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21st February 2007, 05:28 PM
Posted by Gizmo: Quote:quote:Also my job description says that I need my own car and so do many adverts on BAJR so how do all these people walking and biking to work get on when a last minute evaluation or watching brief comes up?
My job description says the same thing - but it doesn't say I have to use it to commute to work every day. If your employer tells you how to travel to work, then you would probably be within your legal rights to say that the travel time is part of your working day, or to reclaim travel costs from them.
For most business use, hiring a car is actually cheaper than paying mileage claims anyway.
1man1desk
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21st February 2007, 08:42 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Gizmo
Also my job description says that I need my own car and so do many adverts on BAJR so how do all these people walking and biking to work get on when a last minute evaluation or watching brief comes up? Now I can manage a shovel, kit bag and cameras but I could not cope with a level on the back of a bike!!!!!
If your job description specifically states that you must have your own car then they are in breach of DDA. It should state that you must have access to a means to travel to sites or wherever.
That aside, we already have road pricing. It is called fuel tax. We pay for every journey we make according to the duration of the journey and the fuel efficiency of our cars so people in Chelsea tractors pay more than those in Smart Cars. If they are going to charge us for travelling then they must remove fuel tax completely and implement a system that charges according to the time of day you travel at and which roads you travel on instead, not as well as. Fuel tax seems to get forgotten in the midst of the rest of the debate. Anyway, I signed the anti- petition and received my response from the PM today. Bloody weasel words! 
I also object to any system that is solely there for the purposes of spying on me. At least when I use a cash point I get something for it. The proposed tracking system is solely for the purposes of spying on you and could easily be misused by the authorities at any time, and probably will just because it can.
Finally, instead of road charging or other punishments, why not introduce flexible working so that people are travelling to work at different times; allow the lorries to deliver to supermarkets during the night so that they are not blocking the main roads at rush hour; find a way for your staff to work from home one or two days a week so that they are not actually having to travel at all, instead of saying they can't because you might get lonely in the office. There are other ways to deal with the problem and picking on motorists is just using the same old whipping boy all over again.
If it really is about congestion then charging people to travel is unlikely to work because people often have to travel and they will just adjust to the new cost of motoring. Of course, if you can get them onto the public transport then great because that will reduce the total number of vehicles on the road, but the public transport needs to be improved just the same and it needs to be made cost-effective to use it, preferably not by raising the cost of using your car.
Cheers,
Eggbasket
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22nd February 2007, 10:13 AM
Just as an aside, ireland have introduced extra road taxes in the form of tolling on a number of motorways and quite frankly for the reduced journey time and convinence I'm more than happy to pay for every journey I've made to avoid Drogheda and the centre of Dublin in the rush hour, especially as I earned my crust digging Neolithic houses and timber circles on the M1 for a couple of years. For a car its under 2 Euros for a lorry I think its around 5 Euros. But many haulauge companies wont pay the toll on the M1 and still divert through Drogheda and the village of Julianstown to avoid the toll even though it cost significantly more in the diesel they use to do this. Is this sheer bloody mindness or is something else affecting the choice to pollute more and pay out more for fuel? Just confounds me!
We have to have road charging and the alternative transport infrastructure needs massive investment. We've got to a point were its unsustainable to jump in a car. Mind you I didnt like standing in the rain waiting for the bus this morning, delayed due to traffic conjestion!
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22nd February 2007, 01:47 PM
Posted by Eggbasket: Quote:quote:That aside, we already have road pricing. It is called fuel tax. We pay for every journey we make according to the duration of the journey and the fuel efficiency of our cars so people in Chelsea tractors pay more than those in Smart Cars. If they are going to charge us for travelling then they must remove fuel tax completely and implement a system that charges according to the time of day you travel at and which roads you travel on instead, not as well as
Aha, Eggman, nice to hear from you again, hope it's all going well where you are now.
You won't be surprised to hear that I disagree with you on the quote above. Road pricing effectively penalises us for how much you use the roads, and can be targeted at particularly congested areas. Fuel tax penalises those who choose big gas guzzlers as distinct from those who choose more efficient cars. Both things should in principle affect overall fuel consumption and therefore air pollution, but only the road pricing will directly address congestion. The two things therefore complement each other.
1man1desk
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22nd February 2007, 08:24 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by 1man1desk
You won't be surprised to hear that I disagree with you on the quote above. Road pricing effectively penalises us for how much you use the roads, and can be targeted at particularly congested areas. Fuel tax penalises those who choose big gas guzzlers as distinct from those who choose more efficient cars. Both things should in principle affect overall fuel consumption and therefore air pollution, but only the road pricing will directly address congestion. The two things therefore complement each other.
Actually, the government's favoured method of road pricing is based on mileage. You pay per mile travelled. With fuel tax you also pay per mile travelled. Ergo the two are functionally the same. The only difference is that road pricing permits the authorities to vary the tax according to which road you use and theoretically when you use it.
