Drivers say no to road pricing
Suspicion grows over government intentions
Will charges solve this?
The study shows that motorists still accept the principle that it would be fairer to pay for the roads according to the amount of time spent driving in congestion rather than the current system of taxing fuel and vehicle ownership: the proportion agreeing to that has increased by two points to 62 per cent. But the proportion of motorists who support any particular application of road pricing has declined, and there is suspicion about how pricing would actually work. The RAC Foundation is therefore warning that the window of opportunity to persuade motorists of the benefits of road charging is closing.
The RAC Foundation believes the Government needs to change the way the debate is presented. Road pricing is not an end in itself but may in some places be one element of a package of measures required to give the UK a transport system fit for the 21st century.
Young people between 17 and 24 are bucking the trend as the only group showing consistently increased willingness to pay road charges. Overall, motorists have become less willing to pay charges, and less likely to be persuaded by concessions such as reduced motoring taxes, increased investment in the road network, or investment in public transport.
Motorists don't trust government
The RAC Foundation believes that any scheme would have a much better chance of success if motorists can be persuaded that road pricing is of long-term benefit to the country, and that they themselves will see an improvement in travel conditions. They suspect that road pricing would be just another charge on top of what they pay now. That suspicion could only be allayed if the Government were to hand over supervision of the scheme to a genuinely independent body.
David Holmes, Chairman of the RAC Foundation, said, "Motorists struggle every day with rising congestion, and every time they fill their tank, high fuel prices dent their wallets. Many of them recognise that road pricing could be one of the weapons for tackling congestion, but they are worried about the impact of charges on their own work and family journeys. They do not trust Governments to operate charging fairly.
"Our study shows that scepticism is increasing, not decreasing, with time, so it is vital that the Government takes a stronger lead. If the motorist is to be won over, Government needs to demonstrate that pricing will be part of the solution to their needs, along with investment to make the roads better and safer, and not just another means to raise money and price them off the roads. There has to be an open dialogue with motorists, whose support is essential."
Almost eighty per cent of motorists are so anxious about the situation that they want an independent watchdog to stand up for their interests.
The study, based on surveys carried out by GfK Automotive, part of GfK NOP, shows that there is less than 50 per cent support for road pricing on its own, and that support has fallen since 2002:
- in city centres: the number of motorists willing to pay a charge to drive in city centres has fallen by seven per cent since 2002.
- on all roads: the number of motorists willing to pay to use the whole road network has fallen by five per cent since 2002.
- on motorways: the number of motorists willing to pay to use motorways has remained broadly the same, falling by just one per cent since 2002.
Essential criteria
In 2002, the survey found that more than three-quarters of motorists would accept charging if there were equivalent reductions in fuel duty, and over 70 per cent would accept them if part of a package of transport improvements. But the 2005 survey shows that motorists are now less willing to be persuaded by concessions in these areas:
- The number of motorists agreeing that tolls would be acceptable if other motoring taxes came down has fallen by 3.5 per cent but is still supported by 71 per cent.
- The number of motorists agreeing that tolls would be acceptable if roads were improved to guarantee better journeys has fallen by 11 per cent but is still supported by 60 per cent.
- The number of motorists agreeing that tolls would be acceptable if they were introduced as a package including better roads, better public transport and better traffic management, has fallen by 10 per cent and is now supported by 61 per cent.
One of the aspects that appears to worry drivers, according to the study, is that of privacy. More motorists are now concerned that the use of satellites to monitor the location of cars to calculate road charges could be an infringement of personal liberty than when the research was first conducted.
Motorists do not want to see low-income drivers priced off the roads: opinion on this has held steady, with 58 per cent of motorists considering that any scheme should include protection for people on low incomes.
Government action
The RAC Foundation surveyed motorists’ attitudes to road charges and tolls in 2002. Since then the Government has made a manifesto commitment to evaluate road pricing as a solution to congestion, and agreed to fund seven pilot schemes. The London Congestion Charge has been in operation since 2003, and motorists may pay to use the M6 Toll Road. The Foundation therefore re-polled motorists with the same questions to find out whether attitudes had changed as the issues become more familiar to UK motorists.
RAC Foundation chairman David Holmes said: "These results show much has to be done to convince motorists of the merits of charging. In the interim, Government and local authorities need to step up the rate of road improvements to avoid gridlock. Road improvements are an essential part of the package approach which will be necessary to tackle congestion, yet the present rate of improvement is well below what is necessary to provide a decent road system for the country."
The RAC Foundation supports the principle of road pricing on a limited proportion of the road network - but not if it is simply an extra tax on the motorist. The Foundation has proposed five key conditions for any scheme:
- The charges must be fair, must be accompanied by reductions in other motoring taxes, and be overseen by a genuinely independent body.
