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Good Morning Britain, check your Sunday T/Graph for the latest brainchild awaiting you from your masters.
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I presume that this is what I have just heard on Radio 4 (only get the DT on a Sat) that some nutty Professor has conned HMG into considering charging motorists to use 'congested roads' which will be over 70% of the road network of UK, quickly followed by the remaining 30%.
May I suggest that instead of venting your fury here that you write, like me, to Mr Disgraced Byers at his emporium of uselessness in London expressing your feelings. Bear in mind it is an offence under the Post Office Acts to send letters of an obscene nature.
Also advise him that your X will not be with Princess Tone and his side kick Despot at the next election.
Sorry Growler if I have cross ranted. Exit dog - howling.
DVD
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I don't take the Sunday Telegraph, Growler. Is it about outsourcing all our roads?
Ian
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Ian Cook wrote:
>
> I don't take the Sunday Telegraph, Growler.
DAMN RIGHT! You should buy it, like everybody else! :)
But seriously, Ian, it talks about the new plan to tax motorists even more ...
"EVERY motorist in Britain will be monitored by satellite and charged for using busy routes under plans being presented by the Government's transport commissioner this week.
Under the proposals cars would be fitted with a global positioning device and drivers billed for sitting in traffic jams.
In a report to be published tomorrow, the Commission for Integrated Transport, chaired by David Begg, claims that the charges could reduce road congestion by up to 44 per cent, saving 219 million man-hours, without increasing the overall tax burden.
The scheme would work by fitting all cars and lorries with a unit linked to a satellite covering the nation's road network.
Drivers would be charged according to how busy the roads are and the time they are used. The scheme would be expected to raise £5.7 billion a year." etc etc etc.
Sounds to me like somebody is talking out of his ....! Try this one ...
"Our starting point was that roads are the only public utility that is free at the point of use. As a result, everyone wants to use the most popular roads at the same time, causing gridlock," he said.
Popular? what is this guy on?
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Thanks, Ian
>EVERY motorist in Britain will be monitored by satellite and charged for using busy routes under plans being presented by the Government's transport commissioner this week.
So - instead of solving the problem, they wan't us to pay more, eh?
Transport Commissioner - Pah!
Politicians - Pah!
Government advisers - Pah!
If you took away their suits, most of them couldn't hold down a job in the stores.
Ian
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>"Our starting point was that roads are the only public utility that is free at the point of use. <
Ian,
Free at the point of use? The man is an idiot
Silly me, I thought motorists paid over £35 billion in taxes and £5 billion is spent on the roads.
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This report seems to have started with the Observer see
www.observer.co.uk/0,6903,,00.html
This notion, as a serious policy proposal, has been waiting to happen ever since the technology became feasible.
Just several points:
1. Feasible it may be but the cost of getting this thing to work will be large (and guess who pays for it, remember the Air Traffic Control system fiasco).
2. Only last week a small car rental operator in New England was "fining" its clients for speeding by GPS tracking. Its methods were thrown out by the State court. The implications of the scheme extend beyond congestion to speed limit enforcement (as strict as you like) and beyond to questions of privacy. Once again we may have to depend on European law to protect us from our own lack of a written constitution.
3. The traffic congestion that we see around us, the cruel cost of housing and the crime rate are just 3 symptoms of a grossly overcrowded country. Could it be that the 4th symptom is increasing pressure on Civil Liberties? Suggestions on a postcard please!
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That's the problem with almost all politicians - they've never had a REAL job in their lives. You name one politician that's had to an honest days work, and I'll show you a pig that flies.
Andy
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on ships out of Hull. That's an honest days work I would have thought.
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Thank God I was not one of his passengers. He'd have done for BA, even (I've never been anywhere much, except Kenya and that was sore, but SWMBO has, except for the wide but largely empty gap between Nippon and the West Coast, and has reported).
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Andy,
Dennis Skinner.....ex miner from Derbyshire.
Now about this pig.............
I don't take a newspaper except for the Saturday telegraph (and that only for certain supplements) as they are injurious to health and should have a Government warning on the front.
Why.. are the roads in similar EU countries so superior to ours.
NHS. ditto. Why are asylum seekers desperate to flood in? and so on.
If only the cure was to elect a different party, but it isn't, they have all been dismal, pathetic in my lifetime and ignore what the majority want. Their answer would be this is a democracy. I have given up on this simple idea long ago.
Lots of questions but no answers.
alvin
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The trouble is, it was time over 50 years ago and I was not in a position to go; then I got stuck in the mud; since when it just got, and gets worse and worse.
