Act Now - car tax per mile -10 Downing Street online petition

[Trevor Edwards]

Sarah Kennedy was on about this proposed car tax scheme on the radio.
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 anybody about it.
Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it so far and 750,000 signatures are required to stop them introducing it.

This is legit... from the 10 Downing Street 's website.

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.

Democracy in action?

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 will 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 car driver, 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/

[Bazza]

psst, theres been 2 other threads. There are now over 650000.

[SwedishTom]

Hmm Trev, this has already been posted here and here..

Cheers
Tom

Edit: You beat me again Bazza!

[Trevor Edwards]

oh dear will have to pay more attention

im always the last to know

[Bazza]

Originally Posted by SwedishTom

Edit: You beat me again Bazza!

I'm off tomorrow and I've nothing better to do than watch the new posts

[harvez]

thats one hell of an exciting life u must have bazza how do u keep going

[Bazza]

It beats Chemistry any day!

[the_icks]

what a good idea for a thread

[helpmeout]

I for one will certinally not be signing this. I have seen this coming for a few years now and it makes perfect sence.

If you use use more road services then of course you should pay more - its that simple! Can someone please explain the argument against? thanks

[harvez]

can we keep politics off the forum?
it all just gets messy as everyone and nobody is right.

[the_icks]

Originally Posted by helpmeout

I for one will certinally not be signing this. I have seen this coming for a few years now and it makes perfect sence.

If you use use more road services then of course you should pay more - its that simple! Can someone please explain the argument against? thanks

should the emergency services be taxed per mile?

what about the elderly and disabled.. should they be taxed more as they often have no option but to use their vehicles for the shortest of journeys?

I am all for an argument.... and although I am not always right I am never wrong!

[GafferTape]

If the whole Pay As You Go driving thing does take off, what is going to happen to the current road tax?

The details provided in the original post are very vague. Will it be taxed per mile, or only implemented on some of the busier motorways, for example?

I have no problem with the toll-roads as implemented in Europe, being placed on motorways and main routes, but a tax per mile would be something I wouldn't support (not that this petition is going to achieve anything anyway).

[GafferTape]

Originally Posted by Trevor Edwards

The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody about it.
Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it so far and 750,000 signatures are required to stop them introducing it.

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By the way, that paragraph is completely made up. Anyone can put up a petition on the website, they're going through Beta testing at the moment - I'm not even sure if anyone checks those things. The other day, I saw a petition on there petitioning for the stop of petitions on the site.

The 750,000 signature requirement is an absolute lie as well. How exactly is that workable? The government has a mandate after being elected into power. If the road pricing bills goes through parliament and the House of Lords, the petition isn't worth the bandwidth it's taking up.

Seems like a chain/forwarding letter has been taken for fact.

[chopaholic]

Blair has already said in the newspaper today its not happening. And it doesnt matter about the petition.

[Lexus11180]

Originally Posted by chopaholic

Blair has already said in the newspaper today its not happening. And it doesnt matter about the petition.

Sounds good.

[GafferTape]

Originally Posted by chopaholic

Blair has already said in the newspaper today its not happening. And it doesnt matter about the petition.

ITV are still saying that the Government are going to be ignoring this joke of a petition. Were those direct links from Blair?

[Bazza]

I meant to post here a day or 2 ago.

According to AOL news thingy, those who signed the petition should be expecting an email from Tony Blair himself.

[GafferTape]

Hope they're prepared for getting a million of 'failed to deliver' bounce backs. You should have seen some of the names on that petition, I saw Yoda and Mike Tyson sign it.

[[H3X]]

Originally Posted by Bazza

According to AOL news thingy, those who signed the petition should be expecting an email from Tony Blair himself.

Just check my email. I got it.

Put it in a spoiler tag, as its HUGE. (remove it if not allowed)

Spoiler

Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website.

This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.

It made clear that congestion is a major problem to which there is no easy answer. One aspect of the study was highlighting how road pricing could provide a solution to these problems and that advances in technology put these plans within our reach. Of course it would be ten years or more before any national scheme was technologically, never mind politically, feasible.

That is the backdrop to this issue. As my response makes clear, this is not about imposing "stealth taxes" or introducing "Big Brother" surveillance. This is a complex subject, which cannot be resolved without a thorough investigation of all the options, combined with a full and frank debate about the choices we face at a local and national level. That's why I hope this detailed response will address your concerns and set out how we intend to take this issue forward. I see this email as the beginning, not the end of the debate, and the links below provide an opportunity for you to take it further.

But let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so. We are, for now, working with some local authorities that are interested in establishing local schemes to help address local congestion problems. Pricing is not being forced on any area, but any schemes would teach us more about how road pricing would work and inform decisions on a national scheme. And funds raised from these local schemes will be used to improve transport in those areas.

One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.

Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015. This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue.

Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains - helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers now help to keep motorway traffic moving.

But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.

One option would be to allow cong