- At least part of the proceeds must be re-invested in road transport, and be additional to current spending commitments.
- There must be a clear timetable for implementation, and time to allow people time to adjust their travel routines.
- There must be protection of privacy.
- There must be protection for the least well off – road pricing must not be used to drive those on low incomes off the roads.
However, the poll also shows that if the Government agreed to the RAC Foundation’s conditions of acceptance then support for pricing would grow.
Seventy nine per cent of motorists now think there should be an independent body set up to safeguard the interests of road users. If such a body were in place a majority of motorists would be confident that the Government could deliver a fair scheme. Without such guarantees 87 per cent of motorists would not trust the Government to deliver.
The full study will be available on the RAC Foundation’s Web site.
I don't sit in my car in traffic queuing into Leeds every morning and then back out again on an evening for the fun of it. Nor will I derive personal enjoyment, entertainment and satisfaction from paying any future road pricing charge. I do it because I have to and there is no other option.
To continue being alive I have to eat food and live in a house. These things require money. To get money I need to work. To work I have to move the 15 miles between my house and my workplace quickly enough to both spend 8.5 hours at my workplace and still gain enough rest on an night to continue being alive. There aren't any public transport options that would satisfy this requirement (in fact, at my previous workplace there weren't any full stop, it was at an industrial park off a motorway in the middle of nowhere).
article said:
These results show much has to be done to convince motorists of the merits of charging. In the interim, Government and local authorities need to step up the rate of road improvements to avoid gridlock. Road improvements are an essential part of the package approach which will be necessary to tackle congestion, yet the present rate of improvement is well below what is necessary to provide a decent road system for the country."
While this has been said for the last 30years, do you think they will listen now??
All that will happen is that this system will be introduced, irrelevent of public opinion, no money will be invested, only that as congestion gets worse and worse (due to bad management!), they'll increase the pricing in an 'effort to reduce congestion', while raking in the money with very little effect on traffic.
They won't invest in public transport for those who cannot afford to drive anymore as it has become too expensive.
And due to underinvestment in most aspects of the UK people wonder why certain aspects are basically falling apart?!!
Rant over.
For road pricing to work, there should be a reduction in Motorists taxation, ie Road Fund and Fuel duty, and NO road charging outside of the busy times, that way people who could travel outside the congested time would save money, But what is the chance of that happening
This country will grind to a halt in years to come, not only on the roads, but in general economics. If they keep charging us extra, we have to find extra and so the cost of manufacturing etc goes up with wages, until all manufacturing is pushed abroad. We will end up going to one of four supermarkets to buy everything we ever need, but we cant because the minute we step into our cars we will get fined for not putting our seat belt on quickly enough or get charged for using the road after the first five yards (sorry that should be metres, I will get fined for to using metric measurements).
Well done, what a fantastic country that will be.
But we do pay according to the time spent driving - more time = more petrol = more fuel tax. Congestion will be solved by better road systems and the alternative of better public transport, not by charging people to suffer the congestion.
Philbes said:
But we do pay according to the time spent driving - more time = more petrol = more fuel tax. Congestion will be solved by better road systems and the alternative of better public transport, not by charging people to suffer the congestion.
Plus the more time spent on clogged roads, the worse the fuel economy hence instant "congestion" charging, all via the existing, easy (read 'cheap') to administer system of fuel tax.
As has been said before, people don't sit in traffic jams for the sake of their health you know!
article said:
Young people between 17 and 24 are bucking the trend as the only group showing consistently increased willingness to pay road charges.
Would this be the group most prone to swallowing TonySpin™ as truth? Or maybe the group least likely to be paying their own (inflated) driving costs such as insurance? Or maybe the group with least driving experience and hence less qualification to comment sensibly on the state of the roads? 
's advocate...
Charging in the centre of London works because you do not have any option other than pay or keep out.
I'm sorry to say that I don't believe that you can trust this Government, Independant commitees are given a very narrow remit that almost establishes the conclusion before they start work.
Charges will eventually be imposed and used to fill in the huge hole of debt that the country is being taken into plus repaying the secret private loans in lue of Peerages that have been just discovered. These may have been entered into now that donations to political parties have to be declared, was this a way around legislation?
