Road pricing 'back-burnered' by Brown gov't

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

ID Cards?

"It is not the department's intention, at this stage, to take the separate powers needed to price the national road network."

The killer bit is the "at this stage". Presumably that was written when the bloke writing the policy on road pricing was on a tea break or something.

@Neil

You're confusing common sense with Ken Livingstone's political agenda, which is to make driving in London so unpalatable that we'll all become good little drones and use public transport in his green/socialist (interchangable) people's paradise. Except him of course, who'll continue to use the polluting black cab network on the public purse.

Oh, the possibilities!

Isolate areas of roadway by downloading 0kph rings of roads? No speeding tickets since the gov set the speed limit? (my goodness, the revenue loss!)

Multitiered speed limits, the fatter your wallet, the faster you are allowed to go? (isn't this the way it is now?)

Would the speed limits on non-roads be 0kph, or infinite kph?

If the sat signal (GPS, Galileo (if the Euros ever get off the ground), or Glonass (if the Russkies finish getting off the ground)) was cracked, there would be ... fascinating ... effects.

I dunno, I liked the German system for trucks (is that working yet after it flopped the first time 'round?) where GPS was used for location and from that, for toll/road tax collection (extra fees for speeding)-- which would be especially good for electric and LNG/CNG cars, the buggers don't pay road tax in their "fuel" but jolly well use the roads anyway.

Surprised? Hardly...

The whole road-charging scheme was based on the idea that the Eu would have its own nifty GPS with encrypted - chargable - signals that could be tied in to the charging system. Since Gallileo is about a year away from going completely titsup is it any surprise Brown has decided to cancel this particular invasion of lour civil liberties?

@Alan

"Since you appear to know so much about it, you would know that HGV speed limiters only restrict a vehicles top speed and as such"

Do you know how limiters work? When you hit the pre-defined speed limit they drop your revs to nill until you've slowed down again. Driving instructors will shout and scream at any learner who drops the clutch and takes their foot off the accelerator for any period longer than that necessary to change gears.

I'm sure you've seen a HGV passing another, racing along for miles while barely managing to pass. Because of those limiters you seem to love so much can't accelerate up past 60, and trucks often lose power right when they're about to pull back in front of the vehicle they just passed. Frankly, if you can't see how bloody dangerous this, is then you shouldn't be driving.

Don't believe a word of it...

The Government has said the decision will be made by the local authorities... As local authorities are constantly strapped for cash thanks to central government cutbacks, they'll do anything to rake in some more cash.

So they'll happily introduce road pricing, and central gov will happily sit at a safe distance and claim it was nothing to do with them.

@Alan

Yes, trucks only ever crash because car drivers are all useless. Truck drivers are all salt of the Earth, highly trained and fully alert at all times.

If cars are so bad, I guess I'll just buy a truck to drive from my place to everywhere else, seeing as there's no public transport. I'll just divert to Poland on every trip to pick up a load of potatoes first.

Active speed management

I did some software development work on a project called Road Traffic Advisor once. This was rolled out in experimental form on some UK motorways, and allowed an onboard computer and display to receive local information updates from beacons suspended over the carriageway.

One of the features that was tried on one of the test platform cars was speed sensitive throttle control. Such that as you attempted to exceed the speed limit, the resistance felt as the driver attempted to push the pedal further would increase. So you could still exceed the limit, but you were made aware that nanny knew what was happening.

Every single person who tried the car with this feature active universally loathed it!

@Alan

"I don't think you realise how many artics it takes to keep just one supermarket going for a week"

Yeah, wouldn't need many if we got rid of 75% of cars. as i could only buy 2 bags of shopping cause i would have to carry them on to the bus. plus it would currently take me 3 buses and about an hour to get to said supermarket in the first place.

Or i could drive......

I use the train when i can but public transport is useless in my area so i need to drive to the train station. My thoughts normally go to de-privatising buses and trains but with our current government im not so sure that's a good idea...

