Mayor considering new charges for large SUV's in London

[Metric Max]

Apparently there are 800,000 SUV's in London, I don't understand why one is necessary to drive in London.
Link to BBC article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14m142ze58o

However, how do you define a "large SUV?"
Clearly a Range Rover is large, but what about a Freelander? Is a Tiguan large? The list could go on all day.
Do they think they can define "large SUV" by number of driven wheels ? In which case a 2 or 4 wheel version of the same vehicle could have to pay the extra charge or not.
Is it just me who thinks this is another crazy scheme that has not been thought out properly?

[Randy Winkman]

Metric Max said:

Apparently there are 800,000 SUV's in London, I don't understand why one is necessary to drive in London.
Link to BBC article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14m142ze58o

However, how do you define a "large SUV?"
Clearly a Range Rover is large, but what about a Freelander? Is a Tiguan large? The list could go on all day.
Do they think they can define "large SUV" by number of driven wheels ? In which case a 2 or 4 wheel version of the same vehicle could have to pay the extra charge or not.
Is it just me who thinks this is another crazy scheme that has not been thought out properly?

I think it all looks a bit daft but I'm not sure about your point about not being thought through properly. I dont think there's any claim that it has which is why there's this work being done to look into it.

But just to be clear - it looks like a bad idea to me. I live in outer London by the way.

[Portofino]

‘ The plan is part of the mayor's strategy to eradicate death and serious injury from London's roads by 2041.’

Admirable aim but where will it all end?

Removing all risks associated with moving around a large city. They may as well just lock us all up.

[Jasandjules]

Portofino said:

The plan is part of the mayor's strategy to increase tax from the users of London's roads by 2041.

EFA

[twister]

Metric Max said:

Apparently there are 800,000 SUV's in London, I don't understand why one is necessary to drive in London.

Because you've fallen into the same trap far too many fall into when thinking about driving in London, by equating London with inner/central London only, and forgetting about the expanse of suburban/rural outer London, where transport needs are somewhat different, and where these types of vehicle look rather less out of place than in those carefully selected photos in the BBC article...

[StevieBee]

Vision Zero is a national initiative. I do some work for a road safety agency in another part of the UK that's promoting the same.

Metric Max said:

However, how do you define a "large SUV?"

This is the sticking point. We all know what it refers to but in government and law you have to have a clearly defined description which is not easy to do.

All cars have increased in size proportionally to their past equivalents (the Mini being the most obvious). The irony is that this size increase is largely in response to the regulations that give better protection to occupants and compounded now with the transition to electric power. So you have ordinary family cars of a size that would classify them as a SUV - which isn't what is being referred to.

The only way any restriction could be imposed is be specifying the models it applies to. Expect a lot of legal shenanigans should that come to pass.

[JagLover]

twister said:

Metric Max said:

Apparently there are 800,000 SUV's in London, I don't understand why one is necessary to drive in London.

Because you've fallen into the same trap far too many fall into when thinking about driving in London, by equating London with inner/central London only, and forgetting about the expanse of suburban/rural outer London, where transport needs are somewhat different, and where these types of vehicle look rather less out of place than in those carefully selected photos in the BBC article...

Yep

Added to which there are many large families, like my Brother with four children, and large SUVs are usually the default option these days.

[boyse7en]

StevieBee said:

The only way any restriction could be imposed is be specifying the models it applies to. Expect a lot of legal shenanigans should that come to pass.

Couldn't it be defined by weight and/or dimensions? The two generally correlate, and would be easy to define both current and older vehicles without having to list thousands of models

[untakenname]

With the majority of inner londoners not owner a car I can see this being a sure fire win for Kahn.

Paris recently introduced curbs for SUV's and it seems to have worked.

Congestion in urban streets increases with wider cars, especially on the school run so imo they should base VED on size of car rather than engine capacity.

[king arthur]

Portofino said:

The plan is part of the mayor's strategy to eradicate death and serious injury from London's roads by 2041.

Admirable aim but where will it all end?

Removing all risks associated with moving around a large city. They may as well just lock us all up.

Yes it's an unfortunate fact but you cannot eradicate all risk from modern day life. If you travel anywhere by any means there will always be some risk. Even when we travelled everywhere on horses, people used to die falling from their horse. That's not to say we shouldn't try to lessen the number of deaths or injuries but there comes a point by the law of diminishing returns when the money spent doing so could be better used in another way.

[sparta6]

untakenname said:

With the majority of inner londoners not owner a car I can see this being a sure fire win for Kahn.

Paris recently introduced curbs for SUV's and it seems to have worked.

Congestion in urban streets increases with wider cars, especially on the school run so imo they should base VED on size of car rather than engine capacity.

Khan hasn't done his research properly.

