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A million motorists can’t be wrong?

Brian

Posted by Brian about 1 year ago
Last active 9 months ago 37 responses

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

Well, yes, they can. But only if you’re part of a Labour government who wants to bring in road pricing. Now as we all know, motorists are the new Satan, every one of us personally responsible for global warming, for congestion, for wanting to wheel spin on the heads of small children while laughing maniacally out of our evilmobiles just so we can frivolously drive to work instead of knitting lentils and weaving sandals. Last year, a report was commissioned to look at transport and the economy within the UK. Here it is

To save you from wading through the whole thing, the gist is that a road pricing scheme is being recommended to reduce the number of unnecessary journeys made by car, the idea being that if you drive during peak times or in congested areas you pay more. First, let’s define an unnecessary journey. A trip to the supermarket on the outskirts of town to pick up a week’s shopping for your family because the local council has pedestrianised the town centre, made parking near it impossible and increased parking charges 120% to “encourage use of public transport”, thus forcing out of business all the traditional butchers, bakers and greengrocers?

What about driving to work because the bus route nearest to you has been removed because it’s deemed unprofitable? Or the privatised train service from your town has had year-on-year fare increases while they remove carriages, seats and start installing roof racks in order to squeeze yet more people in to make a profit for shareholders at the expense of the commuter?

Both of these are considered to be unnecessary journeys because there is alternative public transport available. Never mind that doing a week’s shopping for a family of four could mean taking two pre-school children and up to 10 bags of shopping on a bus which takes an hour and a half to get home from the supermarket.

Now let’s look at these congested areas you’re not supposed to drive in. No-one can deny that there are more cars on the road since, say, 1954, car ownership having become affordable to pretty much everyone. But here’s the key issue; road planning. For the last few years, the government and local authorities have been steadily adjusting road planning to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, which is great, but they’ve been doing it to deliberately impede the motorist, basically intentionally causing congestion so that they can then say, “Oooh look! We’ve got a congestion problem. We should tax the drivers more!”

So how does poor road planning cause global warming? Well, according to the Guardian in this article, industry is more polluting than all the evil motorists combined.

So the cars themselves aren’t actually causing global warming. But what about consumption of fossil fuels? I hear you cry. As a petrolhead, I can tell you that cars are at their most fuel efficient when they’re doing a constant speed. A car idling in heavy traffic caused by deliberate obstructions put there to make the journey more difficult is not fuel efficient and will therefore use more of those natural resources we’re supposed to be conserving.

So why the extra tax and road pricing on motorists? Easy. To make money. That’s all it boils down to. Sticking a self-righteous label of caring about the environment on it is simply a panacea to the general public who have been whipped into a frenzy of indignation by irresponsible media reporting who then bleat at the government to “do something”. The government oblige and kill two birds with one stone – they’re being seen to respond to the public’s wishes and they make money by doing it. Last week, this article in The Times was published in response to public support for the road pricing petition.

What Alexander is saying is actually rather insulting because he’s insinuating that the million people who’ve signed the petition are basing their concerns about it on myths and fears rather than actual facts, i.e. we are too stupid to know what we’re talking about so the government can safely disregard our wishes.

He also diminishes the opinion of motorists by ascribing their support of the petition to feelings and suggests rather condescendingly that feelings are all very well but won’t prevent congestion or environmental damage.

The comments he makes about how there should be more debate on road pricing and that no final decision has been made are purely a sop because he says in the same sentence that trials are being rolled out in 4-5 years.

Douglas Alexander said: ‘I cannot anticipate future decisions that will have implications in many budgets ahead. But the suggestion that every driver would pay more is simply wrong.’

This comment is blatantly disingenuous because yes, it is obviously incorrect that every driver would pay more, but he’s latched onto a generalisation which is easy to refute rather than addressing the real concern that people who need to use cars to commute because there’s no viable public transport alternative will end up paying a LOT more under the road pricing scheme. Notice how he also adds the woolly disclaimer that he can’t safeguard motorists from being taxed even more under future budgets.

The other, and possibly more alarming angle of the road pricing scheme is the one of monitoring. The UK is allegedly already one of the most monitored nations in the world. Each car would be fitted with a tracking device which record your journeys in order to price them. But leaving aside the fact that the tracker will cost upwards of £200 which we will be expected to pay, who will be responsible for all this data on our movements and what else will be done with it?

