£1 per mile on motorways

£70 an hour

The chance of a drive home off peak costing £500 is ZERO that woul dbe if you drove 500 miles peak rate only on the busiest roads in britian and thats like edinbrugh to London which could never all be done peak time anyway...

i don't jsut live in newcastle timmy!!!its like a 200 mile trip making it 400 miles there and back on the M1 , M62, M56....quiet motorways....not!

can we try and be happy today, it's getting me down

Dont drive in peak hours and you will ACCUALY save money with no raod tax and no fuel tax its only people driving in PEAK times that will be hit

hahaha this will never happen, id like to see them try

it can and it will, the idea is hardly new either, its a system thats been developed by the government, transport institutes, universities, environmentalists and private companies for many years and is the most logical and civil way of sharing out the external costs that car use imposes.

as for your statment dodgy, i thought you would be well on the back of this one, bearing in mind that the brunt of congestion is levvied on the working classes in the inner cities and other socially disadvantaged areas, of course this is caused by those with no current obligation to compensate, a prime example of social exclusion? the way we pay our road + fuel duties at the minute is disintegrated and unsustainable, a national road pricing scheme, IF ring fenced is nothing but common sense - you pay for what you use, simple.

aside from this, a step to reduce congestion surely can only be welcomed bearing in mind that rta's are the second highest cause of death in the UK, pollution through vehicles emissions is the number one source of air pollution accounting for 91% of total readings, not to mention the billions worth of harm to the economy as as a result of gridlock each year.

the significance of the scheme is not that its a change in how we pay our road duties, but a solution to reduce the amount of cars on the road, and increase accountability of road users to the costs they impose on others.

Which statement?

The 1st statement I made was in the relation to the fact that no matter what happens, people will bend over and fucking take it, mainly the reason why this country is going to pot.

My 2nd statement was in relation to Harry's comment on the 50% tax on £100,000 earners by Labour - coming from the lib dems, I'd believe their motivation, coming from Labour it's pretty fucking blatant where that cash will be going.

I haven't stated my position on this road tax, so I will now:

I don't care, because I don't drive.


And if I did drive, I'd be driving out of this shitty nation.

power to the peeps an' all that

Bollox, do you honestly think this will save you money on what you pay now! Yes it will be cheaper to drive off peak then on peak, but driving off peak will still end up costing more then you pay now! The government is never going to reduce its income from the average motorist!

Nobout if you’re getting tracked with a gps transmitter, you will end up getting done for speeding every time you creep over the speed limit as well, making them more money

yes it will the whole point it to try and get people driving off peak so offering them a cheaper way of travelling, Peopel think they have just thought this up out of thin air it has been in planning for over 4 years now, if you think we can carry on at current rates of traffic you need to open your eyes

Excellent Post, some really well made points in there instead of the usual, I dont like it cos i have no idea what it is, and i hate change comments

Yes I agree that they will probably be charged less than the private user, but it doesn't stop them putting the charge up to us and blaming the new taxing system. I may be sceptical about it, but when the VAT went up from 15% to 17.5%, prices of goods didn't go up 2.5%, they went up 2.5% then rounded UP to the nearest £xx.99. CD prices escalated loads at the time.

Also, transportation companies are generally on industrial estates and/or situated near motorways/dual carriageways. For workers travelling to these places, public transport isn't very good at present (can't comment about Tyne & Wear as I don't know it too well, but W Yorks is like it). They really do need a better alternative to car use, before they bring in any scheme like this

Lets put it this way, what would you do to prevent the garunteed grdlock in the next 20/30 years ??? Could you come up with a better plan than the top transport minds have obver the last 4 years they have been planning this? Caould ANY plan have zero drawbacks??? I think not

i think it's a very well thought out plan. although if it happened tomorrow i'd be shagged and couldn't afford to do what i do at present, it's only fair really. some peope hardly use their cars and get charged the same as people like me who are constantly on the move. aslong as the duty on petrol is taken off, which im sure it will be, it's a good idea. off what i've read/seen/heard so far, the only bad thing about the proposed system is the range in cost from quiet rural roads to motorways. yes the whole idea is to prevent total gridlock/environmental effects etc. but ranging from 2p per mile to £1.34 seems a bit extreme imo. working off these figures, and roughly guessing that the A1 and A1(M) would be say £1 per mile (could be more could be less) i'd be spending, at present, approximately £200 a week, just to get to work and back monday to friday... considering i only get paid £200 a week i'd be up shit creek

overall, i don't think there's an ideal solution cos no matter what they do it won't suit everyone. this seems the fairest way to go about it, and that's coming from someone who it would probably affect alot more than most

I agree something needs to be done, but I'm not sure this is the way forward.

I'm also concerned about civil liberties. Wherever you go in your car, 'Big Brother' will know about it. You may as well be carrying a microchip inside you! In fact thats good enough reason for me to use the bus (That incidentally is an hourly service to Leeds from our village and takes 3 times as long as it does in a car)

Yuo can say the same abour mobile phones you can be tracked using them

True, but I spend considerably more time in my car than on my phone. Plus I can leave that at home if I wish.

you phone only needs to be switched on and they know where you are, you dont have to be on a call, they can triangulate youe signal using 3 masts to withing 5 meters, and if you have nothing to hide why do you care if people know where your driving?

This could also be used to track stolen cars? or used in a court of law to incriminate criminals..

Whether I'm doing something wrong or not, why should I be followed? I take your point about mobiles though.

On another point, how will they advertise what roads cost how much? Obviously it will vary by time of day/week/year. I appreciate the planning is in its early stages, but I wouldn't want to be driving somewhere I'm unfamiliar with and get stung without knowing it.

I understand its at least 10 years away before it can come in so I guess a lot of questions will be answered in due course.

There will be a display inside your car which lets you know costs of each road