London Emmisions Surcharge - 'The Banger Tax'
Discussion
talksthetorque said:
Hoofy said:
"Discounts and exemptions
If you live in the Congestion Charge zone and your vehicle is registered for a Residents' Discount you will receive a 90% discount, meaning you pay £1 per day for the Emissions Surcharge."
Doesn't that mean that essentially your road tax has gone up £365 if you were paying £295 for an old car?
Is it charged if you use your car on a certain day, so probably not £365 - or is it charged anyway irrespective of that?If you live in the Congestion Charge zone and your vehicle is registered for a Residents' Discount you will receive a 90% discount, meaning you pay £1 per day for the Emissions Surcharge."
Doesn't that mean that essentially your road tax has gone up £365 if you were paying £295 for an old car?
There's one option missing from "Options if emission standard not met". Don't go to London.
As others have posted I just won't bother going to London.
When businesses, tourist attractions, etc realise their sales are going down they'll be looking to get rid of these regulations and the mayor who thought of them.
If someone lives within the Underground area then fair enough having a car is a liability. But for those, for instance, at least 50 miles out then driving is the choice. Sitting in comfort instead of standing up for an hour or more on a train.
London retailers had better get use to making website/online sales as their "drop in" customers will probably reduce in number.
As others have posted I just won't bother going to London.
When businesses, tourist attractions, etc realise their sales are going down they'll be looking to get rid of these regulations and the mayor who thought of them.
If someone lives within the Underground area then fair enough having a car is a liability. But for those, for instance, at least 50 miles out then driving is the choice. Sitting in comfort instead of standing up for an hour or more on a train.
London retailers had better get use to making website/online sales as their "drop in" customers will probably reduce in number.
Jagmanv12 said:
There's one option missing from "Options if emission standard not met". Don't go to London.
As others have posted I just won't bother going to London.
When businesses, tourist attractions, etc realise their sales are going down they'll be looking to get rid of these regulations and the mayor who thought of them.
If someone lives within the Underground area then fair enough having a car is a liability. But for those, for instance, at least 50 miles out then driving is the choice. Sitting in comfort instead of standing up for an hour or more on a train.
London retailers had better get use to making website/online sales as their "drop in" customers will probably reduce in number.
Yep. I don't bother with driving anywhere I can't park free of charge. I used to go into Kingston etc a lot. Nowadays I hit Amazon or out of town places. I'm likely not the only one as as things like taxes and parking fees (taxes) go up, people will do what I've done for a decade.As others have posted I just won't bother going to London.
When businesses, tourist attractions, etc realise their sales are going down they'll be looking to get rid of these regulations and the mayor who thought of them.
If someone lives within the Underground area then fair enough having a car is a liability. But for those, for instance, at least 50 miles out then driving is the choice. Sitting in comfort instead of standing up for an hour or more on a train.
London retailers had better get use to making website/online sales as their "drop in" customers will probably reduce in number.
The few times, despite being a Londoner, I drive around the capital whilst out of the congestion zone times, is now such a ball ache that I avoid if at all possible. That flaming cycle highway along the north bank of the Thames has destroyed the only way to cross the city.
The reason the pollution is up is because nothing is moving despite everyone paying for the privilege.
My original commute from Wandsworth to Stratford, about 12 miles usually took 1.5 hours if not longer. Now I drive from Dorking to Stratford, via the M25 and A2, about 45 miles, in as little as 55 minutes. (OK if some d
head hits an overhead gantry, it can take a lot longer)
They should be building many decked motorways criss crossing the city and keep traffic, thus commerce, moving. Drain the Thames and turn it into a motorway too
The reason the pollution is up is because nothing is moving despite everyone paying for the privilege.
My original commute from Wandsworth to Stratford, about 12 miles usually took 1.5 hours if not longer. Now I drive from Dorking to Stratford, via the M25 and A2, about 45 miles, in as little as 55 minutes. (OK if some d
head hits an overhead gantry, it can take a lot longer)They should be building many decked motorways criss crossing the city and keep traffic, thus commerce, moving. Drain the Thames and turn it into a motorway too
croyde said:
My worry is that it looks like Khan wants to increase the zone to within the North and South Circular and then on to the M25.
This is the scary bit.The CCZ as it is catches very few actual residents, and you really wouldn't use a car to get from A to B if both A and B are inside the CCZ.
Extending to the north/south circulars starts to catch a huge amount of people.
Extending to the M25 is an immense amount of cars and people.
Making it 24/7 is just nuts.
I do get the idea that if you can avoid driving your own car, you should, and I think that is generally pretty much what people do. The volume of traffic deters people from driving their own cars if nothing else.
However it does start to look like an "old car tax" for the residents of london - costing 10s of pounds just to start a vehicle if it's older than 10 years old, even if the intention is to drive straight OUT of london and away from the centre.
croyde said:
The reason the pollution is up is because nothing is moving despite everyone paying for the privilege.
Pollution isn't up, quite the reverse. Politically set limits are down and ignorant pointless unscientific scaremongering is up. The charge won't make any difference to pollution levels, just another tax.
^^ +1
Mayor Kublai Kahn writes in the Independent, of an extended ULEZ and Euro-6 only cars by 2019.
"I will be consulting Londoners on introducing a central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, as well as expanding the ULEZ up to the North/South Circular for cars and vans, and London-wide for buses, coaches and lorries. When introduced, these additional measures would impose an even stronger ‘Euro 6’ emission standard for diesel vehicles, meaning diesel cars could not be more than four years old in 2019 without incurring a charge."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/london-air-pol...
Mayor Kublai Kahn writes in the Independent, of an extended ULEZ and Euro-6 only cars by 2019.
