I’ve got my tin hat on, as I’m expecting to get shot down in flames, but I thought I’d let you have a look at my reply to T Blair’s Email on road pricing.
I’m not asking anyone to do anything, but, if they have any thoughts on this issue, and have time. Maybe they would like to send a reply, if he gets enough, reasoned, arguments, against road pricing, and possible alternatives, he may start to take notice.
Dear Tony.
I am writing this to you, as my PM and my MP.
You have recently had this petition which shows you how strongly a lot of people involved in transport feel, about road charging, and it has been commented that you now have a large Database of email addresses that you may be able to use to ‘sell’ your congestion charging policies to. However, looking at it another way, you also have a large database of, mostly, drivers. Who don’t want to be stuck in traffic jams, for both environmental, financial, and lifestyle reasons?
I for example upon till recently ran a fairly successful bulk haulage transport company, unfortunately due to the poor availability off decent staff, red tape, lack of profitability and very little optimism for improvement in the future. I have recently sold all but one truck, I am only one man, and this is by no means a begging or a moaning email, hopefully it will serve to open your eyes to life in the poorer side of industry, and I would like to do that by raising 2 points
(1) Figures are being bandied about of £1.00 a mile for road pricing. I realise that if this does occur, it will only be on very small stretches of roads at the highest of peak times, however, to try and put this into perspective. The Trucks I was running were fully grossed out at 44t (this means they were actually carrying just short of 30t) and at these rates our target fuel consumption was better than 40l/100km or 7mpg! At 90ppl that works out at a fuel cost of 36p/km or 58ppl, approximately. This is without taking into account wages, insurance, maintenance, tyres etc. This all has to be paid out of a target charge rate of £1.60/mile which normally ended up nearer £1.40. So basically an extra £1.00/ mile would increase cost by 71% on the most fuel efficient/ tonne moved mode of road transport in Britain.
(2) There must be many ways to decrease congestion before road charging, I immediately can of several.
The cheapest has to be educating drivers how to drive! How many times have you seen a 4 lane motorway with the outside lane ‘nose to tail’ and nothing at all in the inside lane The highway code states that you should return to the inside lane after completing an overtaking manoeuvre, force the public to do it, fine them if they don’t, think of the revenue earning potential there?
The other obvious one is to reintroduce school buses, and reduce the radius for free travel to 2km, I know there is a cost there, but the congestion caused by the ‘school run’ is enormous, and it may even dissuade a few people from having a 2nd car.
There are loads.
My main point being. you have not only just received a huge database, you have also just received a huge knowledge base, why not send out a questionnaire to all that voted, and ask for any suggestions, you may be surprised by the ingenuity of some of your replies, and lets face it, all that advise will be free. I do hope that someone with some common sense gets to read this email, and I would thoroughly appreciate a reasoned reply
