I have to pay 50p extra because I have a van - (only a tiny Punto.) That while surrounded by four wheel drives that could take on Rommel in the Western Desert - getting through for £1.

It was paid for apparently by 2002 - but, according to Wikipedia:

"A fee was retained however under the new principle of Road User Charging, which had been introduced in the 2000 Transport Act as a means of using road pricing for controlling traffic congestion and funding local and national transport schemes. Under this act, the A282 Trunk Road (Dartford-Thurrock Crossing charging scheme) Order 2002 allowed the continuation of the crossing fee, which officially became a charge and not a toll on 1 April 2003."

So road pricing has in fact been with us for the last 7 years. Joe Public's had the wool pulled over his eyes.

Edited by Slow Eddie on 07/04/2010 at 17:20

Even at close to midnight at weekends I have queued on the bridge

At least now, it's free at this time of night, however a better solution would to be to find a way to still not have to stop each vehicle to raise the barrier. Surely there is a way to still count vehicles through but without actually stopping them, perhaps in conjunction with a speed sensitive raised hump to slow vehicles through the narrow width or the booths.

The other problem with night running is when they then shut most of the booths still filtering all lanes to 3 or 4 exit points while work is carried out etc.