It's a curious situation that a majority of us (don't blame me, though, are inveigled into voting in a mob who then proceed to impose upon us all sorts of things which a majority of us do not want; and they get away with it. When this was tried on the old Greek democrats, blood flowed!
Of course the attitude of a lot of them is that of a former MP to whom I injudiciously wrote (I did not realize how malign they can be then) protesting at the rigged "trial" of the 70mph slow limit. She wrote back in irritated manuscript, saying she could see I was a Tory (because she did not agree with me, presumably) and "ANYTHING (my capitals) you do not like is good policy"! Attached was a copy of a letter (typed) to the then MOT demanding a 60mph crawl limit. I suppose at least she was open about it.
If you are a minority interest, of course, like fox hunters, pistol shooters and the like the full fury of class war, usually under disguises, is loosed upon you. I suspect real motorists, as opposed to vehicle users, are reckoned as being a minority, and I suspect the real danger of this gadget is to us.
I'm really very unhappy in this bloody country, and I'll never escape now, dammit. Ex-pats note.
I'm away to take Toad for a run.
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The computer power and technicalities of being able to do this would be absolutely enormous. Look at the facilities required to monitor a few thousand aircraft in our airspace, multiply that by a few more thousands and you can see what I mean. We can't even get mobile phones to work reliably yet and yet the systems and networks required to monitor your driving habits will need to be much larger. It would cost billions to implement this measure and I predict from a technical viewpoint it just ain't going to happen. But, just in case, think about this. Apparently the idea is to charge more when you are stuck in traffic. Will they be charging you because someone decided to dig up the road causing traffic chaos? Will they be charging you because the lorry ten miles ahead has shed it's load? Also, because it will be cheaper to drive at off-peak times, will there be masses of traffic in the small hours? and will working hours be modified to account for this? The repercussions are enormous. No, I think if we can't even get a few dangerous pot holes repaired, the chances of them being able to install and monitor a system like this is way beyond them.
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Spud,
similar technology already exists, The California Air Research Board has already successfuly tested a system that can read the data from cars in 8 lanes of traffic travelling nose to tail at a simulated 100mph. No GPS involved but that would be a trivial add-on. Collecting the data would be relatively easy.
As you say, processing the data would require some serious horsepower (and data storage systems) if done centrally. Done on a cell-by-cell basis though, it would be relatively simple. Only data from vehicles that are not registered in that particular cell would need to be passed to their home cell for processing.
Starting with a cell in every town centre, then expanding the system to cover motorways and major A roads, the system would soon become self-financing.
The technology exists, but the fact that it's a government project means there's no way it will ever achieve what it set out to do. Especially when the data and resoning behind this think-tank's claims is probably bogus in the first place.
Kevin...
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Save 219 million man hours ? Wonder how many man hours are lost by commuters using the rail network ?
Spud makes the most valid point how on earth would you create a computer system capable of doing this ?
Just another waste of the publics money on a scheme which will never see the light of day because it would be political suicide.
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On 'On the Record' today (Sunday), the only voice of reason was that of Eric Pickles of the Conservatives. he said the Tories are against ANY sort of road charging and that the latest prposals are 'absolute madness'.
"If we get people out of their cars, where do they go? Do they stay at home?" He went on to say that if a Conservative Mayor took over in 2004, he would get reduce congestion not by beating up the motorist, but by'putting right the causes of congestion, which is in many cases down to government action or inaction'.
Well said Eric.
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Spud is quite right of course and it will never happen. At least not in my lifetime. However , I have always been a believer in a conspiratal theory and that the Establishment leads us by the nose in what we should be talking about whilst other things happen around us which are for real.
Jo Moore would perhaps say this is a good time to announce this one whilst we are up to something else and nobody will notice. And perhaps even drop it officially and show what good guys they are but they have perhaps softened us up for something less drastic.
And Andy, yes I saw Pickles, same shifty politician as all of them, talking common and popular sense in opposition as they all do. And the liberal dropping in the prevent hogging of the middle lane which takes up road space as another panacea for our troubles.
There is no other answer than if roads are considered an essential part of our infrastructure then more must be built and the others improved. Tinkering around the edges of the problem inevitably delays solving the problem and makes it more difficult to do so.
If taxes were spent in the interests of the people who pay them. And not at the whim of some elected (or otherwise) posers who tread the world stage handing it out as if they were the benefactors, we wouldn't be in the position we are. Politicians are only short term, so they make short term decisions.
alvin
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Interesting question this. However, I do sometimes wonder. if this country is as bad as everyone says it is, why there are so many people seemingly happy to stay here and so many people desperately trying to get here?
