Will making motorists pay as you go Help to get the number of cars off the roads.?

Question

I am talking about electronic road tolls .

Answer 1

Only if huge improvements are made to public transport with regard to availability, reliability, and cost! In the UK, I would have great difficulty in living without a car; living in a country where so many people cannot afford to buy and run a car, however, means that public transport is pretty efficient and relatively cheap. Not so convenient as your own car of course, but it is possible to live quite well without one.

Answer 2

Like the other person said, tolls only creates a system which disadvantages the poor, pretty much like those who can afford to drive SUV's, and the like, are not going to be put off by road tolls. Maybe if they could actually take a persons total worth into account and charge each individual a percentage of that , however,that would be impractical and would create chaos. The justice system is already biased in favour of the wealthy and this would be another example of that bias. e.g. Rich person gets convicted of driving with undue care and attention, gets fined £1000.00 - a drop in the ocean. Poor man, same situation, same fine, probably in real terms, 3 months salary, how fair is that?

We live in a society where the (Rich) oil companies can pay tame scientists and tv networks to pour scorn on the whole environmental issue. They pay lip service to it by pretending to be green but the bottom line is profits and one would have to be totally naive to think differently. Unless there is a radical change in thinking by by everyone nothing will make a difference all change is cosmetic at best and tolls, taxes, congestion charges etc. are illusions which benefit only the taxman and no one else.

Answer 3

WOW!!!! With the exception of a few well thought and eloquent answers.... no wonder the rest of the world thinks we're a bunch of Pikies. Running over bikers when you can't even spell BICYCLE??? Nice work dum-dum. Truthfully, most American motorists have a hard enough time using a directional signal, let alone figuring out a standardized hand signal from a biker. People who choose to cycle seriously have EVERY bit of right to share the road and do so safely... there are a few instances when cyclists might do well to choose another route, but that's not the question. The simple answer is that they are not paying attention.

Answer 4

Isn't a shame that all the ideas suggested so far will mean the road will still be filled with big flash expensive cars driven by company directors, etc and the working man will be the one who loses out?

Anyone who earns 100k plus a year wont give a monkeys about what charges are put onto us, they have 4 cars, probably gas guzzlers (because the price of fuel means nothing to them either) and for them insurance, road tax, etc is back pocket change.

It's mr average and mr 'not so well off' who will be hit the most, they will be the majority of people who will be forced off the road and how can that be fair or right?

Wouldn't that mean we will see more illegal cars driven on the roads? More without tax, insurance, false plates?

We need to find a level playing field where road time is not controlled by finance, where we all equal have freedom to drive and use our cars when we need them.

The government is just taking the easiest option, but seeing as they are all 100 grand a year people it'll not be bothering them too much.

Answer 5

No I do not think so. I have just been clobbered with a congestion charge when I "accidentally" went into the zone as I did not know that part of London. I left the zone quickly but was still clobbered. As the fine is paid to a post box in Coventry I have to assume that town was picked as the labour and office space is cheaper than London. The whole point is to make money for London not to get the number of cars off the road.

Answer 6

Think of the cost of introducing this scheme. One only has to look at how all the new government IT ideas flop, from CSA up to HMRC lost disks. It will further expand the Civil Service most of whose employees have never worked outside any government department. How about this for cost savings while maintaining tracability of vehicles:
All new government employees to supply proof of at least 2 years previous employment in the private sector,
The DVLA only to be responsible for the issue of driving licenses and vehicle registration.
Road tax to be abolished and replaced by a tax on petrol/diesel consumption, these prices having first been reduced to compensate for the cost savings of the new scheme,
Every vehicle to display it's insurance certificate in the windscreen as in Italy.
Separate civil and motoring police, so that dedicated motor police officers can concentrate on motoring offences and civil police can spend more time catching up on criminals.
Of course it will never happen, no leftish government wants to see it's civil service reduced and the present day police service won't be happy to lose some of it's responsibilities.
It's what a common sense government would do, Having myself driven and worked in Germany and Italy there's no excuse for not implementing these improvements that are known to work efficiently.
If I drove in Germany with a defective light of any type, and did not have a spare lamp in my car I'd face an on the spot fine. Beware all you one eyed monsters!

Answer 7

It will get the kids off the roads but hurt the working poor.
This government should take a lesson from Europe and build public transportation networks which should include common train systems already tried reliable, not like the SF Area Bart system that is very unique and troublesome.

Answer 8

it will make the motorist more cheesed off at the pathetic goverment they voting in 10 years ago

they have this habbit of ripping us motorists off, look at how much petrol and diesel has gone up since they've been in power, and its nothing to do with the price of crude oil or the oil companys

to use a taging system on cars for pay and go driving.. they will have to do something about lowering fuel costs to compensate for it, but can you seeing gorden brown doing that???? i dont think so

Answer 9

it will be totally unfair if the government does that - the only people it will affect are the working class. rich people will be able to afford it, dole bums will too coz all their bills are paid by the government. how can they justify road tolls when public transport is shocking!! it's not fair, i have to pay a fortune in petrol and parking just to get to work, takes a large chunk of my salary every month and they just want ways to take more money off us. it's not about climate change - what other countries suffer as many taxes as us in uk?? it's about government taking more money off us to fix their mess of wars and migrants coming into our country's and also the money they have to find to pay all the druggies and alchoholics who are on benefits for depression.

Answer 10

Sadly not. It will price the poor off the roads and put shop prices up sky high because of delivery costs. While crime on buses and trains is on the increase and our public transport in tatters, people will continue to drive xxx