If you drive a car, perhaps you should know about this - the government propose to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

If you would like to object to this proposal, there's a petition you can sign at:

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

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.

"A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month."

That's the idea sold on me.

However the cost of Tax Disk would likely be reduced and petrol duty could be cut dramatically. Insurance premiums would also be allocated fairly not to mention the hard to quantify saving on reduced emissions and taxes to pay for less roads and their maintenance.

Nothing is ever black and white!

Mike - I think you can safely say we'll all lose out no matter which way you look at it!

Nothing is free but pollution brings many costs.
If paying by the mile makes us consider our travel patterns and, equally importantly, is accompanied by vastly improved public transport then I'm all in favour of it.
So Jim Corstorphine ye can stick yir petition!!!

Never mind getting to work with the car, the feckers are going to get us going to Elgin or Berwick.

I'm with Eugene on this one. We are going to have to look at new ways of reducing the number of cars on the road, particularly at peak times.
Better, more affordable, public transport would make us take the politicians' more seriously though...

Mike Flett - what do you know?

Who are we cutting the emissions for ? Is it for generations to come ? The same generations who drive aimlessly back and forward along seaside proms all night going from nowhere to nowhere. Youngsters idea of a night out is four of them all take their own cars to the same place. Once they show a little concern for the future of the planet I might think about energy savings. I won't be here in 30 years time, they will !!

Whilst Eugene makes a good point, it is the same old story of putting the cart before the horse,penalise the drivers who have to use their cars, because there is no feasible public transport alternative. Then try and use the funds brought in from these stealth taxes to provide better public transport. The alternatives should be in place before the penalties are in place!!

I agree Stuart - I should have made that clear.

Incidentally the email Jim refers to has some nonsense about needing 750,000 people to sign in order to stop the law. This of course is absolute myth - the UK legislative process doesn't work that way thank God otherwise we'd have all sorts of numpties passing laws.

How about if you have one car in the family you pay e.g. £100 road tax p.a. Second car £200 p.a. Third car £400 p.a. doubling each time.

I agree with all the sentiments about cutting emissions etc., and Stuart Kirkcaldy has hit the nail right on the head with his views . What we should be looking at is providing a clean, environmentally friendly public transport system.
And if you're all quite happy for a tracking device to be fitted to your car that will be able to record speeds etc., that's fine. Just as long as you're still smiling when speeding fines for creeping up to 31mph in a 30mph zone drop through your letter box along with your monthly charge.
As for you, Clarkie, you're not my friend anynmore and I'll see you outside at four o'clock. And anyway, it isn't MY petition!!! So there.

Eugene many aspects to global warming are still not clear although the powers that be try to make us think it is. I do agree however that reducing our increasingly use of non- replacable natural resources is madness.

And if you think at present our laws are not already being passed by numpties, in the main for self-interest, I would consider your opinions flawed.

Brilliant

Lots of guys talking about things they have not a clue about.
Sort of like an ordinary Saturday at Bayview!

"And if you think at present our laws are not already being passed by numpties, in the main for self-interest, I would consider your opinions flawed"

Well picked up Hear Hear. Didn't think the response would be so quick!

What we really need is a benevolent despot - ME.

Don't think you could do any worse, Eugene. Then again I have been known to have been wrong before!

Clarky, I would vote for you. Your socialist/East Fife agenda would get my vote any day. Think you might struggle to attract the female vote though. I am not saying that you are ugly or anything, just the wee girl still wakes up screaming in the night shouting about the Clarky Monster!

More seriously, I am with big Jim C on this. The motorist is penalised enough. Have you ever met a foreign visitor who has remarked about how cheap petrol here is? As for public transport, I looked into this to get to my work. As I am a shift worker, it cannot be done. In order to get to my work for the 8am start, I have to leave the house at 5am, to travel the 25 miles. There is no public transport that can get me home off the night shift and where it can be done, it is too costly in any case. Just another reason why I will never be heard shouting Gordon Brown's bouncy army (Jonathon will tell you about this, the people of Kirkcaldy have no shame).

I would rather pay as it is just now, as i drive 1000 miles a week delivering in the west of Scotland.A tracking device will kill all small businesses.