BS: car taxation - UK

Subject: BS: car taxation - UK
From: GUEST,learchild
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 02:39 PM

hello folks
a folk friend circulated this message - we need to spread the word and ask as many people as possible to sign up

Radio 2 programme about the proposed Road Pricing car tax scheme. Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection
to the 'Pay as you go' road tax.The petition is on the 10 Downing St
website but they didn't tell any body about it. Therefore at the time of the comments only 250,000 people have signed it so far and 750,000 signaturesare required to stop them introducing it.Once you've given your details you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcodewill do, they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition. The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you Having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month. On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody wil know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill. If you care about our freedom and stopping the constant bashing of the cardriver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible.

>>http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:01 PM

Is this the same as the BS:travel tax petition or have I signed the wrong thing or do I need to sign something else?

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:28 PM

It's teh same one

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 09 Feb 07 - 03:34 PM

It's the same one - nearly every online forum is getting the same cut'n'paste text with a link at the bottom.
It's hysterical spam.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 04:44 AM

Headline in the papers today.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 05:34 AM

On the other hand if it helps to cut the number of cars on the road and help some way to save the earth global warming etc, then should you be signing the petition.

If it won't have an effect on the number of cars on the road, then might as well sign it and wait for the next way they will try and claw that money back.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 05:44 AM

It probably won't help to cut the number of cars on the road and you're right they will just think of something else. I have a tiny car and only pay £40 p.a. road tax so this new one would cost me a lot more.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:07 AM

Paying for the use of, strikes me as a very fair way of distributing the tax fairly. Might even encourage car sharing.

A bit like water metres - you pays for what you get.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:15 AM

The trouble is that for my job I can't share with anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Anne Lister
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 06:23 AM

Here I (a) can't share with anyone, because my journeys take me to different destinations all the time and (b) don't have the option of public transport - there isn't any to speak of. I think they should slap a heavy tax on city and town car users where there IS a choice and provide better choices for those who don't have any at the moment. Oh, and persuade people to use their feet where that's the best option, especially in terms of getting children to school!

Anne

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:10 AM

If you genuinely can't share, you can't. No problem there. However the tax is on usage so you would just have to soak it up like anybody else#, assuming the tax comes in.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:23 AM

I don't want to soak it up that's why I've signed. I'm too busy soaking up all the other taxes; I can't cope with another one. This ones going to be more expensive than having a water meter.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 07:45 AM

I can't afford it either

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Captain Ginger
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 09:23 AM

Stop panicking - it's what the prats behind the petition want you to do. There's food for thought in The Times here.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 09:29 AM

From today's Guardian:

...One always suspected that there was more to fuel protest leader Andrew Spence than his selfless hatred of expensive petrol, so it comes as no surprise that the 39-year old Co Durham farmer has waded into party politics: he aims to stand in local elections as the BNP candidate. It is "the only party I have found," he says, "which has a commonsense approach to tackling issues which I believe matter to most people". The BNP's transport policy (fuel tax cut, speed cameras abolished, speed limits raised) is perhaps less well known than other sections of their manifesto...

Now some people of course might see that as a reason to think better of the BNP.   But I think rather more would see it as a reason to be a bit wary of the "pro-motorist" lobby. Even the end of it that doesn't go in for letter-bombs.
..................................

I'd hope to see sensible exemptions or modifications to meet the kind of worries people have come up with about the suggested Road Pricing scheme, and I think those are the kind of things that ought to be raised in the consultation pricess. The basic idea seems a good one to me.

...750,000 signatures are required to stop them introducing it. I don't know where that suggestion comes from. Someone's imagination, I'd suggest.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 10:16 AM

Go back and check what was being said when the government first floated the idea of road pricing. Read the original speeches. It was as the petition says.

Do not be so gullible as to swallow the current government spin. You have been fooled again. They want to introduce something offensive (eg make the right to use the highway the prerogative of the rich) so they float a "big lie" or "fantastic asking price". Then when they come down to their original offensive proposition it looks relatively inoffensive by comparison.

They floated "road pricing" - now they are down to adding additional congestion charging zones.

Politics, the art of deceit.

If we can't travel (eg because we can't afford it) we are divided. What's that about "Divide and rule"?

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Rasener
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 12:09 PM

More than a million have signed the petition

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Feb 07 - 12:48 PM

Guru's Festival thread on this topic

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: My guru always said
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 10:22 AM

Good point GUEST! Guess some of those don't drive though......

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: danensis
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:10 AM

If you just look at the ortroduction on the Downing Street Web site you'll realise that its just an area for people to let off steam and unlikely to change anything.

