If you venture into central London, as well as having the dubious pleasure of sitting in traffic, watching you life slowly ebb away, the chances are you’ll be paying £8 per day for the privilege.
The congestion charging zone has certainly been a bone of great contention since its introduction, specifically how to avoid coughing up.
Necessity is certainly the mother of invention, and it would seem that a fair few of London’s well-off residents are well aware of this.
Did you know that, for the one-off cost of an £82 application fee, and then £27 per annum for a licence, you can register your car as a private hire vehicle and escape the charge altogether?
It seems that quite a few people do, for example there are 18 BMW X5s, 52 Range Rovers, 3 Maybach 62s and 8 Rolls Royce Phantoms all registered. There’s even an Aston Martin DB7 dutifully doing the rounds.
Now we can understand that there are a few genuine luxury private hire vehicles; the Ritz has its Rollers and so on, but the fact that there are 8 Mercedes SLs which don’t have back seats to speak of seems to indicate foul play is in order.
Well, you don’t get rich by giving your cash away.