Road charging is the big issue

[Wizzo]

The petition against road pricing, set up by Shropshire ABD member Peter Roberts on the Prime Minister's Web site, passed the quarter-million signature mark recently and is now heading for 400,000.

Roberts' petition states: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy."

"This level of support for a petition against road pricing shows that the public are massively against the whole concept," said Nigel Humphries of the Association of British Drivers (ABD). "We believe it will quickly grow towards the 1 million mark as media coverage increases."

"I have always reacted strongly against the idea of paying per mile to use the roads," said Peter. "It is going to be unfair, and will limit our personal freedom and economic activity. It will be colossally expensive to implement and time consuming for drivers as they work out how to minimise the cost of their journeys - or even whether they can afford to travel at all.

"Road pricing has nothing to recommend it, especially when fuel duty already charges people according to how far they drive. This all seems blindingly obvious to me -- so starting the petition seemed the logical thing to do."

Unlike traditional motoring organisations, the ABD has always taken a resolute stance against road pricing in all its forms. This position has now been fully vindicated by the scale of support for this petition amongst computer literate people.

"The e:petition initiative gives the people a new way to make their point, and to know they are not alone. We welcome this new political era."

To sign up click here http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

[romephius]

Please explain for a poor dumb Aussie, but is this road charging idea designed to raise revenue to upgrade and maintain roads?? 


to me it sounds like a huge money making scheme for the government.

[Wizzo]

Here in the UK we pay a road tax of up to £210 per annum and this is based on the emissions the vehicle produces. This road tax was originally introduced to pay for the maintenance and building of roads.

We also pay tax on fuel at a ridiculous rate. If a litre of unleaded petrol costs 85p, 21.7p will be the production costs and profit, around 51p will be duty (tax) and 12.5p will be VAT (tax) on top of all that.

For our overseas friends here is the equivalent of the prices you would be paying.

Australia: $2.02 per litre
USA: $1.59 per litre

We also pay a congestion charge to enter some main cities such as London, this is £8 per day. Now the Governments latest idea is to charge on a 'pay per mile' basis on top of everything else! Please correct me guys if I have got any of the above incorrect.

It would be interesting to see how much everyone else pays around the world.