Club Arnage

Whether it will make a difference or not, I know not, but this strikes me as a really good one to sign up to now, and it is on No 10’s website:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

The government's proposal under the Road Transport Bill to introduce road pricing will mean having to purchase a tracking device and paying a monthly bill to use it.  The tracking device will cost about £200.  In a recent study by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6160174.stm 

the lowest monthly bill for a rural florist would have been £28 and for a delivery driver £194 and £86 for a non working mum who used the car to take the kids to school.   On top of this, you will be tracked.   So potentially somebody will know where you are, and how fast you have been going.  As well as paying exorbitantly for using the road, it does not take much of a leap of imagination to expect a little financial and points addition to the monthly bill if you creep over a speed limit....   

Please sign the petition and pass the link on to anyone you know who owns a car/motorcycle.

MG Mark

Bump


Petition closes 20th Febuary.

784,561 names on it so far, lets make it 1 Million.

I like this one.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/proroadpricing/

A massive 60 signatures so far and it runs out on the 11th. For god sake don't sign it! Punish me Tony, punish me!  ;D

According to the ideals of democracy we out number them by 784,499 votes ;D

May be this should be sticky till the 20^th
t.

We have a tracking system on all our work cars now, and fear of god given to all users. I'm against being tracked for any Vote away.

15,000 people have signed up between 6.22pm and 9.45pm.

That's about 5,000 an hour :) :) :) :) :) :)


Just hit 800,000 8)

if you look at this link or road pricing, just look at either, BUT sign it !

It's now at 960,000+ and it seems to be gathering speed at over 10000 per hour now ;D

Rusty

WOW!

Prehaps the woodentops of Westminster might finally realise it's not the most popular idea that they have come up with.

I see that the petition surporting road pricing has managed to increase it's number fron 62 to 71 in 2 days ;D

Yep, its gone through 970000. Cool

So much for democracy!

A million people have signed the online petition and still those twats in government say they will "press ahead with preparations for nationwide congestion charging".

The sooner the present incumbents are on the opposition bench, the better.

News item here - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1361944.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1361944.ece)

To those who haven't signed, do it now.

1,031,731 ;D

10 days to go, at the rate of signing over the last 2 days, 2 million is possible.

Please sign and get any other road user to do the same.

I have tried three or four times to register this morning and the system is overloaded and I am unable to register my vote ???

Is that rat that I can smell.

It's prolly getting a big hit due to the mention on the Radio 4 Today program.

t.

It loooks like the site is really suffering.  I just got a 503 error http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E503.html (http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E503.html) then it worked and it's up 1,128,226,  100,000 more than 16 hours ago.  Yep it could make the 2mill lets hope so.

t.

How can the Govt ignore this partition?

I just looked at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers The parttion has more signatures than all of the rest of the partitions in list put together.

Oh and the pro road pricing one managed a stagering 106 signatures.

t.

I am nearly there. I have had the mail back to confirm, but when I try to confirm, it fails.

I had not realised that there was a pro one, there was bloke representing  a 'green' point of view that sent a text to 'Today' on radio four this morning suggesting that he was sure that a 'pro' petition would probably receive as many if not more votes than the anti ;D

Wrong ;D

It has taken nearly all day, but at last my name is on it after around 30 attempts. ;D

He's another to sign.

It in favor of scrapping safty cameras.  Only 4,000 votes so far.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam/

t.

Nice unbalanced report about the petition on the BBC 6 o'clock news. >:( >:(

Interview with a Minister, and a rep of Transport 2000, who are financed by the bus and train companies, vested intrest prehaps.


BBC news = Ministry of Truth.

Lets make it  1 million. :)

The petition seems to have jammed at 1281218.
Do you reckon some snivelling little civil servant has thrown a spanner in the works ?

 >:(

Rusty

AFAIK the petition website service is provided by an independednt IT firm. It most likely doesn't have the capacity to deal with the massive level of hits this petition has generated. However, that's not to say some nasty little person in the secret services has sabotaged it.

The BBC reporting has been an utter disgrace IMO, the internal lobbying from the right-on media greenies must be intense. Well bully for them, but I can tell you here and now that I will not ever, under any circumstances, be fitting a road tracking device to any vehicle in my fleet. No Sir. No way. Never. Not on your nellie, I'll go to prison first.

I e-mailed them last night to say I've seen that the site seemed to be a bit stressed.    I even got a reply to say they had been working hard on making the system able to better handle the load.  I wrote at 22:20 the reply came at 23:20.   So I would say it's not a govt run thing there is no way they could be that speedy.