Just as a point of interest Tomo, what is the difference between a 'real motorist' and a 'vehicle user'? How does one work out which category you fall in to? Do these two different types of road user have different levels of entitlement or pay different taxes or insurance or is it age related or job related or class related or status related? Do tell, I've noted your mention of the expression before and often wondered.
Regards,
KB.
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KB wrote:
>
> Interesting question this. However, I do sometimes wonder. if
> this country is as bad as everyone says it is, why there are
> so many people seemingly happy to stay here and so many
> people desperately trying to get here?
>
> Just as a point of interest Tomo, what is the difference
> between a 'real motorist' and a 'vehicle user'? How does one
> work out which category you fall in to? Do these two
> different types of road user have different levels of
> entitlement or pay different taxes or insurance or is it age
> related or job related or class related or status related? Do
> tell, I've noted your mention of the expression before and
> often wondered.
>
> Regards,
>
> KB.
Hello KB,
Another of your curious questions, which hopefully are to annoy or embarrass me rather than betray a lack of perception on your part. However....
Firstly, a real motorist will share the answer with me without my needing to tell him.
Secondly, I'm not going to be too specific about details because you would then detect offence to somebody; but perhaps I can safely suggest that by and large those in the first category will take motoring and motor sport magazines, those in the second will tend not to. And that those in the first will take their cars out specifically to enjoy driving them; which enjoyment is of course the real target of the anti-car fanatics, and all their allies and devices.
Now my question! Which category do you reckon you belong to?
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You appear to be alone KB, apart from me. So take a tip to keep blood pressure down.
Whenever you see any reference to speed limits, bumps, police, speed cameras, politicians, motorists (as distinct from most of us who just drive things), try my method of looking back to 'Hancock's Half Hour' and regarding these threads as its worthy successor. Remember the one where, without a driving licence, he'd bought a car which had been parked outside the house so long that the council had boxed it in by resurfacing the road all round it? Now THAT Council really had stumbled across a solution to the problem of the car and the REAL motorist taking over the world.
Cheers Colin S
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I did not see that episode, but I take it to have as much resemblance to the real world as the one on amateur radio.
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Maybe the title of my post is a hint?
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Made me laugh the comment,"this will be introduced when the measures announced in the Governments 10 year plan on public transport have been delivered"
Not much to worry about then in my lifetime, and this lot will have been dumped out of office well before then having reduced this country to its knees for a third time!
The other thing that got my dander up yesterday was the audacity of Blunkett.
The Government's penalties imposed on haulage firms/drivers of £2000 per asylum seeker that stows away on their lorries has been deemed illegal in many ways. Not least the right to fair trial, not least the removal of the right to the Golden Thread of presumed innocence till proved guilty, not least the burden of proof falling on the driver. Yet Blunkett just effectively says b*lls we will carry on.
The British public is slow to rouse but when it does this lot will suffer.
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Fair question Tomo.
You know I consider you too wise and experienced to be embarrased, so no intention there.
Firstly, I'm not sure though whether to call myself real if that means knowing the answer without being told. Hence the question.
Secondly, "I'm not going to be too specific about details because you would then detect offence to somebody".......I can't really answer that one can I, unless you are a bit more specific - crystal ball in for a service :-)
Third point, I read Car, Autocar, Whatcar, AutoExpress, BBC Top Gear Magazine sometimes Diesel Car, sometimes Classic Car etc.......but not motor sport mag's. The Insitute of Advanced Motorists have been sending me their quarterly mag since 1968 and the CSMA send me theirs at similar intervals. I used to receive League of Safe Drivers magazines too ( the test of which I passed annually at Class one level) for some years, but don't any more as they no longer exist as such.
A don't know whether the driving that was associated with my job (which we've covered before here) has any bearing on my 'realness' but I commenced that in 1975 and have now stopped both the job and hence the driving.
Lastly, regards enjoyment - I do actually enjoy driving, although living so close to London does limit the degree to which the word 'enjoyment' can be applied. Many people also seem to have a strong desire to drive the vehicles I drove at work due to a certain perceived excitement /macho factor. This wears off after the first twenty years or so however and in the middle of the night there's even less appeal.