The hopelessly naïve among us offer the platitude, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’ve nothing to worry about.” As though it was some kind of magic protection against the inefficiency, bureaucracy and plain ineptitude surrounding many governmental and local authority departments. The government has repeatedly proven its unfitness to manage large scale IT and data storage projects, why will this be any different?

As far as I and the million other people who signed the petition can see, road pricing is merely a means to an end – generating revenue for the government and allowing them to monitor where we go more closely. The government are choosing to ignore the opinions and wishes of the people because it doesn’t suit them. Democracy? What democracy?

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37 responses

alstorer

It’s the tracking of driving that is my biggest objection to the scheme, to be honest.

Posted about 1 year ago by alstorer

Mockernee

I’m against the tracking, but the rest of Brian’s argument is as disingenuous as the one he’s attacking.

On unnecessary journeys, my bus into work takes 40 minutes during the summer holidays, 70 minutes the very moment kiddies return to school. But they have to get a lift, it’s not safe for them to walk to school, not with all those cars on the road.

And blaming pedestrianisation for forcing specialist shops out of business, and not the one-stop supermarkets who first aggressively targetted city centres, then relocated out of town once they’d broken local commerce’s back, is pretty opportunistic reasoning.

Posted about 1 year ago by Mockernee

cutta

What with “car ownership having become affordable to pretty much everyone”, I don’t see what you’re whinging about. Basically, you don’t think you should have to pay for all the externalities caused by your driving.

There is a serious debate to be had about the tracking aspect, but unfortunately it tends to get lumped in with and then sidetracked by this sort of whiny, poor-little-motorist victimhood bullshit.

And as for the “general public” being “whipped into a frenzy of indignation by irresponsible media reporting”, you obviously live in some wonderful alternate universe where that cunt Clarkson is a marginal and despised figure and car-worship is as socially acceptable as torturing puppies. This world exists only in your head.

[relax. breathe deeply.]

Twat.

Posted about 1 year ago by cutta tipped with 1K

rhodri

Here’s another petition from the same site which I think should demand equal attention.

Posted about 1 year ago by rhodri

cutta

I’m sorry Rhodri, but I cannot, in all conscience, sign that petition. If it was Hungry Like The Wolf on the other hand…

Posted about 1 year ago by cutta

SFULGpremium

Ewww Mind you I signed the Jeremy Clarkson one though—you know, the one about tracking cars and shit

Posted about 1 year ago by SFULG

iainaitch

Plugs for this kind of bizarre catch all petition have been passed around by fools for some time. It even has that ‘No ID’ type endnote for the more left-leaning (as Londoners tend to be). The fact is that the plugs, this one included, are jam-packed with all kinds of spurious stats and claims that don’t really link together to a coherent whole. We already have a form of road pricing and tracking in London and it seems to be working to some extent, or at least is better than the lack of one.

Public transportation is far from ideal, but that and pedestrian/cycle traffic can only be improved to the exclusion of car traffic. The fairest way to do so is to decrease journeys that are not needed, such as the majority of the school run. Case in point—the idiots who park on the zigzag lines put outside the school opposite my house so they can pick up their loved ones and thus increase the likelihood of other’s kids being run over due to poor visibilty.

Posted about 1 year ago by iainaitch

Brian

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Let’s take this bit by bit, shall we?

Mockernee and Iainaitch think it’s it’s the fault of all the parents driving their kids to school. Partially true. If there was a decent school bus system then parents wouldn’t need to drive their children to school. Why isn’t there a decent school bus system?

Furthermore, when I were a lass (and I am a lass, not a lad, the avatar is a little clue) children were taught the Green Cross Code and how to ride a bike safely. The rise of paranoia induced by everyone thinking that there’s a paedophile lurking around every corner and the misapprehension that it’s quicker and safer to drive a child half a mile down the road and park on the zig zags to drop them off, plus the fact that these days both parents tend to work means that children don’t walk or cycle to school any more.

The point about supermarkets aggressively targeting town centre trade is also a valid one, but that’s a whole other discussion.

Iainaitch also thinks I’m a fool for passing around a link to a “bizarre” petition – well, there’s in excess of a million other fools out there who think the same bizarre thing as me. I totally agree with the sentiment about parking on zig zags. Inconsiderate and selfish drivers make things difficult for everyone. But here’s the thing; some people driving cars are every bit as inconsiderate and selfish as the wanker that stands in front of the doors on the tube, or the pedestrian that stops dead at the bottom of the escalator, or the cyclist that jumps a red light because they think they have the moral high ground.