However if sombody starts a petition on removing show off 4x4's (not defenders, but hulking big BMW's with low profile tyres, which are really good when you hit mud honest :-E and that just to ship little Johnny to school cause its all of 2 mins down the road, yes i walked to school and my legs havnt fallen off YET!).....continues have a mutley moment

@ Alan

"Bloody status symbols and toys, that's all they are."

Woe betide us if we actually want to have any fun with our "toys". So we'll ban these "toys", televisions, aeroplanes and anything that consumes electricity (including that thing you typed your ever-so-essential post on. Thanks to this we'd never be able to go anywhere remote or unspoiled or unique to enjoy this planet we've "saved", and we'd be forced to sit shivering in a darkened room, huddled around a little heater powered by a mini-urban-wind-turbine and never seeing anyone or anything that was beyond cycling distance.

Frankly, I'd rather drown - though I suspect it would be in a sea of blindfolded pseudo-environmentalism well before the polar ice caps melted because of my toys.

Lorry drivers

Anyone who wants to know about these should stand on the hill overlooking the A20 coming out of Dover.

'nuff said?

Jokers

Last weekend I went to London from my home town in West Yorkshire.

It was cheaper (and more convenient) for me to drive my 3 litre petrol car all the way to London (doing 27 MPG), pay congestion charges and park on Hyde Park square, than it was to buy a train ticket.

Until this situation changes, any amount of road pricing schemes, congestion charges, road tax, or other ridiculous schemes will be utterly futile.

London Speeds

I thought the whole of inner London was a giant speed limiting device already, seeing as how the average speed is 8-9mph anyway...

Has the average risen in the now supposedly-less-congested congestion charging zone?

Speed limiters? You mean automatic fining machines!

Has nobody considered the inevitable behaviour of these "speed limiters"? They won't warn you, or slow you down. What they'll do is record each mile you speed and clock up the fines accordingly. Next time you pass a government WAP, it uploads its fine data and your bank account is automatically debited the amount of the fine. And if that puts you into the red, tough. You can pay the overdraw fees as well!

That's where this is going.

HGV wossname

A few weeks ago, a Nice Man with a Mighty M.A.N gave me lift from Newhaven to the Brook Street roundabout. I noted with interest how well his speed limiter worked as we powered along the A27 at 70 mph. "It sometimes takes a while for the computer to wake up" he said.

Another factoid is that while the polis will turn a blind eye to lorries doing 56 mph rather than 50 on dual carriageways, the major supermarkets won't, and /insist/ that their drivers stick to the speed limits at all times. Which is why you can spend ten minutes pottering across the scenic delights of Lincolnshire while a stream of heavies eases past Mr Tesco.

What I /really/ wanted to say, though, was this: "It has been back-burnered," according to a Telegraph "senior government source".

"Back-burnered"? Who in the name of spackling hildebrands employs these people? Shoot them, and burn the bodies.

easy solution to congestion

Create small, dedicated lanes on the motorways for motorcycles and give them a 120mph speed limit. A significantly faster commute has got to be a big draw.

This would reduce the congestion in the cities too, as commuters would arrive on bikes.

Good for the environment as the engines are smaller and don't have to move heavy vehicles. It also allows those with a mid-life crisis to justify that Harley :)

OK so it isn't a great solution for the British winter, but if people had an incentive to get a bike, they might use it once they had it, instead of the car.

Fuel Duty - already collected...

Neil Sunerton hit the nail on the head in #1

Why is there a need to know where the car is to charge? If I want to reduce pollution, I buy a more economical one and use it when I know it's likely to be less congested. Net result I use less fuel, cause less pollution and therefore pay less duty. As fuel duty is already collected then there's a zero net increase in collection costs, I don't need to get anything fitted to my vehicle both I and the Government "win"

This isn't democracy!!!!!!!

This is slimeball Brown trying to win favour with the electorate. We didn't vote for this piece of facist legislation, so why in earth is it democracy?

Should these thieving socialists win another term, it will be back on the socialist idiots agenda faster than John Prescott could swallow a KFC bargain bucket by himself.

NuLabour should carry a health warning!