Well of course new cars wil be factory fitted with the device so you may not have a chooice as time goes by.  But it does smack of Poll tax as far as "we don't want it" goes. Personally I liked the Poll tax.  It saved me a load of money.   

I'll stop using my car when they stop using Ministerial cars.

t.

Rusty, 

It's now 1,291,279  10,000 per hour at that rate well get 2,000,000 buy the 20^th

t

It seems to be jumping in huge lumps now, maybe thats what jammed it. It's now at 1299495, thats 18000+ in the last hour and a half.  :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Nice avatar by the way Mr.Z but on that tangent another utter utter disgrace, I understand the yanks have remade School for Scoundrels !!!  w**k*rs

Rusty  >:(

As I mentioned yesterday it took me about thirty attempts over five hours to finally get accepted on this petition (they must know me). I am a stubborn sod and can only assume that others with better things to do may have given up long before I did and are likely to have fallen by the wayside. Pity. All I can suggest to those that experienced the same problems I did is keep trying, chances are you will get through. Whether it will count for anything in the end, who knows. ???

Depends whether Tony and Gordon and the rest of the sycophants return to planet Earth, from whatever alternative dimension they are living in at the moment.

1,374,709 so far with 6 days to go, amnd it is now hitting the newspapers - news today that the government is sufficiently concerned by this outbreak of "people power" that they are going to e-mail everyone who has signed it with an explanation of the policy and to "dispel the myths".   Look forward to that one, and whether or not they get deluged with replies!

MG Mark 

If that happens, everyone who replies should send a 10meg attachment on each email and see what happens to Tony's mailbox, unless he has over a 20 tb capacity :D

BANG

Rusty

Well if everyone replied I doubt that their mail servers would handle the load.  :-) 

The thing that I think is wrong is the people who don't Tax, Insure and Register their cars won't pay.

I think there could be a good bussiness oportunity to lease cars registered in a foriegn contry that would not be liable to the tax.

t.

And nice to hear that mps expenses were up again, and they still claim for car milage. Shouldn't the goverment set an example and stop paying for mps to use cars. They should all use puplic transport, tossers.

That's a tried and tested method of avoiding congestion charges & parking fines...so I hear.

They won't use public transport - thats for poor people, who can't afford the congestion charge.

As for the email, we know the policy.  Tax it till it goes away.  There are a whole string of improvements required, but that takes skill and effort - why bother when you can tax it away in a stroke.

When Mr Bliar's email comes, respond to it, at least 10 times.

I bet it starts "this email is from an automated address, please do not respond"

1,500,003


Petition closes 20th, last chance to sign up.

1.8 million people and here is the message from the Prime Pratt Minister.

I hope you all reassured that your views will be taken into account.

Thank you for taking the time to register your views about road pricing on the Downing Street website.

This petition was posted shortly before we published the Eddington Study, an independent review of Britain's transport network. This study set out long-term challenges and options for our transport network.

It made clear that congestion is a major problem to which there is no easy answer. One aspect of the study was highlighting how road pricing could provide a solution to these problems and that advances in technology put these plans within our reach. Of course it would be ten years or more before any national scheme was technologically, never mind politically, feasible.

That is the backdrop to this issue. As my response makes clear, this is not about imposing "stealth taxes" or introducing "Big Brother" surveillance. This is a complex subject, which cannot be resolved without a thorough investigation of all the options, combined with a full and frank debate about the choices we face at a local and national level. That's why I hope this detailed response will address your concerns and set out how we intend to take this issue forward. I see this email as the beginning, not the end of the debate, and the links below provide an opportunity for you to take it further.

But let me be clear straight away: we have not made any decision about national road pricing. Indeed we are simply not yet in a position to do so. We are, for now, working with some local authorities that are interested in establishing local schemes to help address local congestion problems. Pricing is not being forced on any area, but any schemes would teach us more about how road pricing would work and inform decisions on a national scheme. And funds raised from these local schemes will be used to improve transport in those areas.

One thing I suspect we can all agree is that congestion is bad. It's bad for business because it disrupts the delivery of goods and services. It affects people's quality of life. And it is bad for the environment. That is why tackling congestion is a key priority for any Government.

Congestion is predicted to increase by 25% by 2015. This is being driven by economic prosperity. There are 6 million more vehicles on the road now than in 1997, and predictions are that this trend will continue.

