Article: Satellite toll plan to make drivers pay by the mile

**ShawJohn** · 06-09-2005, 03:27 PM

UK's motorways are by far the safest places to travel on the ground in the UK, so what happens when a busy stretch of the M60 is 1.30UK/mile (no pound sign on my fold up keyboard) and all the adjoining country lanes and residential streets are 0.10ukp/mile.

Well anybody who doesn't want to pay will get off the m-way and onto smaller roads that have pedestrians around... Moving traffic off the conjested m-ways and onto less well maintained A&B roads.

Net result is more deaths which the powers that be will use agaist the motorists to introduce even more drakonian measures to punish us for using our cars.

They wont remove fuel taxes, just lower them, and you can almost garantee that they will gradually rise again.

This is the biggest load of non-sense that Labour have talked about in 10years and it makes me mad as hell.

I didn't vote the tw**s in...

Also what about domestic tourism, whos going to travel 300miles accros uk when flying to spain costs less?

What about Joe Bloggs who drives a 150mile round trip to work. Not going to want to work when it costs him over 100ukp a week to drive.

I wouldn't mind to much if I could get a train accross uk for decent money, but again, I've flown to europe for less than a virgin rail ticket from manchester to london. And the trains probably late to strt with. Thats if you feel safe on a train after the last few big crashes.

This country is turning into a world wide laughing stock!!!

**Matthew230** · 06-09-2005, 03:51 PM

There are a couple of points that haven't been mentioned.

Firstly business would swallow a large percentage of this cost. A cost which they would then pass down the line to conusmers. So even if you didn't use the roads it would still cost you.

Secondly, this was all announced on one day by Alistair Darling rather than Tony Blair, sounds like a no news day, I doubt it'll ever happen.

Anyway when I was a kid, by 2005 everyone would be working from home ??

**spyhunter** · 06-09-2005, 07:30 PM

Blair = 33rd degree Freemason....is anyone surpised that this bill even got this far?

**kevinbr100** · 06-10-2005, 12:53 AM

they are thinking about doing something similar here also, pretty quiet about it too. Washington state already testing something out. Its because they think with more fuel efficienct cars they won't get enough gas tax.
a few articles about it.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in674120.shtml
http://gps.engadget.com/entry/1234000707020792/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1281368/posts

**Mad Ad** · 06-10-2005, 08:18 PM

Germany already has this system up and running for lorries, the UK intends to have it inplace for foreign lorries entering the UK within 2 years, its only an extention of the system that will encompass all cars in the whole country that they are talking about.

Personally I think its just creating another revenue stream for criminals to manipulate ... £50 to have a months data written off anyone?

**jzgt** · 06-11-2005, 06:00 PM

How about the fact that we already pay taxes to USE the roads here? It's collected in property taxes. Why would I pay to maintain a road that I would then be charged to drive on? It's absurd. Congestion tax....I'm surprised they didn't rename it something like the 'Save Little Puppy Dogs tax' That'd go through much easier...Then they could say "How could you be against the SLPD tax? You must be a cold heartless bastard..." That's how they do things here in the US.

Ahh well....what's a couple of thousand dollars a year from everyone for them to squander?

- Jeff

**mp3oplecarrier** · 06-11-2005, 06:41 PM

They say that they will use this to reduce the amount of duty on fuel..
if the duty is removed, won't that be a good excuse for the fuel companies to start easing up their prices?

Personally I don't think it will ever happen, I reckon it's a smokescreen to cover whatever plan they REALLY have in mind so that when they drop this and introduce congestion charging in ALL cities (or whatever) , we will all be thankful!

**WebDog** · 06-11-2005, 07:12 PM

I think its crasy and would cost to much to put in.

Here in LA that wont help the freeways, everyone still needs to get to work and home from work. They dont seem to ever be working on the roads.

And think of the workers? i mean i drive 60 miles a day to work...

My uncle drived 80+ a day to work.

**Bugbyte** · 06-11-2005, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by WebDog

Here in LA that wont help the freeways, everyone still needs to get to work and home from work. They dont seem to ever be working on the roads.

And think of the workers? i mean i drive 60 miles a day to work...

My uncle drived 80+ a day to work.

Why don't you think if it costs a lot of money to drive on the freeway at 9:00am that people would keep doing it?

If it costs a lot to drive your 60 miles to work between 8-10am, wouldn't you do something to change that? I would. I'd go earlier or later or carpool or work more at home or move or something.

This scheme works wonderfully when people want to fly at peak periods. It costs too much so they go at a different time or they go less often or they find a different way to go. Price allocates houses, computers, food, electricity, clothing, and a thousand other items in our lives. Why people think there's something different about road capacity is beyond me.

There's three issues that are being discussed on this thread. One, don't trust politicians. Two, they're watching you and tracking your movements. Three, I already pay enough to drive.

I happen to agree with most of the opinions stated, actually. But I don't understand why people are willing to throw up their hands and accept that gridlock is gridlock and there's simply nothing to be done about it.

**WebDog** · 06-12-2005, 02:57 AM

Originally Posted by Bugbyte

Why don't you think if it costs a lot of money to drive on the freeway at 9:00am that people would keep doing it?

If it costs a lot to drive your 60 miles to work between 8-10am, wouldn't you do something to change that? I would. I'd go earlier or later or carpool or work more at home or move or something.

Ok so then everyone will be driving before and after 8am -10am their will still be grid lock...