Monday 8th November 2004

UK motorist is poor man of Europe

Traffic up 36 per cent, roads up one per cent. Result: chaos

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Britain’s major road network has increased by less than one per cent over the last decade - even though the volume of traffic has grown by 36 per cent on motorways in the same period.

Following the launch of an annual report (see link below) which reveals that the UK’s drivers pay more tax than other motorists in Europe but get one of the most inadequate road systems in return, the RAC Foundation is urging Government to grasp the nettle of roads policy and invest more of this income in the country’s infrastructure - before it grinds to a standstill.

In 2002-2003 (the last period for which statistics are available), Government spending on the rail infrastructure exceeded investment on roads - in spite of the fact that over 90 per cent of all passenger travel is by road and only 6.5 per cent by rail.

Two years ago, in "Motoring Towards 2050", the RAC Foundation predicted that there would be a further 50 per cent increase in traffic by 2031 but still little progress has been made on improvements to the strategic roads network. Simply relying on congestion to control traffic growth would be economically damaging to the country.

The Road Users’ Alliance, of which RAC Foundation is a member, has just published the Road Fact File 2004 reinforcing those claims. It reveals:

• Motorists in the UK pay £42.2 billion to the Government in taxation: fuel tax £22.1 billion; Vehicle Excise Duty £4.6 billion; VAT on vehicles £6.8 billion; VAT on fuel £5.6 billion and company car tax £3.1 billion
• Motorists pay another £75.2 billion into the economy through their purchase of vehicles, fuel and basic running costs
• Just £6.7 billion was spent on UK roads infrastructure in 2003
• 92 per cent of all passenger travel is by road
• 6.5 per cent is by rail
• Roads serve 92 per cent of our travel needs
• Britain’s major road network has increased by just 0.06 per cent (under 200 miles/316kms) in 10 years
• Our motorway network ranks among the least developed in Europe (motorway network length to unit of GDP). The UK is fourteenth out of a European league table of 15 - only Ireland has fewer miles
• UK car ownership falls five per cent below the European average
• Motorways account for nearly 20 per cent of all traffic, yet represent less than one per cent of the total road length in the UK.

Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation said, "These figures will shock the average motorist. We appear to be unfairly disadvantaged on every level in comparison to our European neighbours – we pay the highest taxes, have the most congested roads and the least investment.

"The UK claims to be the fourth largest economy in the world - surely we can afford a decent road system to support economic growth? The Chancellor has had a huge windfall from VAT on fuel. In 2003 he raised £5.6 billion. This year, with rising oil prices, that figure will probably be greater than the entire £6.7 billion that is actually spent on roads."

The RAC Foundation identified earlier this year a list of urgently needed improvements to the strategic road network. To keep to a reasonable and manageable programme, the list is confined to those that the Foundation believes are crucial to effective operation of the network. At a cost of around £2bn a year over ten years the programme would provide very good value for money. Improvements could all be paid for out of half of one year’s motoring taxation.

For the longer term a comprehensive review is needed to establish priorities in terms of the objectives for the network over the next 30 to 50 years.

Even if wider road pricing schemes are introduced in the future this would never be an alternative to creating the extra road capacity necessary to meet rising demand. The Foundation opposes the extensive Government programme of de-trunking roads to reduce the size of the strategic road network and believes that the local road network is also in urgent need of extensive spending.

The Foundation also emphasises the importance of mitigating environmental impacts of road building by putting key sections of route through tunnels in the most sensitive areas and urges the Government to re-think various schemes by considering tunnelling.
"Motorists are becoming increasingly frustrated by the growing congestion on our roads, and the economy is suffering as a result, with congestion costing the country at least £15 billion a year.

"Strategic roads are the core of the national transport system, but without investment the network will soon crumble under the pressures of congestion.

"We still remain to be convinced that the government is not just providing extra money for railways at the expense of roads".

The full report "Urgently needed improvements to the strategic road network " is published on www.racfoundation.org

[groomi]

Nothing new or surprising in there - except that the RAC are actually hoping the Government will listen

Landrovers and tresspassing is beginning to look like a viable alternative to road use.

[Black S2K]

Trouble is, the AA and RAC are lap dogs of the Establishment. They continue to play the game of pretending to represent the motorist against the Government's inane dogma, whilst achieving precisely nothing.

