Why doesn't the government introduce tolling on all motorways like they do in France?

Question

Look at the state of our roads compared to theirs. Ours are a disgrace.

Answer 1

The Conservative Party are planning to just that - collecting motorway tolls, if they get elected. They plan to (as it were) rent out motorways to companies who will then collect the tolls from vehicles passing thru their toll gates, much as you can see now if you drive north/south over the Dartford Bridge - you go thru a toll gate and pay your fee.

Tolls on motorways will help reduce traffic flow and stop, I hope, the sort of person who drives say three or four miles on the M-way making a 'local journey' when they could just as easily use a non M-way route.

Answer 2

They are planning too and I am not happy about it. We pay road tax, France does not. The road tax is supposed to be solely for the road system. The government is now planning to put tolls on certain parts of the motorways, but this is supposed to be to ease congestion so the money will not go on the roads.

Answer 3

Americans pay for roads though a tax charged when buying gasoline. The British pay directly though Road Tax.

My first thought is to suggest you to pack you bags and move to France as obviously, you haven't done much driving in France. You may have seen a couple of France's best roads, but France also has some of the worst roads in all of Europe.

Answer 4

The state of the roads is nothing to do with motorway tolls, it is the ineptitude of this government not spending the money raised through vehicle taxation on the roads infrastructure, but instead diverting the money to the governments other pet projects and propping up other lame duck projects like the millennium dome.

Answer 5

What I did when I needed an answer to the question of peage toll prices was I went on to the Michelin website and suded their route-finder facility which is much the same as the one on the AA's site. Enter your start point and your destination (don't give a post code, give an address) and then ask it for a route using the peage autoroutes and another avoiding them. You will be given your two routes but the Michelin system also tells you the cost of the peages on its recommended routes and also the approx. cost of fuel. So you will be able to calculate your preferred option. The system also gives you approx. driving times to your destination. And remember, French main roads (Routes nationales - RN) are extremely good and most towns along them are by-passed.

Answer 6

They also have a credible public transport system and their country is much bigger than ours, so the roads are less choked up.
We need to get cargo back on the rails, sort out the trains networks, encourage people to work locally rather than miles from home. None of this will happen, so we are stuck with what we have.

Answer 7

Because roads are the state's or local government's responsability. Not all roads across the country are crap. If you roads are bad write your governor or state rep. That is what your wheel tax is for.

Answer 8

What a great idea for another tax.

Maybe the motorways will be less congested if they did... take London ,since they introduced congestion charge,it's become a right breeze driving in London....Not!

Answer 9

Apparently, you live in a vacuum, because it has been widely and repeatedly explained, in Newspapers, on TV, and on the Radio. Too Many People have been KILLED while waiting in LINES to pay the TOLLS.

Answer 10

We already pay road tax to use the roads but agree our roads are crap