 Road charging: one million signatories say no |
One million signatures and counting. That's how many it took to persuade the Government to admit that it has to listen to those opposed to road charging, as it reacts to the petition on the 10 Downing Street Web site.
Opponents argue that this is an unfair tax, because it discriminates against those who live in rural areas and those forced to drive long distances for either family or work reasons. Others are concerned about the loss of personal privacy, and the power that the provision of so much detailed information would hand to civil servants.
On the BBC's Today programme this morning, transport secretary Douglas Alexander pledged to listen to those who oppose road charging, which is its preferred solution to road congestion. He said it was important to deliberate and discuss, and then take a decision. However, that's all he did say -- there was no promise to take account of people's views.
The Government's been saying for years that doing nothing is not an option, but its solution involves finding out when and where people are driving, and charging them accordingly.
However, one MP, John Spellar, said that there were plenty of other measures that could be taken to combat congestion. These included flexible working hours, staggered school opening, improved traffic signals and using motorway hard shoulders.
The petition opposing road charging was started by Peter Roberts last November. Since then, PistonHeads has charted its progress. It hit 400,000 signatures on 15 January and 600,000 just two weeks later. The next 400,000 needed to take it to one million -- the event happened on Saturday -- arrived within two weeks. At the time of writing, it had reached 1,128,345; the second biggest petition calls for the scrapping of inheritance tax, and stands at 47,602 signatures.
Since the road charging petition proved such a success, Paul Smith of the Safe Speed road safety campaign has started a petition to scrap speed cameras, which has already attracted over 4,000 signatures in just two days (see link below), and is now 50th largest petition.
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