I've owned/fiddled with/repaired/bought and sold/cherished and loved/hated.... a few dozen cars and a few BSA's/Triumphs, old and new good and bad, but don't usually just go out for a 'drive' without having somewhere to go any more. But rest assured I cannot lay claim to membership of any anti-car fanatic fanatic brigade / allies / devices. In fact I lead such a dull lifestyle that I don't even know any (not personally anyway). I have to pay the same as everyone else to use my vehicles.
So, what's the verdict Tomo? Man or Mouse? :-)
PS Very off topic but - How's the cats?
Regards,
KB.
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Hi KB!
Mitten, the cat who stays here, is at my feet, "helping" me to put off doing the Tesco order. Tess, from two doors West (where an XJR has arrived, on even bigger tyres than Tomo, and is sitting at the end of the row of tiddlers) is absent today; it being Sunday she will have a fire at home. Fudge, from three doors East, is asleep in the back bedroom. Fudge frequently sits on warm car bonnets, and there we are back on topic.
Negative on Mouse!
No point in recommending F1 Magazine (Nigel's one) then, either?
To be honest, I never got to a GP meeting because I'd have had to organize it; SWMBO, when fit, organized me to where she saw fit! Daughter and son-in-law have been as far as the Canadian. But they do go to places where they can't take their car; an odd notion
I once had the fastest B31 in Glasgow, I claimed; but the sum of all the costs of Gold Star bits, and the explosion, saved, would perhaps have been more effectively expended on a Goldie. And I must mention my '29 Lagonda, high chassis 3-litre Special, £110. Plus a lot more to keep going. When the 10 year test came in it frightened the life out of the tester who thought an old banger would have weak brakes, and stood on them. I could go on, general cries of NO!
Cheers, Tomo
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SWMBO always called it "The Institute of Addled Motorists""
And if advanced motoring consists in creeping around at 70 or even less, however capable your vehicle, I agree.
That, of course, is the view of a real motorist...........
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Good advice for me Colin. The BP does tend to wander into the 160's and 90's on occasion. I really ought to mind my own business. I missed that particular episode, but on your recommendation, will make a point of seeing it.
Thanks.
Regards,
KB.
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Don't believe this can't happen. Like Red Kens congestion charges for Central London it would be introduced small scale to begin with. And like the above mentioned, because only a tiny proportion of relatively well off people would be affected, nobody else would get too worked up about it. It would then be extended a bit at a time, during which it would come to be accepted as the norm, just like Gatsos. And when it reached the point where significant numbers would begin to protest, we would be told that the Govt needed the money because it was being used to fund the Health Service. Just like they are doing with fuel tax.
Don't underestimate the lengths modern polititians are prepared to go to to keep us all firmly under control.
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How are they going to charge you if your GPS doesn't work? Who will pay to fix it if it is broken? Will you be allowed to drive on congested roads if it isn't working? I bet you could stop it working with a bit of shielding round the aerial, the signal from GPS satellites is not very strong
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How are they going to log LGV hours if the tacho is broken? Simple, make it illegal to drive without one.
Who is going to pay to get it fixed? Guess.
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And Tom,
What about foreign drivers entering the UK??
Will they be turned away at port of entry if they have no black box.
And what about EU permission to impose it.
Its all a game really..saw the madman inventor on tv tonight. he had the glazed look of the despot and two men in white coats were across the road trying to get to him.... Byers is trying to escape in disguise.
alvin
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Easy way to cut congestion ? Prohibit all on-road parking, parking being only allowed off road, on private property or public car parks. This would free up congestion and free up road space, it would make it easier for dust carts and emergency vehicles to service houses in congested streets because of inconsiderate parking. Next week I have had an invite to join Mr. Blair and he ladyship for lunch at No. 10, naturally I shall use public transport. lol.
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That was in my mind, only I did not want to mention it!
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I think I'd just unplug it when I went out and plug it back in when I returned...
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What is the difference between a 'real motorist' and a 'vehicle user'?
A 'vehicle user' is:
A 'green' professor, probably with an old 2CV or dormobile (claiming first class rail tickets), a politician with 2 jags, or a transport minister with a taxpayers limo but 'without a driving licence'
Who desperately hoped he 'really had stumbled across a solution to the *problem* of the car and the REAL motorist taking over the world'.
And all those jobsworths who would glady, when they saw a legally parked car, ensure that they 'had boxed it in by resurfacing the road all round it'
Or failing that, bring in a crane to lift it up, so that they could paint double yellows underneath it, and then ticket it.
Or even introduce on improved, or at least perfectly safe, roads lowered 'speed limits, bumps, police, speed cameras,'
When you think about these jobsworths and vehicle users 'try my method of looking back to Hancock's Half Hour'
No, on second thoughts, not even on Hancock's Half Hour would you find anything so ludicrous as the 'vehicle user'!
