Your Comments

I signed it because, as others have said there are several points:

1 - Fuel Tax is easy to collect, and is already proportional to your vehicle and how far you drive
2 - This government doesn't exactly have a good record when it comes to major IT projects
3 - Outside London, Public Transport is a joke - unless you want to get to the centre of town.
4 - Most people now cannot afford to live near work, so have to travel.
5 - I don't sit in traffic jams for fun - Road Pricing is not going to make me drive less - but it will increase costs to business, and therefore the price of things, and push up inflation, generating more VAT revenue... What fun.

Had the money paid in by motorists been used for traffic purposes the situation would have been less serious. Billions of pounds paid to the treasury by the motorist/car owner over the years could have spent sensibly reducing the need for a car. Strasbourg has a marvellous car/tram system. York uses a park and ride and so do other towns. The only problem is when you have to do a lot of shopping.

I drive an Audi 2.8ltr V6 and I pay over the odds in road tax. I drive sensibly and watch the car's indication of fuel consumption - often over 45 mpg. I dismay when I'm overtaken by someone hammering a lttle Peugot hatchback or similar. They'll be using at least twice as much fuel as I do.

Why can't we have double decker roads or tunnels where there is serious congestion. I doubt whether public transport could cope if all motorised transport were abandonned.

My complaints about a road pricing system are:
1. I do not trust the Government to use the monies raised for the solution of transport problems. I fear that it would go straight into the Treasury pot and be used for anything but transport solutions.
2. The administration of such a scheme would make the charges very high, and per mile probably more than it costs to drive a medium sized car now.
3. Use public transport, I hear many cry. What public transport? I am sure that I am not the only one who rarely sees a bus go past my house. I use my car for short journeys to suitable places to walk my dogs, but the buses don't go there and probably wouldn't allow us on even if they did. The same applies for trains. The nearest main line station from where I live is 12 miles away, and when I see the prices they charge I would have to seek a bank loan to afford a trip to the capital.
4. And how would it work? Spies in the sky? We have not been told enough to make any judgement as to whether it would be advantageous, or keep traffic off the road.
5 And anyone who believes that road pricing will replace the road fund licence and fuel taxes does not live in the same country as I do.

I've not read through the 278 posts my issues with this may have already been raised, but if not:

How will these charges be applied to foreign cars? More and more immigrants are coming in taking our jobs and bringing their own cars, which are not registered in the UK...

How will lorries be charged when so much of our goods are brought in from abroad?

Why do government need to charge us for the privilege of going to work when they do not provide a viable alternative?

All we need is for common sense to prevail and companies allow flexi time. Goods to be delivered through the night when the roads are empty. School buses instead of the school rush. Invest in non polluting vehicles. Why doesn't the government invest in British industry to be leaders in non fossil fuel transport? Eco friendly does not necessarily mean public transport which belch out tons of smoke.

Charging private vehicles do not suddenly mean that your work hours can change or make the cars pollute any less.

I am not against eco friendly travel and less congestion, but why charge? Oh, to make more money!

Hi Everyone,

I am not a smoker but think about it with the smoking ban just around the corner the Gordon will need to raise his taxes from another source, so who is next? the car drivers!!!!!!!!!!! next we will have a ban on driving at certain times and a swipe card to inform the pub owners how many drinks you have had in the past 24 hrs, fat people will not get treated on the NHS..................big brother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes me wary is the word "probably" in as much,it will probably replace vehicle and fuel tax, I'm afraid I have come to distrust the politicians and don't belive them when they say this.

This is another greedy tax scam from the government. The idea that the enviroment would benefit is a nonsense the only people to benefit from this idea would be the MP's, more money to spend on their "expenses " so called. Greed is the ruination of man and this is proof if ever we needed it. The City of London is making a lot of money on the pay zone, how much of that money has been used to improve the public transport? We are taxed to the hilt in the UK, we pay dearly for the MP's and their expenses, but have to rely on charity to improve the services, ie the health service etc.

Having been hospitalised, I missed the petition cut-off. I am delighted that the British motorist appears to have finally decided to take a stand following years of being treated as a cash cow by every government since WW11. If 'Grey' power is being seen as a political problem for any politician who fails to recognise the potential voting power of the over 55's and ignores their needs and opinions at their peril, perhaps the time is soon approaching where these same politicians will be forced to recognise the political potential of an organised motoring lobby finally fed up with being demonised by almost every politician or fringe outfit looking for quick headlines. Perhaps also the time has come to give more publicity to those ploiticians, at Local or National level who actively promote anti motorist schemes, most of which prove useless in the longer term, thus giving the voting motorist more information upon which to make a more informed judgement as to who is worthy of that valuable vote. Anarchy? No! Democracy at work. Who knows, once we have the motorist getting a fair deal, perhapps we can begin to try to achive the same fairness for the middle England homeowner.

