BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Motorists ‘must pay for road use’
Erm…. now, i’m not known for my cynical government bashing, but don’t we ALREADY “pay to use the road network”? Those taxes, that little disc in my car?If pay more we must, fine, but re-writing reality to try and make it sound like i’m currently getting something for free gets up even my nose.
:rant:
THey could use all that tax tehy get off for petrol to do something as well. As usual it will be Joe Blog who loses out again, not some fat a***d slimy git whose Bentley does 12 miles to the gallon….
Did you know 80% of petrol prices is TAX?????????????????? ? ?? ???? ?
?? 😐
Unfortunately it’s not that clear, because e.g. bikes don’t need a tax disc but can use the road network. Also, I’m fairly sure that tax disc money doesn’t go into road building, so the tax disc is more a tax on _having_ a car, not really _using_ it. (Only the very rich could do one without the other.)
Well, then the slimy git with the Bentley is already paying loads more tax than Joe Bloggs. So why will it necessarily hit JB harder?
Everyone pays the same tax disc rate (depending on class of car now of course), but some people hardly drive at all – shouldn’t people who use the roads more pay more? I don’t know – I don’t mind maying for education even though I don’t use it.
I don’t know what the solution is though. People aren’t prepared to vote for a government who will raise income tax, so they are left trying to scrounge money in all sorts of other ways.
I really don’t object to the principle of paying more to be on the road. I use them a lot, i probably should pay more. I just don’t like the phraseology being used very much; the notion that we are all a bunch of freeloaders getting something for nothing and we have to be stopped from abusing it! Got up my nose.
I object to paying more as I’m very poor. And I cant afford public transport as it is ridiculously high. The git with the bentley will be able to afford to go where he wants whereas I will have to decide whether to be able to use roads. This is a tax on mobility. And all that will happen is that crappy B roads will get increased traffic.
“Road charges could cut congestion by half” – er, yeah, show me one place in the world where that has worked.
My biggest objection to stuff like this is that it ignores the fact that many of us don’t have a choice about driving. It’s all very well telling people to use public transport, but when getting into the nearest city takes at least six times longer and costs fourteen times more by public transport than driving does (for us), it really isn’t a feasible alternative.
Well, Debbie, rich people can do more, full stop. They can eat better food, go to lovely places on holiday, wear better clothes, etc. Is there some sort of god-given right to be able to use motorways that I’ve not heard of?
And Deb – it’s your choice to live where you live, and without being rude, your choice to have more children so that going by bus or train costs more. I grew up in London without a car, we used public transport exclusively, because my parents had made that choice of where to live. I live in the centre of a reasonable-sized town, and I could do without a car. I don’t, and I drive around town more than I admire myself for, but I’m not telling myself that my journeys are necessary.
Like I said above though, I don’t know what the solution is. But if I ruled the world, I’d tax the %^&* out of car use and pour it all into public transport.
Time to change this one’s category Merry? 😆
I was just thinking that 😉
@Alison – um, I don’t choose to live here. I’d much prefer to live elsewhere, but there’s that little thing called an income to consider. This is where we’ve got an income – not a big one, and certainly not enough to fund even a small three-bedroom house in the city (unless we chose to live in one of the “interface” areas). As for the number of children – note: public transport into the city costs 14 times more than driving. That’s for me and the three children who are old enough to pay. If it was *just* me, it would *still* be more than five times more expensive.
And it would still be easier and cheaper for me than for my friends who live a little over an hour away from the city by car – also not by choice, that’s where the family business is. For them to get into the city by public transport would take five hours – and there is only one bus a day, leaving at 4.05pm. Unless it’s a weekend, when it is actually not possible to get from their town to the city by public transport.