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'The technology exists, but the fact that it's a government project means there's no way it will ever achieve what it set out to do.'
'Especially when the data and resoning behind this think-tank's claims is probably bogus in the first place.'
So, no change there then.
And no reason for believing it won't be implemented either!:-(
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Yes, it is *definitely* time to emigrate! I'm living in New York State, second only to California in terms of "green-ness", and yet I have just got hold of a VW Golf Mk IV VR6 GTi to run as a second car to my Range Rover 4.6! It is the *most* enormous fun - I run it on the back roads here - no police cars, no cameras (the Fifth Amendment won't allow them!), nothing to hold me back whatsoever (except gas at about one third of the cost you pay .....) and the most amazingly free revving engine I have driven in years, except for a Ferrari 360 I got to drive at Thruxton last year.
And the cost? VW give them away here for less than $20,000 (under 14000 pounds in your language) and that includes every extra you could possibly wish, including a full leather sports seat package costing $900, which I see from VW's UK website costs *you* the equivalent of $1800 for exactly the same thing. Food for thought or what, especially when you can only get a VR6 with 4Motion - at *how much*? The sooner you all get wise to the real Europeans allowing their UK dealers to extract the urine the better for you, especially when they have to be shipped another 3000 miles to get here.
Uh oh! The downside - it's cold outside, but then again the sun has been shining all day, every day, for weeks and you guys are sliding around under several feet of snow ....
How much more do you need to know, guys? Just form an orderly queue - sorry line, and forget your anally retentive hang-ups about the BMW 3 Series!
Jack
PS What's does Lada Riva stand for? Laugh At Dickheads Always ....
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When I read the article which inspired me to start the thread, my reaction was not the obvious one of going into instant denial "oh, maybe the technology isn't quite up to it", or "it's another gov't scheme that will never get off the ground", but instead: what would they do with that information, once collected? Sure they can send you a bill for road usage. They can also figure out where you went, how long it took you, when you got back.......
Now don't tell me I'm being seduced by conspiracy theory, paranoid or anything else. I'm always getting that. Answer me instead how long, in your view, do you imagine it might be before some nasty little creep gets ideas about using the data for other than it's professed purpose, and, could that perhaps be the idea all along? You have a control freak government headed by a control freak power mad self-appointed Messiah just waiting for the right combination of circumstances and explainability to join a control-freak conglomerate of European states.
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I thought you already had, so we'll just get on with ruining the country ourselves thanks.
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If the charges will reduce road congestion by 44%, might I ask where the other 56% (OK, not an actual figure, but you get the point) of the traffic will go?
Companies do not use road transport for freight because they think that it is their moral duty to have lorries sitting in jams. They do it because the only alternative, rail, does not have the infrastructure to move goods from factory to customer directly, road has to be involved at either end and the delay and theft risk of using rail for the middle part rules it out.
So freight will continue, but transfer onto secondary roads where possible to avoid charges.
So the bulk of the reduction is expected to come from car users.
I can't see your average travelling salesman losing custom by stopping in the office.
Which leaves the private motorist. Meaning that the reduction is expected come from discouraging freedom of movement for the general public.
So when you want to visit your friends and relations in the future, tell them to expect you at 10 pm and that you must be away by 4 am. And will out of town supermarkets and shopping centres only open during the hours of darkness?
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I just wonder when these people are going to realise that to get people off the roads there has to be a viable alternative and in this country that just does not exist.
In my home town I live two miles from the town centre, my local bus 'service' starts at 07:10 runs every half hour and finishes at 18:40 except on Saturday when it finishes at 17:10 and of course on a Sunday there aren't any at all. Cost of commuting to London, cheap day return with all sorts of restrictions on time of travel etc., c £11.
Compare that to recent experiences in Europe, in Bruges last October stayed a couple of miles outside city centre, bus every 10 minutes 06:00 till 23:30 every day. Bus service in France last week where we were skiing, so contributed to by local lift passes etc, FREE from 07:30 till 23:45, 15 minute service. Friend lived about 40 miles outside Berlin a couple of years back, reckoned he never even considered commuting by car, said that would be daft as it only cost him about £2.50 a day by train.
In Bruges and France, hardly any cars in town or city centre unless required for shopping etc, my home town choc-a-bloc with vehicles day and night.
The question is, which countries are serious about encouraging people out of their vehicles?
Which seems to be working better, the carrot or the stick?
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