Cutta thinks I’m a twat for objecting to punitive taxation and unnecessary tracking. There is certainly a serious debate to be had about it, but clearly Cutta is more interested in name calling than actually discussing it. And why am I not surprised that Clarkson gets a mention? I do rather enjoy Top Gear, personally.

Public transport and cycle/pedestrian traffic should be improved, and if the train companies, bus companies, local authorities and government would get their act together then it could be done.

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian

Brian

Oh, and I’m sorry, but Gold by Spandau Ballet for the national anthem is plain wrong. Everyone knows it should be If I Was by Midge Ure.

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian

Brian

Here’s something from The Register on the surveillance angle:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/12/road_pricing_and_surveillance/

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian

rhodri

The thing is, ask people if they want to be taxed more, and they’ll say no. The whole point of tax is that it forces us to pay for something that we wouldn’t shell out for if you had the choice. Usually for the greater good – street lighting, NHS, defence, whatever. A petition signed by a million people saying that they don’t want to pay more money doesn’t mean the petition is right; yes, there may be valid issues to raise, but a significant percentage might have signed it because they’re just selfish arses. Someone has to bear the burden of the colossal increase in motoring; maybe it should be the motorist. Yes, I’m a motorist.

Posted about 1 year ago by rhodri

Brian

Sure, no-one can dispute that people should pay for a service they use. However, the tax burden on motorists in the UK is far in excess of any other country in the world as far as I know. If the money went back into spending on improving public transport and better road planning to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and motorists then few people would object. But it doesn’t.

Another good way to use revenue raised from taxes on motoring would be to overhaul the driving test process which is little short of shameful. The driving test should have to be re-taken every, say, 5 years, learning should last a specified period of time and cover observation, courtesy, consideration and defensive driving among the traditional things. Then maybe there would be fewer tossers on the road giving the rest of us a bad name.

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian

rhodri

However, the tax burden on motorists in the UK is far in excess of any other country in the world as far as I know.

Good. We’re leading the way. I shake my head in disbelief at US petrol prices.

If the money went back into spending on improving public transport and better road planning to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and motorists then few people would object. But it doesn’t.

This is such a ludicrous argument – the idea that this block of money should be reserved for something specific in some Excel spreadsheet in 11 Downing Street. Enormous amounts of money are spent on all forms of transport – I note that we don’t have to make our way to work being pulled by goats along dirt tracks – what do we know about the way the Treasury deals with incoming and outgoing cash? Nothing. It’s too gargantuan to comprehend. What do we know about the harsh reality of running a country? Nothing whatsoever. By all means campaign for more money to be spent on public transport, or for less duty on petrol, but don’t come up with some preposterous notion that some money from petrol duty should be passed directly to a bus company. Or whatever.

The driving test should have to be re-taken every, say, 5 years, learning should last a specified period of time and cover observation, courtesy, consideration and defensive driving among the traditional things.

I took my driving test 12 months ago, and again 9 months ago when I fucked up the first time, and if I hadn’t been observant, courteous and considerate I wouldn’t have passed at all. The reason people drive like arseholes on the road is because they are arseholes, and putting them under scrutiny for 45 minutes every 5 years is unlikely to change this.

Christ, this is fun, it’s like being on Usenet in 1998.

Posted about 1 year ago by rhodri

SuckMonster

“Enormous amounts of money are spent on all forms of transport . . . Or whatever.”

Yes, what do us knuckle-headed plebs know about it and, even if we did have some insight into the inner workings of the exchequer, we couldn’t possibly comprehend the it all, being of such labyrinthine complexity as it is. And you even seem to be saying that we shouldn’t be passing comment in the first place given our ignorance of the “harsh realities” of running a country.

The irony-detecting part of my brain has been misfiring quite dramatically today, and so excuse me if you were making with the irony.

Posted about 1 year ago by SuckMonster

rhodri

I didn’t say anything of the sort, including the quote. No irony.

Posted about 1 year ago by rhodri

iainaitch

“Mockernee and Iainaitch think it’s it’s the fault of all the parents driving their kids to school. Partially true. If there was a decent school bus system then parents wouldn’t need to drive their children to school. Why isn’t there a decent school bus system?” I think this is a self-perpetuating problem. There is not demand as parents drive their children to school and would be unwilliing to pay for/fund such a system. Privatisaton of buses etc means that there is not a cost-effective central or local Govt. solution. If parents were priced off the road then they may be willing to look at paying for a bus system for schools. Until then the selfish impulse drives the system.

