What that article doesn't mention is the critical part of the suggestion, which is that the tax on fuel people love to complain about would be eliminated. Problems with the scheme: 1) Privacy. I don't particularly want my car tracked constantly by government satellites. 2) Expect a massive increase in traffic through alternate routes (ie nearby villages).
also wouldn't this scheme move peak times around.say people find out its cheap to drive home 1 hour later then you've moved peak time to 6:00.then it would be cheap to drive home at 5.the times would yo-yo around for everything.
I wonder how long it takes someone to rip out the system from their car so it looks like they never leave their driveway?
dunno how they gonna figure that out and implement it, say i do 12-15000 miles a year @ 1.30 a mile (taking into account that that rate only applies to peak time most of which my mileage is at, i commute 20 miles a day and i drive customers cars (how they gonna charge that?)and theres no way you'll catch me using a bus or a train they get me to work late every time) i would actually end up owing the government my entire wage packet and then some at my current income level , add the cost of insurance and fuel (even if they take the tax off you still have to purchase it) it would only be a matter of time before the average joe is in hock to the govt to the tune of a few grand a year stupid dumbass politicians and their insane ideas,i wonder how many of them actually get stuck in traffic at peak times? as i understand it they spend very little time governing and more time on the golf course in the pursuit of govt
They say they'll use number plate recognition too. Which means they'll be thousands of cameras on the roads. When they spot a car they'll check that it is sending its microwave signal thing. I seriously doubt this will ever be introduced. At least not for about 20 years or so. The first thing they'd need to do is sort out public transport. They need to get at least as good as other countries have it. You can set your watch by the trams in Zurich. If the Swiss can do it why can't we?
Typical sensationalisation, most places will be 1p a mile, its just if you try and drive on a really busy stretch of road during rush hour that you'll be charged extra. I don't like the idea at all, increase in pollution and an increase in governmental monitoring sound less attractive than speeding my journey to work up by 5 minutes. Saying that, as if the satellite tracking "chips" in the cars won’t be Linux compatible within 2 hours and totally under the control of the car owner.
Oo its gonna be like Minority Report soon - eye scan everyone, check everything, big brother is watching.
I agree totally. If i could drive now, I would drive to work everyday. If we had a half decent public transport system, and i could drive, then I'd always favour public transport for the savings and decrease in hastle.
They do it in singapore I believe using boxes on the dashboard that are zapped by cameras overhanging the road. These then deduct funds from the electronic purse on the box in the car. So it won't be that hard to implement - at the end of the day if the revenue is there to be made as long as it out weighs the cost of implementation (rightly or wrongly) they'll get it in there asap. Me and our parther both use the train to get to work (we moved to with half a mile of a train station) and never have any real problems, we use central trains as well which are argueably some of the most unreliable in the country. I could never go back to driving to work everyday - I'd have an metal episode TBH though I don't mush fancy the prospect of being tracked everywhere I go. In the wrong hands that sort of information is a stalkers heaven.
That's the Singaporean equivilant of the London congestion charge - You only get charged when you go into the CBD of the city. All my inlaws have the boxes in their cards, and they have a smart card that holds the funds. I haven't been back for a while, but I'm positive that they still have road tax, and aren't charged per mile or have toll roads. Mind you, cars are so bloody expensive over there because of import duty and the 'Certificate of Entitlement' (that you must have to own a car) which the government auctions off, they probably have no need for such schemes.
General public acceptance is something that they will not get, so its going to take quite a while for this kind of stuff to be put through.
Yeah your right - as far as i recall from when I was there depending on the car you can have to pay upto three times it's value for that certificate which only lasts 5/10 years or so...