Wonder who they'll blame when the economy finally collapses as a result of gridlock?

[dhowells]

Not to worry..
The goverment has a plan...
Increase the number of banned drivers untill the roads are clear again !!!

Or is this just my cynical mind

[imperialism2024]

dhowells said:

Not to worry.. The goverment has a plan... Increase the number of banned drivers untill the roads are clear again !!! Or is this just my cynical mind

Nah, if they banned more drivers, they would decrease their tax flow. Unless they taxed banned drivers as well, increased taxes on other drivers, or both...

[granville]

It's characteristic of the tiny mindednss of the commie goons who populate public office in Albion - typically, a large a rump of green eyed flying pickets who need keel hauling, rather than perennial refinancing by virtue of scandalous financial misadventure.

I mean, just consider many of your local roads: is it possible to drive more than 50 yards without multiple, quick direction changes to avoid the gut-thudding crash as your delicately balanced wheel weights and geometry are smashed out of kilter?

Of course not. Why? Quite simply because the quangoids want to make you suffer. It's all about Marxism and we are now so weak in Albion that sleepwalking into a collectivist oblivion at the dread hand of these lettuce chomping deadlegs is the unbelievable state of affairs that continues to let such madness avail itself at our crippling expense.

As the article suggests, the revenues derived from the population via motor vehicle useage are the stuff of revolution in other countries: how is it even conceivable that humongous road building projects are not being literally steamrollered into existence?

So blindingly desperate for just about everybody, yet foretsalled because of a few smelly hippies.

Abuse your labour councillors today, they are pure, unadulterated human lice.

[cdp]

Blair is now so arrogant even the people in the country are all wrong. It was interesting to see their responses to the Northern regional ass vote. Prescot's face was worth seeing for once though! Their interpretation was that they hadn't gone far enough. Out of touch doesn't even come into it anymore.

The last time the houses of Parliment were burnt down people stood on the opposite bench of the Thames and cheered.

[IPAddis]

And the reason the Government don't care? Because for some bizarre reason, people are STILL voting for them.

Ian A.

[simonrockman]

Black S2K said:

Trouble is, the AA and RAC are lap dogs of the Establishment. They continue to play the game of pretending to represent the motorist against the Government's inane dogma, whilst achieving precisely nothing. Wonder who they'll blame when the economy finally collapses as a result of gridlock?

You need to separate the RAC Foundation, which actually has motorists at heart, from the RAC whcih has its shareholders at heart.

Simon

[thirsty]

The British public are at least partly to blame. Every time I would get into the discussion about traffic issues, my reply would be that new roads need to be built. Not just a few, but a lot of them. That would usually generate a fairly negative response.

My next question would be to ask if they were willing to give up their car. Again... bewilderment. The only conclusion I could gather was that people were simply willing to live with increasing traffic congestion, and didn't seem to mind paying some of the highest road and petrol taxes in the world.

[Mr Whippy]

Don't really need new roads, just better existing ones.

I used to do a long commute, and a good 20 mins of it was queuing at inadequate junctions that could easily be a roundabout.

One junction I could queue at for 20 mins, and it was quite a bad accident blackspot. Both numpties pulling out on bikers was one problem, and just general bad driving was another. It was a T junction onto a main road, but the main road went round like 70 degrees too, so it was a fast A road corner.
So easily could have added a large radius roundabout (only farmland around it), and had the entrances to it sharp to slow the main traffic, and then the exits smooth to aid off flow.
All that alone would make the area safer, slow traffic down where roads are meeting, and increase the flow of traffic overall, since the slower A road traffic would give the other queuing people chance to join!

But no, we get stuck with shite roads that are falling in pieces and pay more than anyone else for them.

Time to go burn some more speed camera's... don't think I should put up with this crap! What do I pay my fooking taxes for, to get taxed MORE!!! Argghhh!

Dave

[sidevalve]

Blair isn't stupid. He saw what happened to the Tories every time they tried to build a road (hippies with dogs on strings protesting everywhere, and thousands of Greenpeace supporters up trees). He doesn't want to p*** this lot off, and he also knows that the motorist is a great place to screw money from, so he's trying to keep the balance between p***ing the motorists off and p***ing Greenpeace off. I will accept, however, that at the moment he is merely succeeding in p***ing both lots of people off. Unfortunately, I think he cares more about Greenpeace than the motorist...