digital mapping of every road in the UK discussed. It is quite clear that, despite Mr Darling’s protestations that this is not official Government policy, his department has been heavily involved in planning just such an EU-inspired tax.
Not only is this idea completely insidious in tax-raising terms, to use the European satellite system, Galileo, to monitor every vehicle in the United Kingdom is nothing short of Big Brother at the wheel of your car and is tantamount to changing the nanny state so beloved of Labour Ministers into something far more sinister.”
Like I said, I am watching and monitoring this subject. 😉
K.
Re: Light weight tool box
kwatt wrote:
>
> “Satellite road pricing will be hugely expensive to install, and its
> effect on people’s behaviour has not been properly thought through,”
> said ABD spokesman Nigel Humphries. “It won’t work – it will be a huge
> WHITE ELEPHANT, and hiding within it is a dark TROJAN HORSE for civil
> liberties, as it means that drivers will be tagged and tracked like
> criminals. It will just be a giant version of the London Congestion
> charge – hugely unpopular and full of perceived unfairness and aggravation for drivers.”
>If they put satellite trackers in our cars/vans then they will also be able to check out how fast we drive and dish out instant speeding fines!
They’ll have to cover the cost somehow……..Clyde
8)
Re: Light weight tool box
Don’t be daft Clyde, they’ll charge us for the privilege of having the equipment on board, then for using it. Bit like ID cards really, completely optional unless you need to amend your driving license – that’ll be £93 please…….
And we voted them back in again…………
Chris.
Re: Light weight tool box
Penguin45 wrote:Don’t be daft Clyde, they’ll charge us for the privilege of having the equipment on board, then for using it. Bit like ID cards really, completely optional unless you need to amend your driving license – that’ll be £93 please…….
And we voted them back in again…………
Chris.
Not being daft Chris! i’m sure they will charge us for the equipment!
My point was they will be able to track our speed and location and issue speeding and parking fines if and when they want.
Think Tony Blair has been watching too much big brother!!!
Clyde 8)
Re: Light weight tool box
Penguin45 wrote:
And we voted them back in again…………
Chris.
You speak for yourself 🙂 …..I certainly did not vote them back in, 👿
Re: Light weight tool box
That was a “collective” we – as usual the the “POTTO”* party collected it’s statutory one vote…….
Chris.
*Penguin Organisation To Take Over.
(We nearly got away with it in Gotham……)In fact in England the Conservatives won the election by 60,000 votes overall, so you (English people ;)) didn’t in fact vote Blair and his band of merry (deluded) men back in.
We did! 🙁
The joys of a first past the post electoral system using the system from the seat of democracy in the free world which has remained effectively unchanged since our own civil war.
K.
Re: Light weight tool box
And that’s another thing, seeing as you’ve got you own parliament….. And the PM’s a Scot, the Chancellor’s a Scot….
Anyone notice a pattern here?
Next time, vote POTTO. Bedfordshire might never be the same again. At least you know that we offer the extermination of the human race and a free franchise for all flightless birds. And it won’t cost a penny in congestion charges.
And if you believe any of that, stop reading the screen through the bottom of a beer glass.
Cheers,
Chris.
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