I am a disabled pensioner, living in a rural area with no public transport. If I drive to the nearest village for shopping and this unfortunately coincides with the children leaving the local primary school, it is almost impossible to drive along the road because of cars parked on both sides of the road, with parents picking up their children. Since most of these children live in the local community, and do not have any distance to walk, a great deal of fuel and its emissions would be saved if the children were encouraged to do some healthy walking! I also agree with David's comments about the state of the roads - they are an absolute disgrace.

There can be little doubt that present transport policies are unsustainable but I do not believe widespread road pricing can be a a solution without equally radical measures in public transport. Even off-peak, a cheap day return Travelcard to London from my railway station costs £22.50 return (£45 for two) whereas we can drive up there/back for c. £8, making the car option a no-brainer. Another example is my brother-in-law who would end up paying c. £70 per day in proposed road charges alone for his daily commute from Reading to Hemel Hempstead.
Road pricing can be part of the solution but only after we see large, free car parks on the periphery of cities like London and cheap affordable safe transport systems to move around these cities. It ain't rocket science!

One quick one, If we want to help the environment, don't tax motorist but pass legislation that insist the car manufacturers make cars that can do 100mpg or run on eco friendly renewable fuels instead of cars which can do 140mph and 0-60 in 4 secs. The technology is there and available but as 100mpg is not as sexy as 0-60 in 4secs the manufacturers will not invest.

I would be in favour of these charges as long as the other charges were dropped as today many drivers do not bother about road tax, my only concern is that drivers have current MOT and Insurance as again this is a problem area with drivers, driving without the necessary documentation. Controls would have to be put in place. The other aspect about this is the poor infrastructure in regards public transport. Yes I would use it more if I could a) Rely on a service. and b)if a service was available to get me from home to destination and back without having to wait about, find that a service is cancelled or that a service does not exist to get me to that destination. This government has spouted on too long about public transport yet 10 years later it is no better, in fact worse in some cases, but the public are paying more for an inferior service. My other worry is about law and order and the concerns of violence and crime on public transport.
Till then I will continue using my car which has low emmisions and until this government can promise an affordable, reliable public transport alternative, then our roads are not going to get better. They also have to get the public on their side by listening to what we say, and do something positive about for once. Mr Blair and His Merry Men are you in tune with the people!!!!!

I am totally opposed to the travel tax for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I do not think that the Government have put enough money into public transport to make this a viable alternative to driving. For example, I live in Swansea and I had a meeting in Cardiff. As I did not have a car at the time I had to use public transport. A round trip that would ordinarily take 2 hours took me approximately 6 hours (due to the usual delays). It also cost me a total of £35. This is far more than it cost me in petrol (which we pay enough tax on) and took far too much time, which meant that the rest of my working day was written off.

Secondly, I work in the NHS, in a rural part of Wales. In order for me to get to work using public transport I would have to take a bus, a train and another bus. I estimate that this would take approximately 2 hours each way (for a journey which I can do in my car in about 40 minutes). I have no idea how much this would cost, but I would estimate it is in the region of £12-£15 a day. This is before I have to do any extra travelling to do my work in the community.

Thirdly, I think that we spend enough on fuel tax in Britain. According to the ABD, Britain spends the most on fuel tax in the Western World (approximately 2/3 of the cost of fuel is tax). Although I am sure that fuel tax on petrol would go down, I still think that we would end up paying more than we do now.

In relation to the above point, call me a synic, but aren't we getting taxed for everything we do? As an example, we pay tax on our salary and then we get taxed again when we die!! I think that introducing a travel tax is just another way for the government to get money out of us.

Fourthly, I do not like the idea that this country is turning into a big brother state. I do not agree with ID cards, and I also do not like that fact that we would have to have a device in our car that would provide the authorities (without our full consent) with information about where we go, at what times, how fast we travel, etc.

James Stroud

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The use of road vehicle tracking will not reduce congestion, as people do not drive on crowded roads for pleasure but because of nessessity, I regard this as yet another back door tax. The answer to congestion is to bring the road system into the 21st. century, as our current roads are approximately 40years out of date due to successive governments failing to invest in our road structure. But of course this costs money, but it must be found, perhaps by cutting some of the buerocracy.
It would also help if efficient park and ride scemes were more common outside towns, and school buses were provided, as much of the congestion is caused by mothers taking children to school. Staggering work starting and finishing times might also help.