Tower Hamlets residents have lots of shiny SUV's parked outside their social housing estates.

Just one example, but should be a vote winner

[menousername]

Has it always been like this?

It just seems to be a non-stop onslaught of various reviews and ideas into limiting, restricting or otherwise making more challenging the ordinary day-to-day existence of people, along with making us pay more for less.

[sparta6]

king arthur said:

Portofino said:

The plan is part of the mayor's strategy to eradicate death and serious injury from London's roads by 2041.

Admirable aim but where will it all end?

Removing all risks associated with moving around a large city. They may as well just lock us all up.

Yes it's an unfortunate fact but you cannot eradicate all risk from modern day life. If you travel anywhere by any means there will always be some risk. Even when we travelled everywhere on horses, people used to die falling from their horse. That's not to say we shouldn't try to lessen the number of deaths or injuries but there comes a point by the law of diminishing returns when the money spent doing so could be better used in another way.

20mph limits on dual carriageways is fairly safe.
Maybe Khan will push for 10mph while e-scooters are doing 35mph through red lights

[sparta6]

menousername said:

Has it always been like this?

It just seems to be a non-stop onslaught of various reviews and ideas into limiting, restricting or otherwise making more challenging the ordinary day-to-day existence of people, along with making us pay more for less.

Extreme socialism morphing into mild communism.

Khan wants yet more power and control

[PaulWoof]

[oyster]

sparta6 said:

menousername said:

Has it always been like this?

It just seems to be a non-stop onslaught of various reviews and ideas into limiting, restricting or otherwise making more challenging the ordinary day-to-day existence of people, along with making us pay more for less.

Even if it’s what the majority of his electorate want?



Extreme socialism morphing into mild communism.

Khan wants yet more power and control

[sparta6]

oyster said:

sparta6 said:

menousername said:

Has it always been like this?

It just seems to be a non-stop onslaught of various reviews and ideas into limiting, restricting or otherwise making more challenging the ordinary day-to-day existence of people, along with making us pay more for less.

Even if it s what the majority of his electorate want?



Extreme socialism morphing into mild communism.

Khan wants yet more power and control

We're based in W1.

When was the ballot for heavier restrictions and price hikes ?

We didn't receive it

[Metric Max]

The object of the scheme would be to make roads safer for pedestrians, obviously a good thing.
It would be interesting to know how many get killed/injured and the type of road.
In my nearby town of Ashford in Kent they converted a very efficient ring road into a shared space, removing pavements/pedestrian crossings and a 20mph limit which many stick to but some do not.
Driving in this area a pedestrian suddenly walks in front of an oncoming vehicle without looking whilst staring at their phone, presumably because they are "entitled to". Is the sort of scenario where pedestrians get hit?
When I went to school back in the dark ages we were taught how to cross the road, so far for me, it's worked

[sparta6]

Metric Max said:

The object of the scheme would be to make roads safer for pedestrians, obviously a good thing.
It would be interesting to know how many get killed/injured and the type of road.
In my nearby town of Ashford in Kent they converted a very efficient ring road into a shared space, removing pavements/pedestrian crossings and a 20mph limit which many stick to but some do not.
Driving in this area a pedestrian suddenly walks in front of an oncoming vehicle without looking whilst staring at their phone, presumably because they are "entitled to". Is the sort of scenario where pedestrians get hit?
When I went to school back in the dark ages we were taught how to cross the road, so far for me, it's worked

^^this^^

Khan has removed all responsibility from lazy / dazy pedestrians.

Eyes and ears locked into screen, suddenly step out in front of car. Car drivers fault, obviously.

££ Money ££

[ATG]

boyse7en said:

StevieBee said:

The only way any restriction could be imposed is be specifying the models it applies to. Expect a lot of legal shenanigans should that come to pass.

Couldn't it be defined by weight and/or dimensions? The two generally correlate, and would be easy to define both current and older vehicles without having to list thousands of models

It's generally easier just to have a definitive list of vehicles as there aren't really that many makes and models to consider and catalogue.

As to legal shenanigans, you just make the rule "if it's on the list, you pay" and common sense dictates there'll be some vehicles on that boundary of the criteria where inclusion or exclusion from the list is arbitrary. But arbitrary is not the same as unreasonable, so that doesn't create an opportunity for legal dispute.

Pretty sure that's how the London emissions stuff worked. I moved out of London more than ten years ago, so I can't really remember, but I'm pretty sure we managed to duck some emissions rule because our Hilux was an import model that didn't have an exact equivalent entry in the definitive list. That meant we didn't need to get some additional filtering fitted to the exhaust. Is that fair? No, but who cares? It's a simple, clear system. Either you vehicle is on the list or it ain't. If you know your vehicle is in the grey area but not currently listed, you should anticipate that it might get added to the list at some point in the future.