New MOT rules

[PlaneMan]

I’m unlikely to visit to London again. The thing is many cities will have, sooner or later, congestion charges of one form or another. Cardiff is likely to do it within about 5 years IMO. It’s been tried already.

IMO it’s a good thing, some days there is a thin layer of dust on my car, pollution probably, and I’m on the edge of Cardiff, almost in the Vale of Glamorgan.

 

[Richard]

I am not sure of the origin of our ‘out of town’ dust but it appears to be least least partially based on soil. Sometimes said to come from the Sahara.

[PlaneMan]

I also get that dust layer occasionally. Different stuff to the usual.

[The Duke]

Mine is fill of fine sand evey morning.

I sort of do mind about congestion charges, as it’s just a tax on that hurts the poor.

Same with the need added pollution charge. You already pay a fee on your car tax. The idea of the ULPC (or whatever it’s called) was to get old cars, mainly the older diesels off the road (the same one gordon brown told Peep to buy). Which I’m fine with as facts shift, and it seems they wasn’t as clean ads first thought. But when brand new, evey day normal cars are being dragged into it, it’s not right. Even if they do fail the grade, the gov should have some type of cutoff leeway / exemption date.  Say 7 years old (7 years is the average lengh of ownership). So that when the people that fell into the trap, can make proper informed decisions on their next purchase.

If your a normal person that lives in (or has to pass through) the catchment area and you bought or lease an new car in say 2015, you will be at minimum locked into a 3 to 5 year contact maybe more. Would they of accounted for an extra £13 a day, on top of thier travel costs? I bet not. Also the second hand value of that car has just plummeted in your area, so simply offloading it isn’t going to be easy.

Close to me there is a new bridge, (Widnes Runcorn) it’s great BTW, but all the locals that need to cross it each day are fuming cos of the £4 a day crossing fee, so I can’t imagine how a £13 a day fee is going down with the locals. Of course the guys that joy ride around London in the v12 lambos all day, the £7+£13 per day fee won’t bother them. (or their dad).

So if the gov wants cleaner city centres, you need to look a what Spain is doing in barca, making car free areas. I’d be happy with car free cities. It’s not like London hasn’t got a great public transport set up. Imagine if only busses and service traffic was in London, losts of green spaces, public spaces clean air, and all that land that would be feed up.

It can’t happen, but the barca situation could and should. Basically lots of car free blocks, with one way only roads conecting them. Makes its a great place to be. Also works well as a test case for Europe as barca is very old and organicly grown like many EU cities Inc london.

This would be far easier in newer US style cities  as they are mostly built in logical blocks around a gridded road system. I think Milton keens is like this (they used MK for Gothem in one of the BM films, or so I’m lead to believe) .

Gone off on one here, but I don’t think I do support charges to fix issues. I think it a lazy fix by rich people, as it won’t effect them. Or rather a tax on the poorer (average) person.

Set the congestion charge on how wide/long the care is, on a sliding scale, and set a pollution cost how expensive a car is. As a £13per day fee, is a lot for the average  Ford focus/astra owner, but nothing the 911 or lambo owner. But even that system isn’t really fair either, and full of holes. It’s just as lazy and doesn’t cure the issue.

I don’t even live near the sodding place, it shouldn’t annoy me lol.

[Richard]

I understand all the hype about congestion and pollution, I fume about the lack of real, effective solutions. Many years ago I could drive into Head Office from my then home in about 45 minutes. Putrid transport used to take about and hour and half. Now I no longer live or work in the locations in question. What has changed, is the huge number of people crammed into the mess called London.  So the easy answer is to thin out the overpopulation by exporting the surplus to the neglected areas, further north, where space, housing and other benefits also exist.

Sadly the issue with putrid transport is that it travels from where I do not live, to where I do not want to go and does so with the maximum slowness and discomfort. I understand your point about the regressive effect of the various taxes such as the congestion tax, the environmental tax, etc. For those working hours when alternative transport is not available what options exist? Answer, less than none.

The sole objective is restriction and limitation, which is why the transport usage taxes are miss sold as ‘charges’ to hide the real objective. I used to hate the posters about penalty fares plastered over stations. I felt every fare was a penalty fare so whenever I could I would walk. It was often no slower and even on wet days was always more comfortable than the clanking, slow, smelly, ‘bug exchange’ tube with its frequent delays between stations.

[Richard]

As a follow up I see that the polluting wood burners are now in the cross hairs, they were another self inflected environmental wound.

[Bob Williams]

Wood burners can be fitted quite easily and cheaply with “clean burn” technology Richard. That’s what one of my mates down the road did. It is also better if you choose the right timber, can’t remember what he said about that.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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