Petition to scrap vehicle tracking and road pricing policy

I thought this petition was important enough to post here

petitions.pm.gov.uk...

Have a read and sign up if you agree - the more signatures the better!!

The idea of tracking every vehicle at all times is sinister and wrong. Road pricing is already here with the high level of taxation on fuel.

It will be an unfair tax on those who live apart from families and poorer people who will not be able to afford the high monthly costs.

PS

This is a genuine petition, not like those well-intentioned but still spam emails that do the rounds

Some might claim "road pricing" is already here but if folks are serious about using "road pricing" to combat the choked roads then it's clear that the levels of road congestion in a lot of the country prove it is not anything like high enough to be effective, yet.


Either way (and with any serious possible choice of our major political parties in power) this idea (road pricing, in whatever form) is coming.

If my car or bike has a tracker fitted?
I could care less.

It might even help stop vehicle thefts
(which I have to say have been a far more serious problem and inconvenience in my life than any day-dreams of 'big brother' watching my every move).

There are far too many of us.
I just don't believe that they have the resources or time to examine everybodies' movements in any sense other than this business of charging for our road useage.

.....and if it cuts down traffic (and therefore cleans up the environment0 significantly then, on balance, I'm all for it.

Even ruling out the big brother element i'm not keen on having a tracker fitted to my car

Apart from collecting road tax they could also be used keep tabs on your speed and if you break any parking restrictions, plus the fact we'll be paying for this equipment to spy on us in the first place!

If the govt wants to raise road taxes, why not just increase the tax on fuel?

(not that i am in favour of that either)

why go to all this bother?

I have signed this petition as I am against vehicle tracking and road pricing.

If I want to protect me car, I can fit a tracking device that will enable the police to trace it when it is stolen. If I fit this, then it is my decision. (and I agree with you sminkeypinkey that this is a major issue and the Government needs to get moving on solving it. A topic for another thread)

I am firmly of the opinion that if my car was fitted with a tracking device, it would be used for far more than just knowing where I am. I think alienanderson is spot on that it would be used for far more and when we recieved our road pricing bill, there would be summons for traffice offences.

The motorist pays enough taxes and this might be more acceptable if more of the take from motorists was used on transport issues.

Spending money on better public transport is of course a great idea. In big cities it seems to work. Having around London, I always use public transport

So what do we think of the PM's email back to those who signed the petition.

A waste of bandwidth and said nothing of substance. All spin. If this is what I pay the prime minister and the government to produce, I can see what we are in such a mess.

Did not even address the point of the petition.

[edit on 2-3-2007 by Freedom ERP]

I doubt the government will push this too hard if people keep signing the petition... they'll try to gracefully back down because it could lose them the next election if it's still a big issue then (which it probably will be since they'd be at the implementation stages by that time). Labour have seen what the Poll Tax did to Margaret Thatcher and what the fuel protests in 2000 almost did to Tony Blair. They seem to be learning lessons pretty well now (notice the rhetoric on Iran is geared towards diplomacy, for example).