My husband and I both believe that a fairer tax would be to put it somehow on the fuel and abolish the so called road tax. This would mean the larger the vehicle, and more distance driven equals more fuel used and the higher the cost. This is a concept we have suported for some time now. We own a small haulage business of two artic trucks, of which one is not used to the full, sometimes being off the road for a couple of months at a time. The road tax for each is £1350 per year for one vehichle this includes a £500 discount for having a reduced pollution certificate. One truck is used seasonally and for breakdown purposes so everytime it is laid up or put back on the road we have to surrender the tax disc and then have a new one issued. This is not only added paper work for the system but also a way of profitering as the minimum issue is six months and you must use a whole month, which, for us is sometimes not possible.
On the car scale we have a 4x4 to enable us to pull a horse box safely (as indicated by law) and allow us to care for our horses, who live in a mountainous area, especially in the winter, which we could not access in a car, we also have a van for all other needs of our small holding and last but not least a car. We try to use the larger two private vehicles to a nessarsary minimum and the car for all other journeys. Again to tax the fuel would make more sense as we have to tax all the above vehicles not to look flash but to enable us to use the best vehicle for the job. We also own two motorbikes as Sunday vehicles, again we have to tax them just to keep the garaged for most of the year. There are only two of us and just because we own a selction of vehicles for a variety of jobs we can still only drive two (one each) at any one time. We feel that this arrgument seems to be built around towns and cities with no concern or thought for people like ourselves trying to earn a living out in rural England!!

There is a problem with congestion - anyone who has to drive 30,000 plus miles per year on business all over the country cannot fail to have inconvenienced on almost a daily basis . We don't want to be there but our work takes place usually between 9 and 5 oclock and with this mileage it cannot be done on any kind of public transport . As usual , this will hit the ordinary driver trying to earn an honest crust - the rich will simply pay up - so extemely unfair . All the talk of getting people to stop going down to the shops in their cars is rubbish - all the traffic I see on the roads is legitimate road users doing their days work - if any of the people I see are sitting in their cars going to the shops on the M25 M4 M5 M6 then there are some fools around . I'm sorry but a transport infrastructure has to be set up before we start such knee-jerk reactions as the road pricing red herring and an exeedingly expensive red herring at that

I would have no objection to a road charging scheme under the following conditions:-

Either:

The scheme involved removal or reduction of other taxes eg. road fund licence so that for an average road user driving 10,000 miles a year the scheme was cost neutral. Low road users such as pensioners gained financially and high users paid extra and were encouraged to reduce their mileage.

Or :-

If it wasn't cost neutral, any extra funds collected under this scheme were ring fenced and only spent on programmes that reduced congestion and pollution, such as:-

Schemes to improve quality of roads (not quantity).
Further funds invested in good environmentally friendly public transport.
Moves made toward reducing larger road freight transport in favour of better rail freight for large long distance movement of goods.
Moves made toward investing in reversal of mass centralisation, which seems to have been the drive of all governments and commerce for the last 30 years. Centralisation only encourages massive road use, as goods have to be driven greater distances, to large processing and distribution centres. The public have to drive greater distances to get to fewer, larger more remote retail centres, hospitals, schools, places of work,etc.
Car users should be charged with weighting to favour fuel efficient vehicles and penalise fuel hungry larger vehicles.

One of the benefits of having a road charging scheme that I can see, is the reduction of artificially inflated house prices in regions where local people cannot afford to buy, due to wealthier people buying cheap houses and commuting large distances to their work place where they would get less for their money.
Overall I can see the logic of changing the cost of motoring, so that car ownership is less costly but car use is more costly. This may change the psychology of the motorist who goes for a drive at the weekend because 'they have nothing better to do, and, as they have paid so much per year on fixed costs, they might as well drive it'.

As a suggestion why not abolish all road taxes including the tax disc and just increase the tax on fuel. This would remove a lot of expensive red tape from the system (the government already collects tax on fuel so collecting more would cost nothing). This would have the additional benefit of effectively taxing people directly for their mileage and tax dodging scum bags would have to pay road tax in order to put fuel in their cars, also large gas guzzlers would pay more tax and be encouraged to improve the fuel efficiency of the cars they choose to drive.

I have driven for many years on this countries roads including thousands of miles on motorways and I am convinced that the problem of traffic jams could be managed by better planning of the road structure, paticularly motorway junctions and how vehicles join or leave a fast moving flow of traffic, it is apparent to me that this is a major cause of traffic build up and jams which in time leads to accidents, it is obvious that traffic moving at 70 mph will catch up quickly with the slower vehicles caused by a filteration system that was certainly not well thought out.
I also feel that a law should be introduced to force heavy goods vehicles to return to the nearside lane immediately after overtaking as it is apparent that they regularly use two out of three lanes or three out of four lanes on most motorways and this also is a major cause of traffic build up.
Finally it seems to me that this government will not be happy until they have forced the British people to vote them out of office due to thier cavelier attitude.

Think about these:
1. Global waming and climate change. All this has been in situ for 15,000 years. So why are we wanting to change the situation? As if we could. We will have to live with it come what may. AN EXCUSE FOR BRAINWASHING US INTO BELIEVING THEAT INCREASING TAXES WILL HELP.
2. Rising sea levels. Again it has been going on for 15,000 years. The Dutch are good at keeping the sea back.
3. Cars are a luxury item and we should be made to use public transport. Public transport is : mucky, germy, has people using is who do not know how to behave. Bus drivers are in need of driver training and defencive driving tuition. They do not go to where you want to go. They do not go when you want to go.
People love their cars, otherwise ther would not be so many on the roads, they give them FREEDOM.
Alan French

I'm not actually completely against the idea of "road use charging", using GPS satellites to track mileage done by cars, but it would have to be INSTEAD OF the existing road and exorbitant fuel taxes, rather than in addition to them, which seems to be on the cards!

I've nothing against the authorities knowing where and when my car is - I've nothing to hide, but criminals will not like that! (In any case, they can already tell roughly where you are if you carry a mobile with you.) They would also have to charge with varying tariffs, according to which roads you are using. Small, uncluttered roads, deep in rural communities would cost the least per mile. The tariff would increase as you approached busy urban areas and be very heavy in the worst congested areas.- particularly congested roads where frequent and convenient public transport is available. The tariff could also be varied by the size/weight of car involved - smallest least! The technology to achieve this is already available. It would mean those using the roads most - in terms of mileage, wear and tear and congestion - would pay the most, which I think fair.

I believe that, in any case, before the end of this century all vehicles will be automatically and compulsorily guided on most major roads using satellite technology. When you start your journey you will dial up the location to which you want to go and, on major roads the car will take over and get you there without you having to drive. That would make public transport - except in heavily populated urban environments - obsolete!

None of the 3 main motorways in Scotland have been completed yet (M74, M8 & M80) leading to massive congestion. Tthe main A roads A9, A1(Edinburgh to Scottish Borders), A75 Euro Route to Ireland all have vast stretches of single carriageway making them very dangerous, congested and causing increased pollution. All these, and countless other road improvements, have to be completed or upgraded before even considering any additional taxation. Indeed if 20% of car tax (instead of the 10% spent at present) was spent on the roads then U.K. could have one of the best road systems in Europe instead of one of the worst. The U.K. relies heavily on tourism, any increase in car taxation will cause a massive decrease in this, and government should beware in case they 'Kill the Golden Goose'.

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The people that have posted saying that we should all use public transport need to wake up and look at the state of our country.
Hooligans run riot on buses and trains even during the day. Couple this with the poor service that is provided by the private companies (why are the buses not public again Mr Blair) and the high cost of even the shortest journey, resulting in a system of transport that i would not use and should not be forced to use.
Where i live would be affected by these price policies and on my way to and from university(didsbury from oldham) i would have to drive in the rush hour costing me more even though i am a student. there are no direct services to didsbury or to manchester from near my home either.

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The comments at 386 and 449 just about sums up what is going on in this excuse of a democratic slum.

I think all road tax etc should be added to the price of petrol thus you pay for the amount of miles you do . No satalites required!!!!

I am a single parent and I have a car because I live in a small village. This is not through choice but where the council had a house, if I had refused it I would have been homeless. I have no choice but to drive a car as the buses are and far between.
I class my car as something I need, not would like to do without as I would save myself a small fortune if I did.

I work for a service company that has teams in a limited number of sites around the UK. Due to the need to work with other people, the office facilities required and the need for very secure working environments and network connections, it is necessary to have a 40 mile round trip by car each day. I live on the South Coast and public transport predominatly runs South to North (into London) rather than East and West, and trains or buses are not a viable option. I run my own car and chose a vehicle with a small modern diesel engine and low carbon emissions not only to keep running costs down but to help the environment as far as possible. The Government has already shown its attitude to frugal diesel engines by imposing a higher rate of fuel tax and an increased level of vehicle duty by comparison with petrol engines with higher emissions. I have no confidence that the Government would reduce other taxes to compensate for road pricing.

