People 'super-commute' for several reasons:
1. They have a company car and get private mileage paid - so can move out to a rural area without much travel cost penalty.
2. British cities are often 'unliveable' for the native population. I visited Leicester recently and felt like a 'stranger in a strange land'. Would you want to live in the city and have your children as one of the 10% of kids in the school who have English as their native tongue? This is before one takes account of higher levels of crime, pollution etc. Little wonder people prefer the 'sanctury' of the rural hinterland.
3. Job insecurity and 'flexible employment' (LOL!) means that it can be a risky proposition to move close to an employer. You might not be working there in 2-3 years time and you'll have to foot the bill for any move, not to mention unsettling kids' schooling etc. Better to let the family stay put and face a long commute.
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People 'super-commute' for several reasons: 1. They have a company car and get private mileage paid - so can move out to a rural area without much travel cost penalty. 2. British cities are often 'unliveable' for the native population. I visited Leicester recently and felt like a 'stranger in a strange land'. Would you want to live in the city and have your children as one of the 10% of kids in the school who have English as their native tongue? This is before one takes account of higher levels of crime, pollution etc. Little wonder people prefer the 'sanctury' of the rural hinterland. 3. Job insecurity and 'flexible employment' (LOL!) means that it can be a risky proposition to move close to an employer. You might not be working there in 2-3 years time and you'll have to foot the bill for any move, not to mention unsettling kids' schooling etc. Better to let the family stay put and face a long commute.
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I dont disagree with your reply at all.
However what a am trying to say is that the Government should look at why all of these things seem now to be the norm and what can be done to alleviate some or all of these points, rather than just punishing people for what they have ultimately created in the long term.
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Aprilia makes the valid point about no value being added in the house-price cycle, but the converse is true of congestion charging.
If you have an asset, the road network, the use of which has no cost to the user, then fundamental laws of supply and demand are broken and chaos ensues. The same is true of the NHS.
I don't like the idea of paying a congestion charge, it would hit me as I commute a few miles most days, but NOT having a link between road use and cost is masking a problem rather than dealing with it and creating other problems along the way.
A 40 mile journey from North Manchester to Leeds starting at 6.30am yesterday took me and three colleagues over 2 hours due to nothing more than congestion.
We will only sort it out using strong medicine.
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Aprilia makes the valid point about no value being added in the house-price cycle, but the converse is true of congestion charging. If you have an asset, the road network, the use of which has no cost to the user, then fundamental laws of supply and demand are broken and chaos ensues. The same is true of the NHS.
I don't think this is true. It is not the case that the use of roads is at no cost to the user. Driving costs time and money (wear & tear, fuel) and so not many people are willing 'consumers' of road space. Its not often people drive for pleasure, other than in tourist spots. They generally drive somewhere because they have to. You can make arguments about relative costing (i.e. bus, train vs. car) but that's another matter. I'm guessing that road use is already 'charged' at about 10-20p per mile just through petrol tax.
Similarly with the NHS. I don't know about you, but I try to limit my exposure to medical treatment as much as possible. I am constantly working toward zero consumption of medical services! This is a bit different to traditional supply and demand where there is a desire to consume the product/service - e.g. if restaurants gave away free food then there would be long queues outside and we'd all be as fat as pigs. Dentist gives away free extractions and you'll not find me in the queue unless I'm in agony with a rotten tooth!
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That's it, we already have pay-per-mile charging and it's called fuel duty. At 47.1p per litre (+VAT)! For a car doing 30mpg that works out at 7p per mile.
And there's a built in weighting for busy roads, because time spent in jams means idling and wasting fuel, therefore there is an incentive to avoid busy routes and travelling at peak times.
The only trouble is, people don't see it like that. They just pay at the pumps a certain cost X and think no more about it, which is likely what they'll do once the road charging becomes yet another direct debit that goes out once a month. Whatever the amount, people will still need to get to work and will just pay up, through gritted teeth if needs be.
Taxation will go up and people will carry on driving like before. It's not like we do all those miles for the sake of it! ;)
If only everywhere had high levels of integrated public transport like inner London, then pay-per-mile might have the desired effect, but we don't and therefore it won't....
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Aprilia and Oil Burner, I agree that what you say is right in principle but I think there is a disconnect between someone filling their tank and them feeling that they have just paid a tax whereas a pay and play decision makes it much of a "do I want to make this journey or not" decision.
I don't actually know what it cost me to drive into work today in RFL, fuel tax etc but I know it would be very clear to me if I knew exactly what the congestion charge is if there was one.
The interesting question is whether fuel duty would drop to balance the effect of this new tax.
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"makes it much of a "do I want to make this journey or not" decision."
So it's "do I want to go to work today or not?" The obvious answer is no ;) but the neccesity means a yes - until it becomes uneconomical to do so. It's not even a matter of making driving so expensive public transport will become more attractive, that won't help with the waiting around and numerous changes that buses and trains require.
Apart from the odd leisure drive on a Sunday with the family, there's very few (if any) journeys I could cut out. I'm sure I'm not the only one either. At nearly a pound a litre for fuel, I've got plently of incentive now to avoid taking the car out, but I carry on because I need to work and public transport simply isn't good enough. I know, I've tried it.
