Title: Road Pricing U turn
Date: 25/06/2009
URL: www.driversalliance.org.uk

Preview: "We definitely are not proceeding with national road user charging in the next Parliament," said Lord Adonis the Secretary of State for Transport.

He went on to say: "It will not be in the manifesto for the next election".

Road pricing was one of New Labour's most heralded projects just 3 years ago and was "inevitable" with plans for 10 regional centres to roll out congestion charging as a forerunner to the national scheme.

However, a petition placed on the Downing Street website was inundated with signatures; so many that it crashed to Downing Street website several times. In just 12 weeks, 1.81 Million people had signed and Road Pricing was under the spotlight as never before.

In theory, it sounds like a good idea, but in practice the arguments in favour simply fall apart...


Paying as you drive and for the roads you use seems quite sensible and can appeal to some but there are significant flaws with this theory.

First is the cost associated with the infrastructure and the administration of Road Pricing. The governments own estimates showed a national scheme using satellite tracking would cost each driver around £535 a year just to pay for the system. This is on top of the current levels of VED and fuel tax.

Then there are the issues with privacy.

Road pricing simply cannot work unless it can know your whereabouts and when you were there. Pricing a journey through road pricing demands the system records your journey, including speed, where you parked, where you are and when you were there. For many people this is simply not acceptable even in the advanced surveillance society in which we live today.

The petition which began the demise of road pricing became a catalyst which encouraged many people to object and oppose its introduction.  With this announcement from Lord Adonis, it is clear the threat has receded but we must never underestimate the determination of those companies and politicians who stand to gain from its introduction. There is also pressure from the European Union with their need to finance the Galileo satellite project. EU wide road pricing was the key funding source for Galileo.

Peter Roberts who started the 1.8 Million signature petition now runs the Drivers' Alliance and has campaigned tirelessly against road pricing and congestion charging. On hearing this news, Peter's reaction was:

"It is good news that the government has at last recognised road pricing is an unfair and unjust imposition on motorists. Drivers' already pay a fortune to the government for the use of their cars through petrol tax and VED. It is a relief that they have finally decided to scrap the idea".

"It is unfortunate it has taken so many expensive national polls, surveys and campaigns before ministers actually listened to people instead of their corporate advisers. Ministers should now stop the ongoing technology trials for road pricing. Any further government expenditure on these fatally flawed schemes is a complete waste of taxpayers' money".

However, not everyone is pleased. The decision to drop national road pricing was condemned by Stephen Joseph, executive director of the Campaign for Better Transport.

"I think this is completely unrealistic," he said.

"If road use continues to grow, some means will have to be found to deal with it. If we are not to have old-fashioned Soviet rationing by queues, sooner or later a Government will have to look at pricing."

However, individual vehicle use is not increasing as revealed in a research document released by the Drivers' Alliance in February. There are indeed more people using a vehicle because there are more people but individual use remains static.

What we need is the roads to cater for the increase in demand. After all, we are building more trains and buses as demand grows, why not roads?

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