If we all want to moan about where individual bits of taxes are going then colour me pissed off that my taxes are paying for policing/crossings/markings outside schools as the sheer volume of idiots dictates that a zebra crossing or crossing patrol are no longer sufficient to protect children crossing from those rushing their own precious kids home.

Posted about 1 year ago by iainaitch

MrTom

Brian, I think it’s a mistake to claim that road pricing boils down to a government wish “to make money”. For one thing, of all the lobbies that the government doesn’t want to take on the motoring lobby must rank pretty highly. It seems more likely to me that the government can see that the transport system we have in the UK is fucked but it can’t afford to invest in it properly (e.g. with better public transport), so it’s trying to regulate it using taxes. Just like the twatting train companies whose (explicitly stated) idea of a good response to high demand is to reduce it by making travel more uncomfortable and more expensive. Furthermore, the idea that the government just enjoys making money, as if it’s a profit-making company, often gets invoked as a way to argue against one tax or another. But that’s mere rhetoric. No one’s simply pocketing the money raised. The question is whether it’s reasonable to impose the sort of taxation at issue. (And to some extent: whether it’s reasonable given the sorts of things that the government spends its money on.)

It’s a fair point that bus routes have been privatised, trains made more expensive, etc. But that doesn’t give you an argument against road pricing specifically. Why should driving be cheap? I think the bloody trains and buses should be cheaper and driving should be expensive, myself. (Bear in mind that driving has been getting cheaper, in real terms, for the last few decades.) You use the same kind of strategy with the shopping-for-a-family point, suggesting that out-of-town supermarkets are a whole other argument. But they’re not—this is all part of the same debate. Of course if you take everything else as fixed, it’s going to look unreasonable to make it costly for people to take the only option most of them have left. But most people who are pro-road pricing are also pro-reorganising things so that this isn’t the only option people have left. Campaigning against road pricing at the same time as claiming that all these other questions aren’t relevant is disingenuous, and moreover, if such campaigning is successful, we’ll just be making more trouble for ourselves down the line. Car use is still on the up; congestion and environmental problems aren’t going to go away.

Notwithstanding my opposition to him/her, can people stop giving Brian thumbs down? Surely thumbs up and down are for good posts, not for agreement and disagreement with points of view? Brian’s contributions have been measured and interesting—there’s no reason to get shitty.

Posted about 1 year ago by MrTom

Brian

So you’re both basically saying that people who drive somehow don’t have the right to protest about increased taxation and that we should shut up and wind our necks in because the government know best?

I never suggested that revenue raised from tax should be passed to a bus company. Or something. What I did suggest was that instead of having it disappear into the black hole of government spending, that it’s used to improve public transport and road planning for pedestrians, cyclists and cars. You call my argument ludicrous, don’t even repeat correctly what I said and then don’t present a counter argument.

You’ve also totally missed my point about better training for people learning to drive and more stringent testing. Yes, some people are arseholes and nothing will change that, but they’re arseholes whether or not they drive.

Seems to me that instead of looking for ways to make things better, such as staggered school openings, working from home options, improving the public transport infrastructure and training drivers better, you’d rather carry on whinging.

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian

MrTom

Are you talking to me? I don’t think I said any of the things that you attributed to whomever it was who you said said those things. So I guess you’re not talking to me.

For the record, though, I think that the things you say in your last paragraph are good ideas, especially insofar as congestion is the only worry. Perhaps in tandem with some way to keep the cost of driving from falling further (for the comfort of the car allied to its cheapness allied to its status value makes people reluctant to give it up even when really that would be best for us all)?

(I trust that you too are not only “whinging” about road taxes but actively campaigning for all these other things, though of course that wouldn’t be relevant to the validity of your arguments.)

Posted about 1 year ago by MrTom

Brian

Mr Tom – look, I totally agree that public transport should be cheaper. If it was then people wouldn’t feel the need to drive. But who’s going to tell the train companies and bus companies they have to make their prices cheaper? Driving certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s a darn sight cheaper than a season ticket.

I know that no-one “pockets” the extra money raised by tax. Presumably it goes into some other area where there is a deficit. What I don’t understand is why people don’t seem keen to have it going back into public transport as it should.

Frankly, I’m unsure why I’m getting the kind of unpleasant responses that are being given here and being called a fool and a twat, when all I’ve suggested is using the current (enormous) taxation raised more efficiently, improving driver training, improving public transport and road planning. It appears to be precisely the kind of knee-jerk “cars=evil” rubbish perpetuated by the self-righteous everywhere these days.

Posted about 1 year ago by Brian