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Thumbs down to `guinea pig' city car trial

Clasrissa Satchell
7/ 6/2005

A PAY-AS-YOU-GO car trial in Manchester would prompt an outcry from business - and `Big Brother' complaints from civil liberties groups.

The Department for Transport has said Manchester is in the running to become a pilot for a scheme to charge drivers up to '1.34 a mile during rush hour.

Each car and lorry would be fitted with a black box to monitor all journeys.

Emma Antrobus, from Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, said: "We've been talking about road charges for years and some businesses believe there is a certain inevitability about them."

But she believes the majority of Manchester's businesses would be against a pilot scheme.

"If you look at other computer-based schemes that have gone forward nationally, like passports and child tax, the government doesn't have a great record of bringing them in smoothly and it could be very disruptive.

Revenue

"I think people would be reluctant to be seen as guinea pigs. But we need a solution to congestion and there is no easy option."

Paul Watters, head of road and transport policy for the AA motoring trust, also foresees technical problems. "It could be very confusing for people trying to understand the different tariffs.

"The idea of doing a pilot could help iron out some of the problems and I think Manchester has all the ingredients, being encircled by the M60 and a vibrant city with a light rapid transport scheme.

"It will be very interesting to see the impact on cities. There will be impacts on retail but since every city is different even a pilot scheme in one city might not give the full picture."

Improved

Steve Housham from Transport 2000, the national environmental transport body, said they supported road charging but public transport schemes like Metrolink should be improved first.

Brian Gregory, a founder of the Association of British Drivers, said he thought people in Manchester would refuse to allow the pilot. "I can foresee this becoming the government's poll tax on wheels. For it to work everyone will have to have a black box in their car and people will refuse on civil liberty grounds, I certainly will."

Steven Durrant, secretary for Manchester Green Party, said: "Although it's a good thing to try to reduce congestion, it is not challenging reliance on the car but just making people use their cars in other places instead.

"There's also a civil liberties angle in terms of tracking cars using satellite technology."

A spokesman for civil liberties action group Christian Voice said: "The technology they depend on will track every vehicle fitted with the `spy-in-the-car' black box.

"Motorists will be paying for the transmitter and for the miles they drive, but the spin-off is that the government will know where every car is at every moment."

A Transport Department spokesman said: "Nowhere has been selected as the pilot yet, but we need to pick somewhere with a potential congestion problem that is also a large urban area. Clearly Manchester, and other places, fit that description."

Do you agree with the pay-as-you-go idea? Have your say.


| Submit CommentSubmit Comments | View CommentsView Comments(11)


Most recent 2 of 11 user comments

   Motorists have paid for their roads many times over, and now we are expected to pay again. People living in the same town or city as they work have a greater opportunity to use public transport, but there will never be enough seats for everybody. If you have to commute to a different town, public transport is often a disaster. and what about where there is none? Someone who needs to use a motorway during rush hour on a 30 mile round trip will get back nearly B#1000 in motoring taxes, but will have a mileage bill of around B#10,000. This will lead to social exclusion, a collapse of society and possibly violent anarchy as people see their ability to function in modern society destroyed. Just picture it, hardly any goods or food in the shops because companies can't get any employees to deliver, because these people will almost certainly need to drive to work, but can't afford it. No one, driver or not, will escape the consequences of this. It's the first step in the systematic planned extinction of the driver. Anyone who thinks this will benefit the country just because they don't like the car needs to seriously consider what life will be like without it. Thought out by simpletons and rubber stamped by control freaks. Disastrous!
S. Fermor, Redditch
11/06/2005 at 08:30

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   I shall be campaigning against this measure also. Consider the following points :- The revenue raised from motorists in Britain from petrol tax alone is truly enormous. I would guess that it is comparable to the third world debt that our wonderful helpful government is so generously attempting to write off. Yet how much of this absolutely astronomical fortune is spent on improving the efficiency of cars, developing new propulsion systems, improving transport infrastructure and, yes b" even improving "public" transport or any other aspect of the transport that we need in our daily lives ? From what I can see it is very little.

I do not understand why the government needs to know where we are every minute of every day; what is going on ? This smacks of tyranny in the making and the cost to us will be tyrannical anyway ! There are hidden agendas here.

The government obviously has not learnt anything from the fiasco over petrol prices just a few years ago, many hauliers are already on the brink of bankruptcy !

One other point (as has been exemplified by the London Congestion charge), why is it that Politicians and other officials don't pay THEIR share out of THEIR pockets like the rest of us ? Why does their own usage cost get levied on the public purse, especially when they are amongst the best paid and well healed in the country ?

We need some REAL problem solvers in this country, not the trouble-making vandals who are in charge now.
A.Jerram, Cornwall
10/06/2005 at 15:29

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