My car is not a luxery item as stated in one post it is an essential item. I work on the railways, i am usually starting very early in the morning or i am finishing late at night, so use my car at all hours to get to & from work.

However i do use Public Transport whenever & wherever I can, i even walk to places if it is only short distance.

I am fed up of the motorist being seen as a cash cow, to be milked at every opportuinity. I want to help the enviroment, but you dont see the Americans being taxed to the hilt on petrol & most of their cars are largest & most polluting cars going.

i feel the government need to tackle public transport first, before taxing the motorist again.
where i live you can't get anywhere except direct to london easily, by train you have to change at least once or twice to get anywhere else. also the tmes are not convenient for working hours. it's the same with buses.
they need to open up more small stations and bus stops. have more (perhaps smaller) trains and buses running more frequently and at more reasonable prices.
If this were the case I would use public transport more.
for me the main consideration is convenience.

489. I think you are wrong about buses running on 'red' diesel but I understand where you are coming from.

I totally agree with number 26, we pay road tax but yet we have to drive on these horrible roads which are full of pot holes etc. This is definetly not good for our cars & is something which we are made to pay if it gets damaged basically for the government not using the money we pay for road tax to do what it is meant to do !!! I think to introduce this new road taxing system would be a complete nightmare & a joke, if they think it will stop people from travelling by car then they have another thing coming. All these people who use their car to drive to work or have to use the car for their on the road job etc are not going to turn round & decide to get the bus or the train while carrying their tools! The government need to think of a realistic system for road tax - i think this sugguestion should be forgotten completely as it will be a waste of time as well as money, i guarantee it will not improve things !

Ive just read a comment from someone who thinks the stealth tax is a good thing, perhaps they wouid also like to bring back the man with the flag!
"We should all use public transport", yeah right, get real, public transport doesn't work, is unsafe and causes more pollution than does private transport.
If they sorted that out which I cannot see this government doing, just like they sorted education, NHS, immigration etc, in short made a pigs ear of it, but if by a miracle it was sorted it would be great for the average person.
TRY IT IN A WHEELCHAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I'll be sticking to a my car and all the Luddites who would dislike that comment, tough!

Pay per mile is not such a bad idea provided that it is incorporated into the fuel price only (such as a key meters for Gas and lecy) this would then effect peopel who drive/run vehicles that have poor fuel consumption anyway and possibly force them to swap them for more eco friendly ones, this would also help the motorist who only drives on the odd occasion as they will use far less fuel in the long run have no road tax etc... It would also help to recover some of the costs that foreigners visiting the country cause in use to our roads (as I believe that you do not have to tax a vehicle that is from a foreign country for upto 18 months, I may be wrong) This would be a true way of pay per mile.

If the charge on major roads etc.... is to be more expensvie than minor roads, the SATNAV companies will start using the 'cheapest route' and build in the road charges to estimate travel costs, in which case the minor roads which were not desinged for large volumes of traffic will be used more often putting potential villages etc... at higher risk of accidents and the major roads would be left for the higher paid to use at their leisure!

IT may ease conjestion (if that is really the truth) on the more expensive roads only because the traffic will go else where, the real fact is that there are too many cars on the road and more and more people entering the country, its a wonder that we dont sink. Why do the government put a slow down on new cars being imported for a while then it stop a few of the lemmings going for the brand new car each year and thus passing the older cars down the line making them more affordable for even low income people as in the last 15 years cars have become much more reliable and last longer but people still keep buying news ones!

Too many cars, too many people perhaps if we introduced a general retest every 5 years it would get rid of some of the idiots out on the roads and reduce traffic and global warming!

Right Ive had my rant! Wink! Good points from all of you (this is the problem everyone has a case)

I find it totally unacceptable that despite this government's attitude to drive the motorist off the road is not matched with an acceptable local transport system. My aging mother has a bus pass but it would cost a minimum of £3.50 in taxi fairs to the nearest bus stop without the use of my car. Most towns now have large supermarkets some distance from where people live - again a need to use the car. Why are we being penalised for situations over which we seem to have no control

Motoring is already taxed via fuel. The more you drive the more you pay, the more you leave your engine running whilst stuck in trqaffic the more you pay. If the government has decided not to spend the tax it raises from fuel, road tax insurance tax etc on road or public transport then they should not simply be allowed to spend it elsewhere e.g. the olympic cists or the failing health service or failing schools. It was raised from transport taxes and should be directed back into transport

i do a lot of charity work,and traval a lot of miles doing this.
but when this comes in that will be out the window