Road pricing could be targeted at congested areas. However, the government is considering introducing it as a national thing. Therefore it will also affect roads that are not congested albeit on a lower price band. I might agree with it if it were focussed on cities only and did not involve fitting tracking devices to cars, but as it stands I must vehemently oppose it and its proponents.
Another thought that occurs is; how much will road pricing increase the cost of our food and shop-bought goods? You don't think that the retailers will absorb the costs themselves, do you? If lorries get charged per mile travelled to deliver stuff, we are going to have to pick up the tab. If they are subsidised we are still picking up the tab. If they get cheaper rates then the road pricing is really not being aimed at reducing congestion at all, since it is the lorries that are blamed for much of the congestion on the main roads.
One other alternative idea that I do like is banning caravans. They slow everybody down and are an infernal irritation. That would reduce some of the congestion.
Cheers,
Eggbasket
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22nd February 2007, 11:57 PM
Quote:quote:Another thought that occurs is; how much will road pricing increase the cost of our food and shop-bought goods?
Ooh, unexpected benefit - might encourage supermarkets to source more produce locally.
Quote:quote:One other alternative idea that I do like is banning caravans. They slow everybody down and are an infernal irritation. That would reduce some of the congestion.
Do caravans cause congestion? Or are they just annoying? Isn't congestion just a factor of high traffic levels? Why not ban JCBs and tractors too? } 
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23rd February 2007, 12:51 AM
Quote:quote:Road pricing could be targeted at congested areas. However, the government is considering introducing it as a national thing. Therefore it will also affect roads that are not congested albeit on a lower price band.
Just to point something out (and be a bit of a t**t), if they are varying the cost based on different road types and congestion levels, then won't people drive other routes to get from a to b, so causing congestion on those roads, but at a lesser cost to themselves and at the same time probably increasing pollution levels because they are driving further (although dependent on other factors such as speed etc as well, but still....).
People will generally absorb greater cost to themselves if it means they don't have to put any more effort in.....with exceptions, of course. Hence why we have had steadilly increasing levels of fuel tax but no actual decrease in road users - just more people who complain about it. Am I a cynic? hmmmm....
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23rd February 2007, 01:45 PM
Posted by Eggbasket: Quote:quote:Road pricing could be targeted at congested areas. However, the government is considering introducing it as a national thing. Therefore it will also affect roads that are not congested albeit on a lower price band.
It's true that they are considering that - but they are also considering other options, including targeted schemes, and as far as I understand it they have not got a preferred option yet. A lot of the opposition appears to be based on 'worst-case scenario' assumptions.
I support the general principle of road pricing, for reasons that I have explained in previous posts - but that does not mean that I would necessarily support any road pricing scheme, however designed.
1man1desk
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23rd February 2007, 02:08 PM
Posted by Dave Bonner: Quote:quote eople will generally absorb greater cost to themselves if it means they don't have to put any more effort in.....with exceptions, of course. Hence why we have had steadily increasing levels of fuel tax but no actual decrease in road users - just more people who complain about it.
There is some truth in that, especially if the increase is slow and incremental (as with road tax, although I think that has actually been frozen for a while, hasn't it?). However, a sudden change that makes a noticeable difference to the actual cost of your journey, and that the cost to the journey in a much more transparent way, has a better chance of changing people's behaviour.
1man1desk
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23rd February 2007, 02:28 PM
Road tax has been frozen for smaller engine sizes, but increased for larger engines as one means of trying to get people to buy smaller- engined cars. However small does not always means efficient.
The Government are still putting forward the idea of road pricing as one where there will be winners as well as losers, which suggests that part of the current taxation system will be amended (road tax, fuel duty etc) leading to a reduction in motoring costs that will then be offset by the charges incurred through road pricing.
Road pricing is aimed at reducing congestion rather than overall car usage, and therefore will not have a great effect on emissions, although there could be benefits in the pricing of goods if journey times are reduced. Essentially the argument is that there is sufficient capacity in the current road network if only usage could be more spread-out rather than concentrated into peak times.
Toll roads may ease the burden in some places but can have knock on effects. The M6 toll is great as a car user because the HGVs have been priced off it during the day and consequently carry on clogging up the main M6 through Birmingham. Incidentally this toll is reduced at night and therefore could be seen as 'road pricing', i.e. encouraging goods movement at off-peak times.
In southern Spain toll roads such as the Mediterranean Highway are similarly prohibitively priced for HGVs during the day, so tourists in their hire cars can speed along from the French border to Barcelona and onwards to Benidorm, whilst watching long lines of HGVs crawling along the parallel road network that crosses through the centre of every town and village.
Road pricing will only really make a difference in this country if we start to change our working practices so that there is no 'rush hour' - but perhaps it represents the catalyst that will cause this change to happen. One advantage for the Governmeent is that it would not be dependent on improvements in public transport.
Beamo
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