Category
Road Charging
‘Road charging’, also known as ‘road pricing’, is the notion of charging road users based purely upon the distance they travel, which, unlike fuel tax, necessitates some kind of tracking of every vehicle’s movement.
The first proposal, by the Labour Government in 2007, was soundly defeated by a petition on the government’s own website, started by ABD member Peter Roberts β which gained over 1.8 million signatures.
In an ABD press release on 11 Jan 2007, Peter Roberts said: “I have always reacted strongly against the idea of paying per mile to use the roads. It is going to be unfair, and will limit our personal freedom and economic activity. It will be colossally expensive to implement and time consuming for drivers as they work out how to minimise the cost of their journeys β or even whether they can afford to travel at all. Road pricing has nothing to recommend it, especially when fuel duty already charges people according to how far they drive. This all seems blindingly obvious to me β so starting the petition seemed the logical thing to do.”
This defeat did not of course removed this intrusive mentality from the minds of those who seek power over us. So every now and again some evil politician or bureaucrat tries to raise the issue again.