The fairest way is to scrap road tax and add it to the cost of fuel, the less you drive the less you pay and no one could avoid paying.
ers stop trying to re-invent the wheel as it were, and leave the way that we pay are duty for the roads as it is, but what they could do to make a bit of a change is actually put the money they get from the road fund license and fuel duty and spend it on the roads and stop using it to fill Gordon Browns BLACK HOLE Economy. (Hah so much for this being the best economy the country has had) Also they congest the roads with all these traffic calming bollards sleeping policmen and traffic lights and all other road funiture, and then after congesting the roads they decide to try and charge us for the priviledge of using the clogged roads F
ing Labourite TS 
overg0kyk said:
Independant commitees are given a very narrow remit that almost establishes the conclusion before they start work.
What do you mean "almost"? Pretty much any government-funded "independent" commitee is only established for the sole purpose of producing data to back up the government's position on whatever topic is relevant. Or at best, couch conclusions in terms vague enough to be spun the government's way.
The Government are also not serious about reducing other motoring taxes, otherwise they wouldn't still be talking today about increasing road tax on "Gas Guzzlers". Anyway, switching the tax to road charging means all those nasty yuppies will get away with driving big cars.
I heard talk that the Government wanted to try road charging in one region on a trial basis. Would this mean that all petrol stations in that region would reduce the price of fuel to trial the proposed lower fuel duty? I can imagine the number of cars "crossing the border" to buy cheap fuel, just like the Germans do in Luxembourg.
I don't suppose the London "congestion charge" had an impact on peoples level of trust when Livingstone decided to up the price by 60% when they'd already spouted off about what a "success" it had been in reducing traffic levels. If they were happy with it's success, why the need to put the price up so soon?
How about trying to get business to locate out of the South-east and other major cities? How about tackling the ridiculous housing market that stops people living near their place of work. How about easing the burden on families that causes both parents to have to work, adding to commuter journeys and school runs? How about a decent public transport alternative? How about tackling crime that causes people to feel unsafe when walking or on a bus? Or a safe cycle path network? Or decent schools near where families live? Or stop building extra houses in over-populated areas with no upgrade to infrastructure?
Road pricing may succeed in pricing some of the lowest paid workers off the road, and due to the fact that these people are least likely to get flexible working hours, out of a job too. But the rest of us will just swallow hard and pay up, with no discernable reduction in congestion.
The only thing that will change is Brown's budget balance...upwards.
sgt^roc said:What about them saying before one recent election that they will not put up direct taxs'.... then uncapping National Insurance! What an excelent example of lying to the public but being able to hide it behind spin.
Motorists don't trust government
And this month's Stating The Bleedin' Obvious Award goes to.......
WMD, NHS, Cash for jobs, immigration, mad plods(Brumstrom) inheritance tax rises, council tax. what else dont we trust them on....?
stenniso said:
Also, road pricing doesn't tackle the root cause of congestion, which is too many people having to travel too great a distance too often.
You should also add, at the same time.
Business hours are a stupid idea anyway, too bad if you want to do something thats only availble during business hours because you'll be at work. There is no reason most people can't work from home, I could just about do all my work from home. Or if not from home, how about local 'business centres' where many people can log in from many different workplaces all in the same building, that way it's still like going to work and you still get to interact with people, but without the long commute.
Even flexible working hours would be good, I'd love to be able to sign in and work whenever I want, to a certain extent I do and I often deliberatly go in a bit late to avoid congestion and stay a bit later to make up and also avoid congestion. In my old job, working shifts, I could do 7am to 3pm or 3pm to 11pm, it was fantastic, no congestion at all and you have at least half the day free. In peak hour that commute was usually 30-40mins, but with my shifts it was barely even 10mins!
Sure not everyones job can be that flexible, but enough are to reduce congestion significantly. Also other problems like mothers worried about having a career and spending time with children, if they could work from home or had flexible hours then this would be much less of a problem. This would help solve the other problem of people not having enough children, parents not spending enough time with their children, and house prices wouldn't be so ridiculous in convenient commuting areas.
It really makes me mad sometimes at how short sighted and uncreative governments are, they should be proactive in solving the root causes of problems not reactive and patching stuff up along the way. In some ways it's a problem with western thinking in general, like western medicine, find illness then cure it, when really you need to find out what is causing the illness then try and prevent it happening again.
I'd laugh at those brain dead arts graduates who can't find a proper job or CEOs who were fired for corruption who end up working for the idiotic government 'thinktanks', if they weren't responsible for screwing up everyones lives so much with their uninventive ideas that consist of either banning everything or taxing the hell out of it. Think tanks, what a stupid name, they don't do any thinking at all.
R988 said:
Or if not from home, how about local 'business centres' where many people can log in from many different workplaces all in the same building, that way it's still like going to work and you still get to interact with people, but without the long commute.
A cracking idea, but the part of me that is the corperate drone has a bit of a fit at the thought of all that propriatory data potentially lying about in an uncontrolled office...
Gassing Station | Motoring News | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff