Tuesday 6th February 2007

Road charging hits villages: warning

Rural communities will suffer most, warns group

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Road charging to hit villages?

Small towns and villages will suffer most under the Government's proposed road charging scheme, the Association of British Drivers (ABD) has warned.

The ABD said that, because congested roads will be charged the most, drivers will seek to avoid charges by taking alternative routes along country lanes and through smaller towns and villages. The group said that it was urging rural communities and vulnerable road users such as walkers, cyclists and horse riders to speak out now against road charging proposals before the plans become law.

ABD policy director Mark McArthur-Christie said: "Road charging will be levied at its highest on the most congested roads. It will be impossible for drivers to know if a road is congested until they are on it, sitting in a traffic jam with no escape route whilst the black box in their car clocks up pound signs for the chancellor.

"Many will not wish to take the risk and will of course seek alternative routes. Unfortunately for villagers and users of quiet country lanes, these will very often be the routes they seek out causing a massive increase in traffic levels."

The ABD urged members of rural communities who may be affected to join the 680,000 who have already signed the petition against road charging (see link below).

• Road charging petition

[fatboy b]

But, of course the Government have already thought of this?

Edited by fatboy b on Tuesday 6th February 11:20

[thirsty]

The government (just like all governments) hide behind the pretense of all such plans as a means of raising revenue. Green taxes are nothing more than another means to take our money.

[hollowpockets]

the fat bar stewards that they are simply count the digits roll in, instead of researching, comming up with and implementing a proper solution to congestion problems, amongst other things. get them out.

[mikemmb]

Why should anyone think that the government has thought through the consequences of this?
They obviously have not done so on any of their madcap ideas up to now, or everything would not be crumbling around them (prisons, immigration, NHS, racial harmony, armed forces, equality etc etc).
Look at scameras ........ eventually the penny has dropped at Blair Palace, but the only solution they have is to start a game of Pass The Parcel.
Mike

[raventroth]

the rural roads are already becoming a lot busier because of everybody slavishly following their satnavs. had loads of near misses coz they just don't know how to drive on rural roads properly

[havoc]

raventroth said:

...they just don't know how to drive on rural roads properly

Following a chap into work this morning down a narrow (just two cars if you're careful) country road, and he was cutting all the corners. Moron!!!

[twincam16]

Herein lies the problem.

So far as the whole New Labour ethos - and all other control-freak ethoses including environmentalism - is concerned, there is no countryside. 'We' have concreted over it and the country is just a giant extension of London. 'We' must now 'pay' for our 'guilt'.

London-centric policymaking is the absolute bane of life in this country.

[Graham]

The concept of cause and effect is too complicated for the government so they will ignore this and just think of the £££££££££££££££

[ploz]

If a road is congested, drivers already resort of alternative country routes as they do "rat runs" in town. Congestion charging may force some extra people onto the country roads, but the as the congestion on the main route reduces, so does the charge and the balance is restored. It will not have anything like as large an effect as ABD are claiming.

[havoc]

ploz said:

It will not have anything like as large an effect as ABD are claiming.

Depends on the method of charging.

All this talk of 'real-time' charging is unlikely to happen initially, as how will it be measured?!? Chances are there'll be a few set 'bands' (e.g. midnight to 7am; 7am-9.30am; 9.30am to 3pm; 3pm to 7pm; 7pm to midnight), and roads will have a set 'weighting' depending on their current levels of congestion (either averaged or for each period).

Thus a rural 'rat-run', even at peak time, will have a lower charge than a main arterial route. Until they re-assess the charges. But even then, unless they CCTV the whole country, how will they know. So rural roads, from a cost-benefit perspective, are likely to remain low-charge.


Which is crap, not just for those living there, but for people like us who love a nice quiet country blat...it won't exist anymore!!!

[135sport]

What happens if you are sat in a traffic jam, on say the motorway or dual carriageway, and then take the opportunity to go to the services.

You are not now contributing to the traffic jam so should not be charged......how will the little black box know you are no longer on the road?

[bunglist]

ploz said:

If a road is congested, drivers already resort of alternative country routes as they do "rat runs" in town. Congestion charging may force some extra people onto the country roads, but the as the congestion on the main route reduces, so does the charge and the balance is restored. It will not have anything like as large an effect as ABD are claiming.

PLOZ are you part of this Tosser Government, do you really believe that the tax is actually going to make a difference to congestion or Green issues. (if you do then you have not got a clue)

All this government want to do is tax us, then tax us, then tax us, and keep on taxing us until all of our saleries are in the treasury.

Labour FED up this country last time they were in power, and look............ History is repeating itself, they have lied about pretty much everything they have done.


The middle classes have to work harder the lower class peasants do nothing apart from abuse the benefit system, in which the middle classes end up paying for, and the rich get richer.

[fatboy b]

havoc said:

raventroth said:

...they just don't know how to drive on rural roads properly

Following a chap into work this morning down a narrow (just two cars if you're careful) country road, and he was cutting all the corners. Moron!!!

Then you'll get the Government imposing a 30mph speed limit on all country roads to kurb the rise in car-related fatalities.

[Griffter]

I've got a new theory about congestion charging. Here goes:
It's not about making drivers pay for driving through congestion - that's more elegantly and effectively done with fuel tax.
It's not even about sneaking in a means to monitor and even control speed.
It's the only way to monitor a driver's actual mileage covered, and given the taxation class of the vehicle in question, to calculate a CO2 'footprint'. Only once a means of 'monitoring' (read 'guesstimating') personal driving CO2 usage could any sort of private carbon trading scheme operate...
Or has my imagination run away with me?

[havoc]

bunglist said:

Labour FED up this country last time they were in power, and look............ History is repeating itself, they have lied about pretty much everything they have done.

Yes, but to be fair, the Tories did a pretty good job of screwing things up when they were in power as well...and they invented 'sleaze' (Labour have done a very good job of perfecting it however!).


So the only question is: Can you BEAR to vote LibDem?!?!?

[ploz]

Havoc - real time road use and congestion data could be collected and indeed it already is in some places. ROMANSE in Southampton is a good example. There are some academics out there (you know who you are) who seem to think that if you can model the system well enough, you don't need to monitor it because, of course, it will conform to your model. In a chaotic system fuelled by driver self interest, this is clearly unlikely to be the case and real time, or near real time monitoring will be needed.

Oh yeah - on the main trunk roads, the Highways Agency speed sensors could already be used to generate a real time pricing signal.

[ploz]

Griffter said:

I've got a new theory about congestion charging. Here goes:
It's not about making drivers pay for driving through congestion - that's more elegantly and effectively done with fuel tax.
It's not even about sneaking in a means to monitor and even control speed.
It's the only way to monitor a driver's actual mileage covered, and given the taxation class of the vehicle in question, to calculate a CO2 'footprint'. Only once a means of 'monitoring' (read 'guesstimating') personal driving CO2 usage could any sort of private carbon trading scheme operate...
Or has my imagination run away with me?

'Fraid your imagination has run away. First - CO2 emissions are directly proportional to the amount of fuel you put in your car, so why not measure that directly? Secondy - congestion is time dependant (rush hours etc) and a fuel tax is not sensitive to the time, so if you drive when the roads are not congested, you hammered just the same. Thirdly, sitting in moderate congestion at a steady 30 or 40 uses less fuel that hammering down an empty motorway at "surely it wasn't that fast officer" speeds, so you would be charged less for sitting in congestion that driving on an empty road.

Edited by ploz on Tuesday 6th February 13:20

[road_terrorist]

135sport said:

What happens if you are sat in a traffic jam, on say the motorway or dual carriageway, and then take the opportunity to go to the services.

You are not now contributing to the traffic jam so should not be charged......how will the little black box know you are no longer on the road?

You make the mistake of assuming they see you as something other than a big fat bag of money to be acquired.

After all as a motorist you must club baby seals to death and run down small chavdren deliberately and therefore you should consider yourself lucky for not being taxed more.

[peter pan]

Some people on other websites seem unable or unwilling to work out the possible effects of road pricing, and seem to be getting bored with the subject, whilst I could understand this attitude coming from those who dont use cars, I find it odd for anyone who cares about cars and motoring (even slightly) because the problems it will create are so fundamental.
There are some who even seem willing to accept it, all I can say to them is that they must be quite used to bending over and taking it up the.......
I cannot see the point of buying/building/working on a decent car, if by the time you have done so, there is no where worthwhile where you can actually use it in the way intended. Some even seem to believe that the government wont be able to make it work. Whilst some of their forays into IT and computor systems have ended in abject failure. the accuracy of some satnav systems show that this may not allways be the case. These systems are currently good enough determine actual position to accuracies of a few yards. There are also Tachograph systems already in trucks, it does not take a massive leap of imagination to think up a digital tachograph linked to a satnav system.
I doubt that there any motorists in this country who can say that they have never broken a speed limit at any time, and some have been fined for just a few mph over the limit. With BBRP, you could be anywhere in the country and still be speed monitored. If we are not carefull, it seems as though abject apathy will win the day. Ok for those who dont care about motoring, just not acceptable for those who do.

[peter pan]

Some people on other websites seem unable or unwilling to work out the possible effects of road pricing, and seem to be getting bored with the subject, whilst I could understand this attitude coming from those who dont use cars, I find it odd for anyone who cares about cars and motoring (even slightly) because the problems it will create are so fundamental.
There are some who even seem willing to accept it, all I can say to them is that they must be quite used to bending over and taking it up the.......
I cannot see the point of buying/building/working on a decent car, if by the time you have done so, there is no where worthwhile where you can actually use it in the way intended. Some even seem to believe that the government wont be able to make it work. Whilst some of their forays into IT and computor systems have ended in abject failure. the accuracy of some satnav systems show that this may not allways be the case. These systems are currently good enough determine actual position to accuracies of a few yards. There are also Tachograph systems already in trucks, it does not take a massive leap of imagination to think up a digital tachograph linked to a satnav system.
I doubt that there any motorists in this country who can say that they have never broken a speed limit at any time, and some have been fined for just a few mph over the limit. With BBRP, you could be anywhere in the country and still be speed monitored. If we are not carefull, it seems as though abject apathy will win the day. Ok for those who dont care about motoring, just not acceptable for those who do.