The powers that be are managerial front men responding to pressure from different lobbies.
Very powerful lobbies want people to continue buying vehicles and using fuel and roads.
Other lobbies powerful in a different way - through votes rather than money and the capacity to sabotage things - want people to drive them less, if at all, and ridiculously slowly.
Cars are (potentially at least) better than they have ever been in the past, and cheaper. Drivers on the other hand are considerably worse than they used to be, hard as it is to believe this. Speed bumps, chicanes, 20mph limits - what a joke! -, cameras, ANPR, bus lanes, parking charges and penalties and all the rest have been brought in, surely, to keep the cud-chewing masses entertained, along with absurd illiterate propaganda about road safety. However a lot of people one would expect to know better think these measures are designed to discourage driving and make us take the bus as the lesser of two evils.
It's all terribly expensive for us poor citizens. But we can be sure the money is put to good use, can't we?
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Mmm, I'm not convinced that drivers in the "old days" were as good as Lud makes them out to be... I tend to feel that we now see more of the bad drivers simply because there are 22 million drivers so, although the percentage of bad 'uns has stayed the same, the numbers of them have increased considerably and so have become more noticable...
Answering the OP's Discussion Title, rather than the OP itself... Getting a large nimber of people out of cars into alternatives is dead easy... but very expensive... and therefore won't happen!
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We used to live near our work, and expect to stay with that employer for much of our working lives.
We now accept that we'll work for several employers through our lives. Unfortunately the government has put a tax on us moving to be near it, in the form of stamp duty (up to 4% on the most expensive homes).
So ... I spent several years driving 100 miles each way to work - because it was much more cost effective than moving.
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No home life during the week, then M?!
I've never lived anywhere where I've been more than an hours commute from work, I just couldn't bear the thought of wasting so much time on useless travel... though I see plenty of people every day who do long distances... I suppose the biggest cause of the long distance commute is the horrendous rise in property costs...
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One way that traffic could be reduced is to legislate that all employees who are able to work from home should be given permission to do so. I could easily work 3 of 5 days in a week on average without going into an office. I'm not allowed to though. So 3 of my 5 commutes are completely unnecessary, save for a company imposed rule which makes no sense.
Many more enlightened companies are promoting remote / home working. One of our software suppliers has just closed all bar one of its 10 UK offices. Even with the contribution they are making to people's broadband lines and home office furniture, they are saving hundreds of thousands of pounds a month in rent and energy costs. Employees get a shorter working day for the same output, or, as in most cases, more output for the same working day. Both employees and management reckon its the best thing they've ever done.
I realise a lot of people can't work from home, but imagine how much quieter the roads would be for them if those who could, did. I am rapidly getting sick of spending two hours sitting on the constantly-dug-up M3 every day, burning 80% tax fuel for no productive purpose, and I'm considering changing jobs this year for no other reason than that. Happily, from my initial scout of the market, the majority of companies are happy for people not to endure a commute every day, and most have implemented, or are implementing, remote working.
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''One way that traffic could be reduced is to legislate that all employees who are able to work from home should be given permission to do so.''
And put another nail in the coffin of doing business in this country.
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And put another nail in the coffin of doing business in this country.
Why? The likes of Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Centrica and many other successful FG500 companies elect to do this and it works for them. Office space is a significant overhead, averaging about £10,000 per employee per year in the South, IIRC.
At the end of the day, the traffic queues on the roads are only gonna get worse, and fuel's only going to go up. Public transport will never provide a viable alternative for most people, and there's only so much they can jack the price of fuel up and only so many queues and inconveniences people will put up with before companies start losing skilled staff members because they can't afford to travel. Not to mention the cost of delays and fuel to companies whose staff are out on the road, and sitting in traffic instead of selling, delivering or maintaining as they are paid to do.
Instead of clumping the road user with taxes, it's about time the problem was addressed at source. Reduce the need for road use, reduce congestion, save companies a few quid in the meantime.
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We used to live near our work and expect to stay with that employer for much of our working lives.
the governmenthas put a tax on us moving to be near it in the form of stamp duty . So ... I spent several years driving 100 miles each way to work - because it was much more cost effective than moving.
Sorry but your figures don't add up, unless you're talking about houses in Mayfair or Knghtsbridge.
I still do live fairly close to my workplace (about 2 miles) and I've tried to do this all my life; simply because I do enough driving in my lorry without wanting to commute as well.
I would suggest that it is more to do with living where we want to rather than where we have to, which was more the case in the past.
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If car usage was diminished, HMG would lose a fortune in taxation. The motorist is a milch cow and an easy source of revenue.
It would, and many motorists go on to whinge that all that tax is not spent on the roads. One reason people don't travel by train is that 'fares are so high'. That is because those fares (apart from some govt. subsidy) have to cover all the costs of running a railway - maintaining track, renewing rolling stock, paying staff - while all the motorist pays up-front is fuel (with tax), an annual VED licence, vehicle depreciation and some insurance. Road maintenance and staff costs have to come from somewhere else.
In absolute terms cars and fuel are stupidly cheap. Human nature being what it is, most of us think they could be cheaper. The only way drivers will consider reducing their travelling is for them to really feel the cost of fuel - but that is a non-starter when it can be got somewhere else under another tax regime. Putting up VED or insurance will just encourage dodging.
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>> In absolute terms cars and fuel are stupidly cheap.
Typical Green Party style rubbish. Cars and fuel are sold at a profit, therefore the price of both is correct in economic terms. In fact in the case of fuel the price is vastly inflated because of the high taxation levied on it.
Edited by Robin Reliant on 24/01/2010 at 11:18
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is to legislate that all employees who are able to work from home
That is happening at a fast pace..... there is another term for this OUTSOURCING or OFFSHORING
The homes are only couple of thousands miles away though.
:)
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Moving on from DP's point it makes much more sense working a 40 hour week as 4 x 10 hour days rather than 5 x 8 hour days then if the 4 commutes were spread across the 5 days then congestion would be reduced by 20% as well as reduced CO2 etc.
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Typical Green Party style rubbish
... and a typical arrogant response. I agree there is no way the price of fuel can be manipulated to 'get us out of our cars'. But in real terms - either comparing it with purchasing power 10 or 20 years ago, or comparing petrol with (say) beer today - they are cheap. No doubt drinkers moan about the price of beer too, but please tell me why beer costs 4 times as much as petrol (per litre), when oil has to be dug up in inhospitable parts of the world, then refined, while beer is made of rainwater and things we can grow in the garden (almost). Both are taxed, because politicians know we will go on buying them because we can't help ourselves.
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