If we had mob rule in this country we'd be a lot worse off than we are now, and there are plenty of countries around to show us what that's like.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 11:33 AM

Could mob rule (in either sense) possibly be worse than what we have?

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 11 Feb 07 - 04:04 PM

If the tax were abolished and the government raised the fuel duty to compensate, the most tax would automatically be paid by those with the biggest cars, those doing the greatest mileage, and those on the most congested roads. (If you look in your vehicle handbook it will probably tell you that if you're in second gear your mileage per gallon will be about half what it would be in fourth gear. In first it will be more like one third.) If your gearbox is automatic the same applies; if you go too slowly you waste fuel automatically.
If the powers that be really wanted to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, they wouldn't keep putting mini-roundabouts where they're not needed, reducing the number of lanes, closing roads so that traffic is concentrated and congestion is created, and introducing unnecessary one-way systems to make motorists drive round two sides of a triangle or three sides of a rectangle for no good reason. They wouldn't put 24-hour traffic lights on roundabouts. You'd be able to drive over speed humps at 25 m.p.h. in a 30 limit without damaging your vehicle and not have to waste energy braking to walking pace and crawling about in first gear. You wouldn't fail your driving test for coasting.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 07:06 AM

Well. That's stirred up the debate nicely. Well done the petitioners.

I don't disagree with road pricing. I DO disagree with sneaking stuff like this in & hoping nobody notices.
PS - My vote goes to a road pricing scheme that works without compromising the few shreds of privacy we have left.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 08:31 AM

Very interesting points, HuwM.

I wonder if anyone has pointed any of them out to the inventors and supporters of this tax? Some of those causing most polution, such as the ones who sit in trafic jams for an hour while driving the 5 miles to work, will pay less tax than the commuter who spends 30 minutes driving 30 miles to work along fast roads or motorways. Likewise the Chelsea Tractor driver doing an annual 5000 miles on the school run will pay much less than the rural district nurse doing 20000 miles in her Mini?

Makes you wonder if they come out with these ideas so that whatever they end up implementing will seem sensible by comparison!

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: danensis
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 05:15 PM

This must beat the Craig Shergold story for one of the best chain letters ever. Over a million people have fallen for it already.

John

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Feb 07 - 09:53 PM

However, apart from the allegation that Bliar will listen to 750,000 members of his electorate, this scare story is all true. In stead of parroting the line the press have swallowed from the government, why don't you go back and check what was originally proposed?

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 04:50 AM

Exactly right. Nobody knows what Blair will listen to now, other than his ego. Possibilities include:

His own party

The electorate

Bush

God

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: Scrump
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 06:33 AM

My vote goes to a road pricing scheme that works without compromising the few shreds of privacy we have left.

Agreed. Putting up the price of petrol is the obvious, simple and cheap way (in terms of implementation) would achieve the government's stated aim (to reduce car usage). Those who use their cars more, pay more.

Tell me - what on earth is wrong with that, as a solution to the problem of people using their cars too much? It would satisfy the green lobby (or if not, why not?), and we'd all have to get used to paying more for our travel. We'd grumble, like we always do, but we'd cough up. And Mr Brown would get all that extra money to squander how he chooses.

If they were to adopt this obvious solution, many of us would trade down to smaller, more efficient cars. A mileage charge wouldn't have that effect at all. If you travel 200 miles, and will be charged the same whether you're in a tiny car or a big comfortable one, there's no incentive to trade down - you might as well travel in comfort.

But this wouldn't achieve the government's unstated aim - to be able to monitor us wherever we are.

Instead of this solution, which would cost them nothing to implement, they'd rather spend a lot of taxpayers' money on an expensive, unwieldy and risky one. My only ray of hope is that they will most likely mess it up completely like every other big project they undertake.

Subject: RE: BS: car taxation - UK
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 13 Feb 07 - 07:46 AM

If the government did not allow drivers to offset the cost of driving their car while on business against tax, and did not refund VAT paid on fuel except to those who's job is transporting goods. If they also insisted that manufacturers of cars sell them to all consumers at the same price, and not the cheap rates they give fleet buyers. Then a lot less cars would be sold in the UK, as at present the taxpayer is subsidising the costs of running cars for business. While car rental companies are selling their ex-hire cars into the second hand market for more than they paid the manufacturers for the new vehicle.
The government's Jekyll and Hyde attitude towards motorists needs sorting out, but because the PRIVATE motorist is such a 'cash cow' to the exchequer, the chances of this happening are zero!
Giok