Safe Speed Forums

Anyone been following the BBC news at 6pm where for the last month they have been monitoring 4 motorists who have voluntarily had black boxes installed in their cars. tonight they revealed their individual bills based on predicted prices/mile. some were horrified with bills over £100 others did not think the bill was too bad and this is all on top of all current running costs, what concerns me is that nobody has yet mentioned that IF and when this does happen they will be able to price people of the road by large increases as and when the whim takes them just as Ken Livingstone is doing with his congestion charges.

Haven't seen that one - however did hear Norwich Union chief try to defend their insurance scheme - about 5p a mile daytime, £1 per mile night time - plus standing charge.(For inexperienced drivers tho) .Who's to say that other times might incurr a penalty - eg 7.30 -9 am.

OH dear silly me, and I always thought I was already paying to use the Roads by purchasing a road fund licence?

so am I right in thinking that when it is introduced they will drop road the fund licence, what do you all think?

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Welcome to the UK, the Land of "Selective Freedoms"

The road fund license cost will be irrelevantly small anyway relative to the average bill.

The subject has been done-to-death for years.
The DfT reports on the subject make boring reading !!!!!!!!
What makes it even worse is that the system, based on gps technology, can not only charge you for using roads generally, but also for using roads where you either do or don't live. IE: if you do a rat-run to avoid m/ways and "save" money you'll be charged at a higher rate because you are not resident in that area....so you lose money and don't save.
It will also be time-based. So if you drive at a peak time, you'll pay through the nose.
Since your date and time of driving will be logged, you'll also receive a summons if you don't have insurance/tax/mot when you drive...makes 1984 look a bit tame.

white van man, almost continuous use - £170 ish
car commuter, daily into birmingham - £120
school run mum (city centre) - £90 ish
rural florist - £28

estimated monthly charges, although they did state these would be higher than the national average cos west midlands is a very congested area.

but by definition nobody (in a relative sense) lives in the non-congested areas so these are actually a representative figure for most of the population although Londoners can probably expect to pay at least double.

Are those on top of current taxation, or would there be some compensation in reduced fuel duty and/or VED?

Obviously given the nature of the current government I suspect the first answer would be correct.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

They have an article on their website about the trial:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6160174.stm

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Wake me up when the revolution starts
STOP the Toll Tax http://www.traveltax.org.uk

When road tolls were first pitched to the public they said that it would be "tax neutral". i.e. they would take tax off fuel duty so there would be the same tax burden on the public over all.

If this is the case how are they going to compensate drivers when they start the "pilot" projects....? Are they going to be able to buy cheap fuel?

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Speed camera policy Kills

I'd rather pay the fuel duty and have nobody know where I'm driving. It would be more difficult to avoid fuel duty that to take a hammer to the GPS transmitter or even without beating it to death there would be softwear available within days to tell the satalites lies. It's just going to be a Getting To Work Tax

Not a chance. They will conveniently forget the promise of reduced fuel taxes as more and more pilot schemes are introduced until they all join up and the whole country is covered in a piecemeal fashion.

Also, how can the pilot work? Will every one who needs to use the roads in the pilot area be obliged to have a tag fitted? Even when they fully implement this, how do they cope with foreign drivers who would then benefit from any fuel tax reduction without paying to use the roads. This would surely be a major nail in the coffin of what's left of our road-haulage industry.

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Will

Fuel duty is my favourite road pricing. The more you drive the more you pay, and the less efficient and environmentally friendly your vehicle the more you pay. Plus it doesn't rely heavily on technology and cost so much to operate.

Governments don't care about how effectively they spend our money though.

No ways - how else will they be able to have the two schemes running together, and ripping us off more.(Cynical - no --just being realistic)

Well I am only repeating what was said, for HGVs at least....

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_roads/documents/page/dft_roads_029788-07.hcsp

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Speed camera policy Kills

I've linked to this article a few months ago, which shows how any road pricing scheme that involved an element of offset against fuel duty would lead to higher traffic levels in rural areas.

If you are genuinely trying to "rebalance" traffic levels you must answer the question "on which roads, and at which times, do you want to see more traffic?"

If, on the other hand, you are just trying to price some people off the road, you will simply impose the road charging on top of existing taxes.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I have also seen reports which claim a "tax neutral" system only AFTER deduction of operating costs..... prepared to be SCREWED.

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Speed camera policy Kills

And the operating costs are MASSIVE. Imagine just the billing disputes arising out of ~30 million monthly invoices. Imagine the enforcement efforts against folk who don't want to play (millions of them). Imagine the costs of the equipment in vehicles (30 million vehicles at £100 each = £3 billion).

When you look at these costs you find the true motivation for road pricing. It makes countless billions for suppliers.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I think you'll find, buried in the blurb, that direct debit will be the only way to make payment work.
There was talk of payment being a per-day event with payment being debited at the end of day....except that the bacs system would crash (nothing new there then)

I fully agree with these sentiments, but you have to remember that President Bliar and his nannies want to know everything about us at all times. They have successfully taxed us for breathing ('The Carbon Tax') and now they want to know where we are at all times, so we can't get into trouble.
If anything goes under my bonnet that I haven't put there myself, it will get the arc-welder EMP treatment bloody quick-smart.

This mob's ideal of its interference in our lives makes Orwell's Big Brother look like an inadvertent eavesdropper...

Damn their eyes...

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Aquila



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