For the record, I used to live in Basel, Switzerland. They had an excellent public transport system. Clean, reliable, frequent and well integrated. It was possible to move around anyway in the city with little more than a few yards of walking to or between bus/train/trolly bus stops. Waiting around was never an issue and so changing routes to get to your destination was no big deal. I never used a car, there was no point.
I then moved to Birmingham, supposedly the second city and find infrequent services on all but a few city centre routes, no thought to connections and dreadful links across areas. I tried to get by without a car for a while, but it quickly become impossible as my circumstances changed and my time became more valuable. i.e. who needs to start the day with a 1/2 hour wait for the bus before you even start your journey to work? Factor in major waits on changes, and a 45min car journey becomes 2hrs + on the bus/train.
Put simply, with no usuable alternative in place, car use will not be curtailed by pay-per-mile schemes, no matter how well they help convey the true cost of road usage. Public transport in this country is dreadful, and that must be sorted first, at a cost of many billions I suspect.
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Put simply, with no usuable alternative in place, car use will not be curtailed by pay-per-mile schemes, no matter how well they help convey the true cost of road usage. Public transport in this country is dreadful, and that must be sorted first, at a cost of many billions I suspect.
And that goes back to my earlier point. Whereas much of continental Europe used the additional funds due to the economic growth of the last 2-3 decades to improve their infrastructure and quality of life, in the UK most of that money went into the housing market. The result being that many families in the UK have a higher income that families in Europe (not least because so many British women work) but they have a lower quality of life, poorer education system and inferior environment.
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I agree. So what is the solution? Is it as simple as massive investment into public transport? Can it be done, will it work?
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I think Douglas Adams had the right idea in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Remember the spaceship that had been sent from Earth (the 'first of three' LOL!) - it contained all the 'important people' (lawywers, accountants, estate agents, telephone cleaners). I always enjoyed that bit.
Anyway, TBH England's a bit too far gone now. It's not the same country I grew up in. I keep trying to persuade my wife we should go to live in Germany, she's slowly (very slowly) coming round to the idea. News items like the Afghan hijackers nonsense do a lot to strengthen my case! (you've got to love the British judiciary - allow a bunch of Afghans who hijacked a B727 to settle in west London - then the next day get to work extraditing an English computer hacker to the US for breaking US law!).
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Good Lord, yes - how would we survive without Estate Agents? ;)
I know exactly what you mean - but at this point I prefer remain optimisic that something can be done, after all even far more sorted places like Germany still have their problems. Although the thought of de-restricetd Autobahns...Ich mag den!
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I am with Aprilia. This country is just ridiculous. It's worse "down south" as I realised on a recent visit to London... you might just as well pin money on yourself and let people take it off. Everyone's stressed, people are rude, the service is appalling... especially in bars where they give you the money on a tray and expect a tip! I gave them a tip, but not a monetary one, cheeky scamps.
But even up here in the relative peace, I am sick of paying to do things that I never used to have to, sick of the denial that we live in re quality of life generally. There are more idiots about, more petty crime, less police with those that are left over-stressed with NO customer skills, and everyone worships the great god of money, celebrity and corporations. I have lost count of the amount of conversations I have with people whose minds are brainwashed by years of Tory rule, including who's in now: they are vehemently anti-Union even when it would benefit them to use one example. I have many friends and acquaintances who work in the phone industry, where unionism is effectively banned. They think this is good, despite criminally long hours, no job security and wages that are not anywhere near as good as advertised. They are an employer's dream.
Frankly, a lot of us deserve how we've got. We're too stupid, insular and in awe of the US to notice what's happened.
Er, back to cars.
Here's a funny website about strange Japanese cars: specs.amayama.com/
Excuse my rant. : )
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If they want a massive investment in public transport they could use the 80% of the money that is taken off motorists in tax but not spent on motoring. If they won't build roads with it let them build railways! We ought to get something for our money!
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Good thread, some very erudite and educational arguments from some very thoughtful people, but I will merely quote Red Baron from earlier in the thread :-
"As we are dealing with civil servants, the delays and budgetary collapse of any such scheme means it will not affect anybody directly for the forseeable future.
You have more chance of a blessing from the Pope."
They can't keep track of murderers/rapists, they can't keep track of untaxed drivers, they can't keep track of uninsured drivers, they can't get any computer system (doctors, MOT etc) to work so what chance of tracking me (not forgetting the other millions)in my car. Won't affect me before I depart this mortal coil. If they put charging in cities I shall just adjust my shopping habits - as I have already - Leicester is intolerable, so I go to Nottingham, couple of miles further but parking so much easier and congestion less. Congestion charging in Nottingham? - I'll use Loughborough or Melton Mowbray.
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Phil
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The greatest obstacle to an opposing political party winning an election is the number of voters employed directly or indirectly by the political party in power. If 65% of the working population has a vested interest in a political party remaining in powser because it is directly or indirectly emmployed by it then the party in opposition has no chance.
