Safe Speed Forums

Currently 345,410

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

If each one of the signers was in a 15 foot ordinary car, bumper to bumper, 352,000 would mean an unbroken 1,000 mile traffic jam.

352,000*15 / 5,280 = 1,000

422,775 and still going strong...
Is there any one you forgot to tell?

422,980

If the government don't listen and continue with this horrendous plan, I wonder if there will be TravelTax petition numbers of people plus their immediate family numbers emigrating to other countries

The number of people signing a petition demanding the scrapping of the Government’s proposals to introduce a pay as you drive road pricing scheme has topped 450,000.

With more than a month to go before the petition is finally taken off the Downing Street website, earlier estimates that around 750,000 would join the campaign could prove conservative.

advertisementThe Prime Minister has insisted that the Government would press ahead with road-pricing trials within five years, but the Department for Transport has insisted that no final decision has been made on whether to press ahead with a national scheme.

Meanwhile two petitions backing plans to track vehicles and introduce road pricing have accumulated 170 signatures between them.

The debate over the proposed introduction of satellite-based road charging took a further twist with a warning that it could trigger a black market in illegal jamming devices.

If the Government presses ahead with a comprehensive national scheme, it is likely to adopt technology already by several insurance companies as well as by the authorities in Abu Dhabi.

It entails fitting a black box in a car which enables a GPS satellite to track the vehicle’s movements and calculate a “pay as you drive” bill.

But the satellite could be thwarted by a device known as a GPS jammer, which costs around £140.

The jammers are illegal throughout the European Union but are readily available in the Far East and could be imported from countries such as Taiwan.

“People could be really resentful with the sort of charges they could face,” said David Broughton, the director of the Royal the Institute of Navigation.

“They may well look for ways of getting around it and jammers could become very popular.

“A jammer could be as small as the size of packet of cigarettes. It would most certainly do the job.

“Surfing the internet I have found sources where they can be bought. I have even found sites which give simple diagrams about how to build your own.

“The sites have caveats saying this is for research purposes only. I think it is something they fell they have to say.”

As a result, Mr Broughton said, introducing a GPS-based road pricing scheme would be a challenge.

“The GPS satellite is at least 11,000 miles away and the signal is incredibly weak by the time it reaches the earth’s surface. So the arithmetic stacks up in favour of the jammers.”

A leading motoring organization shared Mr Broughton’s fears.

“There is no doubt that in any kind of system, there will be a minority who will try to overcome it,” said Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation.

“We found this when trying to prevent car crime, the determined criminal will always try to find a way to overcome it.”

I don't think the jammer would be of high enough power to effect anything outside a 20' radius - a high powered one could be quite easily detected.

Yes indeed, and theres no real way they could prevent jamming, merely try to detect it, another waste of police resources no doubt.

I'm also interested in how these black boxes will talk to the mothership, to pass the information they've logged back to billing. It's all sounding horribly expensive, which of course reduces any net income and means they'll have to charge more to make it cost effective!

Disputes and delinquency aside, do we suppose the mobile providers are going to allow all this access over their networks for free? Perhaps we are going to be funding a nationwide network of cell coverage.

I'm sure plans to make a GPS jammer would appear online.
Oh look, I just found one. Eek, surface mount...

The whole system just isn't going to work, is it?

I reckon that it won't be long before the making of a jammer, or even downloading a schematic for one, has you bwanded a tairworwist.