Has road charging died a death already?

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Thu 7 Jul 2005 00:30
Has road charging died a death already? - PR {P}
www.channel4.com/4car/news/news-story.jsp?news_id=...3

From channel 4's 4car site. It appears road charging using satellite tracking is still far away!
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Thu 7 Jul 2005 00:42
Has road charging died a death already? - Civic8
Suspect they will spend the money on 2012 instead.
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Steve
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Thu 7 Jul 2005 00:45
Has road charging died a death already? - mfarrow
About time too - about as needed as a joystick in place of a steering wheel.

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Mike Farrow
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Thu 7 Jul 2005 00:52
Has road charging died a death already? - Avant
It was never going to work. Every so often some academic, who has never driven anything more than a pre-war pushbike with a basket, comes up with a crackpot scheme for road tolls and sells it to a gullible minister.

The trouble is that they never give Transport to high-flying ministers - a good one would see (a) that tolls won't work and (b) that any government introducing them countrywide would lose the next election.
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Thu 7 Jul 2005 10:12
Has road charging died a death already? - BB
IMO they sometimes announce these crackpot schemes to make everyone rebel against it. A couple of years ago there were blockades due to the high price of petrol. Now most people would be happy to leave the petrol tax in place instead of road tolls.

The government have basically come up with a scheme much worse to make eveyone think how lucky they are with the current one.
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Thu 7 Jul 2005 13:34
Has road charging died a death already? - madf
"IMO they sometimes announce these crackpot schemes to make everyone rebel against it"

I disagree there. Without getting political, how many "new" schemes has this Government announced as the saviuor of the problem and then quietly dropped when it does not work. You can argue they should be given the benefit for trying or alternatively they should think before they announce.

They appear to have a touching faith in technology (ID cards for example, NHS system costing £billions and not working) but appear not to follow their own rules in testing before new systems are introduced.

I think announcing in advance to have a debate is good. Announcing in advance and refusing to admit any possible failure is muppetry imo.

Personally I think roadcharging on a national scale is far too complex to ever implement. A trial scheme in a minor city first would be the sensible and least costly approach....

madf


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