Part of the solution is to improve public transport, and to make the most of the existing road network. We have more than doubled investment since 1997, spending £2.5 billion this year on buses and over £4 billion on trains - helping to explain why more people are using them than for decades. And we're committed to sustaining this investment, with over £140 billion of investment planned between now and 2015. We're also putting a great deal of effort into improving traffic flows - for example, over 1000 Highways Agency Traffic Officers now help to keep motorway traffic moving.

But all the evidence shows that improving public transport and tackling traffic bottlenecks will not by themselves prevent congestion getting worse. So we have a difficult choice to make about how we tackle the expected increase in congestion. This is a challenge that all political leaders have to face up to, and not just in the UK. For example, road pricing schemes are already in operation in Italy, Norway and Singapore, and others, such as the Netherlands, are developing schemes. Towns and cities across the world are looking at road pricing as a means of addressing congestion.

One option would be to allow congestion to grow unchecked. Given the forecast growth in traffic, doing nothing would mean that journeys within and between cities would take longer, and be less reliable. I think that would be bad for businesses, individuals and the environment. And the costs on us all will be real - congestion could cost an extra £22 billion in wasted time in England by 2025, of which £10-12 billion would be the direct cost on businesses.

A second option would be to try to build our way out of congestion. We could, of course, add new lanes to our motorways, widen roads in our congested city centres, and build new routes across the countryside. Certainly in some places new capacity will be part of the story. That is why we are widening the M25, M1 and M62. But I think people agree that we cannot simply build more and more roads, particularly when the evidence suggests that traffic quickly grows to fill any new capacity.

Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would entail.

That is why I believe that at least we need to explore the contribution road pricing can make to tackling congestion. It would not be in anyone's interests, especially those of motorists, to slam the door shut on road pricing without exploring it further.

It has been calculated that a national scheme - as part of a wider package of measures - could cut congestion significantly through small changes in our overall travel patterns. But any technology used would have to give definite guarantees about privacy being protected - as it should be. Existing technologies, such as mobile phones and pay-as-you-drive insurance schemes, may well be able to play a role here, by ensuring that the Government doesn't hold information about where vehicles have been. But there may also be opportunities presented by developments in new technology. Just as new medical technology is changing the NHS, so there will be changes in the transport sector. Our aim is to relieve traffic jams, not create a "Big Brother" society.

I know many people's biggest worry about road pricing is that it will be a "stealth tax" on motorists. It won't. Road pricing is about tackling congestion.

Clearly if we decided to move towards a system of national road pricing, there could be a case for moving away from the current system of motoring taxation. This could mean that those who use their car less, or can travel at less congested times, in less congested areas, for example in rural areas, would benefit from lower motoring costs overall. Those who travel longer distances at peak times and in more congested areas would pay more. But those are decisions for the future. At this stage, when no firm decision has been taken as to whether we will move towards a national scheme, stories about possible costs are simply not credible, since they depend on so many variables yet to be investigated, never mind decided.

Before we take any decisions about a national pricing scheme, we know that we have to have a system that works. A system that respects our privacy as individuals. A system that is fair. I fully accept that we don't have all the answers yet. That is why we are not rushing headlong into a national road pricing scheme. Before we take any decisions there would be further consultations. The public will, of course, have their say, as will Parliament.

We want to continue this debate, so that we can build a consensus around the best way to reduce congestion, protect the environment and support our businesses. If you want to find out more, please visit the attached links to more detailed information, and which also give opportunities to engage in further debate.

Yours sincerely,

Tony Blair

I too have had the response from whatever official was tasked with sending it. The one phrase that does it for me is near the end of the penultimate paragraph - "The public will, of course, have their say", [sarcastic mode on] yeah, of course they will....[sarcastic mode off].

Over 1.7 million have recently had their say but will they be listened to? Going on past record my instinct is they will not.

Well I kind of take your point Pretzel, and yeah it's a good thing to be cynical.  But politicians do care about the prospect of losing 1.7 million votes!  Use your vote - and speak out for what you believe in.
Jumps off soap box.

I suspect that some poor sod of a researcher is working out how many of the people who signed up live in marginal constituancies.  ;D

I did hear a minister on the box this morning say 'if it is introduced', last week it was 'when'.

Let's watch the hypocritical bastards squirm.

I read somewhere (maybe further up this thread??) that the govt actually was quite pleased with this petition as it has garnered them 1.8 email addresses for future use...

Well Ive not recieved my email from Tony, Prob because we live in the Tory hartland (not my hart though) and are assumed to be one of Devious Dave's bandits.

Just found my reply from the lovely Tony,its was in my junk box, how apt is that!!!

Funny mine was in the same place. As you say Ian very apt.