Road Charging: The Way Forward

Since Saturday, all I have heard is what a bad idea road charging is. There seems to be no desire for change among the British people. Over one million people have signed the official petition on the number ten website. I got a link from a friend this morning urging me to put my name on it. I am yet to do so, and for very good reason.

Charging people for the use of roads would replace both road tax and penalty. I can only assume many people have signed the various petitions are ignorant of such a fact.

Charges start from just 2p a mile on little used roads used outside of rush hour. If anything, this is too low. The maximum cost is £1.34 a mile for the busiest roads during rush hour. I believe that is fair enough. I do not see any problem with pricing drivers off of the roads. If people used their cars less, an increase in the standard of public transport would be forced to occur. There are people who drive simply because they can. This is wrong. Anybody who drives somewhere when they could easily walk or get the bus or catch the train is wasting energy, polluting the atmosphere for no good reason and making the roads busier than they need to be.

Hopefully, the golden age of the automobile is coming to an end. The car is not a renewable mode of transport. It cannot continue to dominate the way in which we move for much longer. Sooner or later it will be the mode of transport for the minority -- hopefully sooner, rather than later.

As stated in the Independent this morning, it is vital for environmental reasons that people get out of their cars and off of the roads. It is time to make a choice: economic wealth or the environment. To date, it seems like only the Independent newspaper has really got a grasp of this issue. I know that the Daily Mirror (for what it is worth) has been running its own petition. Douglas Alexander, Tony Blair and the rest of the Labour cabinet need to stand together on this issue. By all means, they should listen to the general public on this issue. This is a decision that will effect 98% of the population. But what is need is a clear set of facts and a healthy debate on the issue, both in public and in Parliament. And by that, I mean an educated debate, whereby people back up their arguments with evidence, do not just go along with the popular view and do not just shout out irrational argument to support their current polluting habits.

People have driven for a long long time, but we are better positioned than we have ever been to manage, succeed and live happily without the automobile. We are nearing the point of no return where saving the environment is concerned. That is what was said in Paris not that long ago. And yet the British public seems most unwilling to cut congestion on the roads by 40%. Only 4% of cars would disappear from the roads within the first year. But a steady increase in the amount drivers are charged above the rate of inflation each year would gradually decrease the number of cars on our roads. Any economic cost of this should be balanced against the benefits to the environment.

Here follows the BBC's At A Glance guide to road charging. Perhaps some people should base their argument upon this impartial guide, rather than what they have heard from their friends/mates/co-workers, or what they have read in their (extremely biased) newspapers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4610877.stm

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright