Sam’s point is that he has no choice - he must use the M25 and use it in peak hours. The biggest losers in this new system will be people like him who have inflexible working hours and journeys along major roads. If it cost him just £1 per journey to work, that could equate to £480 per annum - just for commuting. The figures touted in the press actually suggest more than £5 for Sams journey (£2400 per annum) - clearly, this would be extortionate and unfair. That’s why I don’t believe the hype - the newspapers are just trying to grab headlines through scaremongering.

What we need is a much clearer understanding of the proposed pricing per road and per mile depending on the time of day. Then we can see what the total cost to different motorists would be and who would be paying it.

In principle, the idea of pay as you go is fair. We also accept the principle of paying more in peak times (as per easyJet). So, if we can find a fair pricing structure for people like Sam, then the system could work in theory. We would just need to overcome the other problems such as tax-dodging, technical flaws, cost of implementation and above all else, privacy issues.

Nothing about a road pricing scheme *requires* privacy violations - although I expect the instinct of almost any government will be to capture too much data and share it too widely. There are plenty of clever information scientists in the world who would have no difficulty designing a ‘blind’ road pricing system that would debit your account without at any time disclosing your ID to anyone… We’ll see I suppose….

The inflated figures are based on reports that ‘busy and over-used’ roads
are to be charged at a much higher rate, especially at peak times. I travel
34 miles round the M25, the busiest and most over-used road in the country,
at peak times. It’s not just because I’m too lazy to use the trains, the
fact is that it takes me 20 minutes by car and 2 hours 20 by train, which
also costs me £20 per day, for which I rarely even get a seat for my money.
It IS possible to get there quicker (and cheaper) by bus (1.5 hours and a
half hour wait at Heathrow airport), but there is no bus route home after 6
p.m., so I would have to take the train at a cost of £18 one-way. So I am
going to drive come what may! I have tried alternative routes, with the result that I, like everyone else attempting to avoid the motorway, congest and pollute many small villages whose road infrastructure cannot support the volume of traffice. This will only get worse if the government’s proposal comes into fruition. I also work in a shop, which has predetermined opening and closing times, so travelling at alternative times is not an option, and nor is the luxury of working from home.

A truly fair system would be to abolish tax discs (which can be forged, or
just not paid for), and scrap the proposed system. To tax
every road user at a fair rate, and also to encourage more efficient and
greener vehicles, what needs to be done is to add the road tax onto petrol
prices. I know the stuff is expensive enough anyway but hear me out.

If the average motorist cover 10,000 miles per year and you want them to pay
£150 in road tax per year, you spread that £150 over 10,000 miles of fuel,
based on an average vehicles consumption.

So, if you travel less miles, or have a more economical vehicle, you will
pay less tax. If you travel excessive mileages, or burn
wasteful amounts of fuel, you will end up paying more. Which is fair enough, as you wear down
the roads and use up fuel (or both!) at an excessive rate.

Plus, there is absolutely no way you can avoid paying it. You cannot cheat
the system unless you import your own crude oil and refine it yourself. OK, non-roadgoing users of petrol are going to feel hard-done by, by they are a tiny minority compared to the total number of UK motorists, already paying excessively for fuel and road tax and being fined incessantly through speed cameras and parking tickets, with little improvement in road or driving conditions seen in return.

The fact that very little of this revenue is re-invested in the maintenance of our roads (http://www.abd.org.uk/trd-abd.htm and yes, I know this lot are biased!) is simply rubbing salt in the wound.

To comment on your other thoughts:
1. you would be correct in assuming a quantity of European neighbours to come ‘fuel shopping’ if we were to abolish fuel duty. The opposite would be the case if the road fund license were applied to the fuel. No answer there as yet, I’m afraid. Farm vehicles use agricultural fuel, which is distributed and taxed differently, and could remain so. Lawn movers and recreational vehicles could possibly be redesigned to use the same. On the other hand, the quantities of fuel used in this domain is a tiny percentage…
2. No system is foolproof, and I am very sure it wouldn’t be long before a way of altering the black box was widely available.
3.I don’t agree here. In principle, you have a point, however anyone with pre-determined criminal intent would easily avoid being tracked, and even the lowest calibre of crook (eg joyriders) would simply use an untraceable vehicle. Or remove the black box, or see point 2, or… etc.

I hope you’re having a good time in KL, how does their system work?

Regards,

Sam