I'm a bit baffled by this statement, HJ. Are you saying 65% of the working population work for the labour party?
In December 2005 the total size of public sector (i.e. everybody employed directly or indirectly by government, inc. forces, police, NHS, schools, universities etc) was 4.72million full-time equivalent jobs. That's abut 20% of the working population - similar to most developed countries and very little higher (despite all the hype) than when the Tories were in government.
I really don't think these 4.7m will vote labour just because we currently have a labour goverment. Similarly I doubt the Tories will start demolishing speed cameras or sack loads of traffic wardens if they win the next election. In fact I think if the Tories came to power 90%+ of the population would notice very little different. In fact if things go on as they are then Cameron is going to end up to the left of Blair!
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"Are you saying 65% of the working population work for the labour party? "
Think of all the NON-Civil Servanst who owe their paid existence to the state.
Capita employees: Congestion Charging etc
The people who run the railways - no subsidy = no jobs.
Shipbuilding : No MOD orders and Mr Blair's constituency will lose its shipyard despite being 100% over budget and funded illicitly by the MOD.
Accountants: who do PFI work.lawyers ditto.
All PFI firms building schools/hospitals etc.
The call centres used by Government.
Farmers - although funded by Government currently are not (!) so probably no.
The Scots and Welsh who probably expect a Conservative Government to actually worry about the "East Lothian Question" and prevent Scots MPs voting on English issues.
The above list is without deep thought. So it is incomplete but if you think hard enough I'm sure you can add all council employees (funded by Central Gov't ? included in the above 20%?)
The rule of thunmb is one Civil Service job creates 0.5 to 1 support jobs...if so some 40% of the population depends on the Government for employment..gainful or otherwise..
madf
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Can we keep this on a motoring theme please.
Hugo - BR Moderator
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Well, the figure I quoted includes council employees.
Sure, you can spin the net wider and wider (the man who cooks lunch for the Capita employee who collects the CC etc etc) however I doubt the people you mention see it that they would be threatened if the Conservatives get in. The Tories invented the PFI didn't they? And they have traditionally favoured supporting defence industries. Best not mention the railways, I think a lot of money was chucked their way by the Tories! Forget the Scots and Welsh because they never vote Conservative anyway! Life goes on and someone has to do these jobs. Labour and Conservatives differ by a few % in their policies.
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Where I work (in the public sector) most people fund the party which runs the government through union membership, they then have the audacity to complain about their wages, the country etc... d'oh thick idiots!
My car has been broken for a week or more, I couldnt get it booked in until Tuesday, so hired a car for a week, and today, I handed it back and took the bus, while sat on the bus, I made the decision to emmigrate ASAP.
It wasn't the bus itsself, I can put up with the fact it was noisy, bumpy, stopped every 100 yards. For occasional emergency use, I can put up with the fact it takes 1hr 15 min instead of 25 mins in the car on the odd accasion I would use it, but it was the absolute unhosed vile degenerate scum who it was packed out with that made me almost want to get off at the next stop and run. Worse was the fact I left work early so that I'd beat rush hour, but I forgot about school time 3.45, if that's the future of Britain then goodbye, it's bad enough now, but I don't want to be living beside these hideous primates when they grow up or be served by them if they get forced to get a job by some scheme which may one day exist. I reject public transport because I can't stand the public anymore.
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Simple HJ. The alternative is an excellent public transport system with seamless integration between transport systems, including the car. It works elsewhere, can't imagine why it wouldn't work here.
If there was more normal, everyday people on public transport then the yob and spotty oinks would be in an minority and wouldn't seem such a big deal.
As to the point raised earlier about government projects tending to fail, why yes they do. Except, when it's about raising money, then I suspect it has rather more chance of being implemented! ;)
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CSA - that was to raise money and look what a total shambles that was.
Doesn't matter how good the public transport is. We've had decades of being told that we have a God-given right to choice and freedom and nobody chooses to queue at a bus stop when they can choose to get in a car and listen to the radio.
During the fuel protests there was a study which suggested that the price per gallon at which people would abandon their car was £13.00 which suggests an absurd value that people place on their "right" to drive wherever and whenever they like.
This is why building roads creates more traffic.
If you want evidence of this, drive on the M6 North of the toll road. All those extra drivers who abandoned trying to get past B/ham when it became a joke are back and it has just moved the jams 20 miles North.
If you use something you pay for it. It's what your mother taught you as a toddler, what you learnt at school, what you found out when you started work. Why does getting in a car make it different?
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The problem is we already pay via road fund licence plus fuel tax plus vat on fuel, servicing, parts, insurance etc to legally use the roads. You can bet your bottom dollar that a road charging system would be on top of this lot.
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As above I don't think people think of petrol as a tax, it's just something to make their car go.
If I choose to use the M6 toll road I make a value judgement - is it worth my cash to save time and drive on an empty road or not?
It seems to be universally agreed that one of the big problems of the M25 is too many junctions - ie it became too easy for lots of local journeys to include a few miles of motorway leading people to make journeys, that hitherto had taken too long to do as easily.
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