"I will be consulting Londoners on introducing a central London Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in 2019, as well as expanding the ULEZ up to the North/South Circular for cars and vans, and London-wide for buses, coaches and lorries. When introduced, these additional measures would impose an even stronger ‘Euro 6’ emission standard for diesel vehicles, meaning diesel cars could not be more than four years old in 2019 without incurring a charge."
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/london-air-pol...
How polluting is a car that gets readings in an MOT of-
CO = 0.01, HC = 1, lambda = 1.003
The car is a 2002 so should meet
Euro 3 emission limits (petrol)
CO – 2.3 g/km
HC – 0.20 g/km
NOx - 0.15
PM – no limit
Euro 4 halved the limits
Euro 4 emission limits (petrol)
CO – 1.0 g/km
HC – 0.10 g/km
NOx – 0.08
PM – no limit
Given the car has a CO twenty times better and an HC two hundred times better than required it would easily pass Euro 4 and even 6 limits. How is this car toxic exactly?
CO = 0.01, HC = 1, lambda = 1.003
The car is a 2002 so should meet
Euro 3 emission limits (petrol)
CO – 2.3 g/km
HC – 0.20 g/km
NOx - 0.15
PM – no limit
Euro 4 halved the limits
Euro 4 emission limits (petrol)
CO – 1.0 g/km
HC – 0.10 g/km
NOx – 0.08
PM – no limit
Given the car has a CO twenty times better and an HC two hundred times better than required it would easily pass Euro 4 and even 6 limits. How is this car toxic exactly?
Matt UK said:
Agreed. Get buses and cabs electric and air quality would change over night!!
After having cycled in central london for the last 6 months - most of the busses now smell like swimming pools and many are hybrid/battery supported. I don't *think* they are the worst offenders (but I have no stats to back that up).What you have are a lot of heavy plant lorries, a lot of diesel transits and tippers, Cabs, are now largely hybrids/priuses, blacks are dwindling in number.
There is a lot of very slow moving traffic due to the amount of road real estate given over to bus and cycle lanes.
The roads just outside the CCZ suffer the worst, people know how to skirt the CCZ and those roads are clogged for most of the day.
de-dpf'd vehicles stand out a mile, and they aren't busses, they tend to be privately owned.
Something def has to be done about London smog. It has gotten bad. Well over the half the city exceeds legal limits for nitrogen dioxide. Driving in from the Isle of Dogs toward London Bridge at the moment is like driving back into the 1950s (stock image below).
But the congestion charge is very unfair. Buses, trains and planes cause as much pollution as cars, bikes and trucks, but are being hit much less hard on tax (e.g. congestion charge going sky high). The war on the motorist is getting worse.
But the congestion charge is very unfair. Buses, trains and planes cause as much pollution as cars, bikes and trucks, but are being hit much less hard on tax (e.g. congestion charge going sky high). The war on the motorist is getting worse.
I visit London so infrequently that it won't really affect me much.
If I'm there for work I always take the train, but won't do it for personal journeys as a peak ticket is about £210 return, off peak is still ~£80
Usually I only drive as far as about Hammersmith and take the tube.
What I do notice in London is that the air quality is crap. Really, monumentally, awful. I can go to London for a day and come away with sooty black crap in my nose... that kind of bad. I certainly wouldn't want my kids growing up with that. Might be more noticeable as I live in a mostly rural place, but London really does, IMHO, have a pretty bad pollution problem.
As for diesels... filthy stuff. You really only get the benefit of a diesel on longer runs. Quite why you'd want to buy a diesel to run around London is beyond me.
What would really work for occasional visitors to London like myself would be park and ride type arrangements with excellent, regular and direct rail links. Every other city seems to have built park and ride car parks and transport.... but not London?
If I'm there for work I always take the train, but won't do it for personal journeys as a peak ticket is about £210 return, off peak is still ~£80
Usually I only drive as far as about Hammersmith and take the tube.
What I do notice in London is that the air quality is crap. Really, monumentally, awful. I can go to London for a day and come away with sooty black crap in my nose... that kind of bad. I certainly wouldn't want my kids growing up with that. Might be more noticeable as I live in a mostly rural place, but London really does, IMHO, have a pretty bad pollution problem.
As for diesels... filthy stuff. You really only get the benefit of a diesel on longer runs. Quite why you'd want to buy a diesel to run around London is beyond me.
What would really work for occasional visitors to London like myself would be park and ride type arrangements with excellent, regular and direct rail links. Every other city seems to have built park and ride car parks and transport.... but not London?
croyde said:
The reason the pollution is up is because nothing is moving despite everyone paying for the privilege.
Exactly.Due to the cockups made by TFL, congestion and pollution are probably up.
As Hoofy posted Kingston is now ridiculous. The A307 Portsmouth Road was 4 vehicles wide, perfectly safe for cyclists, cars, buses, etc. Now the eastbound side of the road is a cycleway. Therefore traffic now has one lane each way, so when a bus stops or a delivery vehicle has to unload traffic grinds to a halt and there is congestion and pollution. The last time I drove there the queue was nearly a mile long. The number of vehicles was numerous. The number of cyclists could be counted on both hands.
So much road space has been removed for stupid schemes like removing one lane of the Embankment for the East-West cycleway. For 20 hours a week out of 168 hours the road space is used, but for the remaining 148 hours it cannot be used by the majority of traffic. These cycleways have to be designed so they can be used by the majority of road users when under-used by cyclists.
In a recent series of tv programmes on London traffic it quoted that most road users by a large majority were vehicles. Therefore roads should be altered so that traffic flows. Less congestion will mean less pollution.
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