Safe Speed Forums

We now need a new Petition which should read Tony Bliar is so deluded that he will never get the point as is evident from his quote from the Daily Mail today "Mr Blair's email will reject critics' claims that the new toll technology will track motorists' movements to catch people speedingin a bid to boost Treasury coffers."

The point being that we do not trust him and we do not want be tracked at all, anywhere, anytime. What is wrong with this man???????

Actually, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Blair's weasel worded statement says (paraphrased) "we won't track motorists movements to catch them speeding". As usual Blair can't be faulted on this.

BUT

This statement also means "we will be tracking you though" and "we will use the data for other things". Of course, one government can't bind a future one so speeding fines could be introduced by the next incumbents.

It's best not to have these devices at all. The government don't seem to get that the objection of most people is the tracking aspect - not paying more to travel.

One of the junior ministers has said that the public have been misled by the sponsor's of the petition. If I were an interviewer, I would challenge him on this:

- Will tracking devices be fitted to every car? Answer - Yes
- Will these track every movement of the car? Answer - Yes
- Will the data be used for any purpose other than tolling? Answer - Yes (anti terrorism etc. and thus the data will all be stored just in case it is needed)
- So what is misleading?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I think it's both. We're already being tracked, very efficiently as it turns out. About two years ago, I drove my car to a location that was just inside London's congestion charging zone. When I came to leave, I tried to make payment for the charge at a machine which was in the car park where I'd parked. But the machine did not take cash, only cards. So I decided to pay online later.

To cut a long story short, it was a few minutes after midnight when I came to pay, and I didn't know that the deadline was midnight of the day of entry into the zone. Thus, I became liable to pay a £50 fine. There was no way out of it. I waited for the payment demand to come, and sure enough - included was a photograph of my car, with me driving it along a street where the CC zone starts.

It's clear that the technology exists for vehicle tracking to be deployed anywhere, without any device having to be fitted to the car.

The government won't (initially anyway) use vehicle tracking to catch people speeding, because if they did then they wouldn't make any profit as everybody would be banned from driving.

What will happen is this......


Initially it will simply be a "pence per mile" charge.
A few months after it has been introduced and everybody is still slightly pissed off about it, the government will announce the following...

"Anybody caught doing no more than 9mph over the top of whatever the limit is will simply be fined and have no points added"
Needless to say the likes of T2000 and BRAKE will be up in arms, but the government will simply ignore them in the same way that everybody else is ignored.

Of course at this point the populace will be saying "about time somone realised a few mph over isn't that bad"

However (and you know what's coming next), not only will the government be raking it in from the "pence per mile" crap.....but they will now be clawing those £60 fines in left, right & centre as well.
They know it will be a roaring success on the cash front, because they have been doing it since 93.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

With the Congestion Charge Zone, there are easily defined entry and exit points which can be policed by ANPR systems - as you found out. The cost of infrastructure installations like these on every street and country lane will be prohibitive (and what about the energy usage!!! Horror, we will all die of the heat). The only remotely practical option is on-board systems and even this probably won't work well.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Politics the world over - someones "read my lips, no new taxes " = "no tracking of motorists".=" i never had sex with that woman"

It's like a group of kids being told "no football in this area " --so they play cricket etc instead.