more road tolls in the UK

Good or bad? surely motorists will be septical

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20822724

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This is not going to be popular, we already have enough complaints about the cost of driving in general with petrol costs, people will be sceptical about the private companies ability to set a price structure and how well roads will be maintained, since as things are things aren't great.

The Coalition should write a book tbh..

"U-turns, flip flops and how not to get re-elected."

Reply 2

Rakas21

A very good policy targeting the people that use these roads rather than making everybody pay via income tax or VAT.

Reply 3

squishy123

Original post by Rakas21

A very good policy targeting the people that use these roads rather than making everybody pay via income tax or VAT.

I may be wrong here but are the monies needed to build/repair infrastructures of the UK raised from selling Government bonds?

Reply 4

wildrover

Why don't they spend the money they earn on road tax on the roads instead of benefits for the workshy and EU projects likethe flying gorrillas dance troup. It's not as if you have any choice but to drive as public transport is simply awful and expensive.

Reply 5

Rakas21

Original post by squishy123

I may be wrong here but are the monies needed to build/repair infrastructures of the UK raised from selling Government bonds?

Government bonds cover all borrowing, there's no specific thing it's spent on (that's what project bonds are).

Reply 6

The Mr Z

Original post by Rakas21

A very good policy targeting the people that use these roads rather than making everybody pay via income tax or VAT.

You've not heard of road tax and fuel duty I take it?

Reply 7

Rakas21

Original post by The Mr Z

You've not heard of road tax and fuel duty I take it?

Yes, i'd love to abolish them in favour of tolls.

Reply 8

The Mr Z

Original post by Rakas21

Yes, i'd love to abolish them in favour of tolls.

Who pays for the non-toll roads? You know, 99% of the roads in the country.

You thought that one through, I can tell.

Reply 9

The_Internet

Just been reading through the comments and I've never been on the M6 toll - mainly because I've never had to drive any where past Birmingham, and this comment made a lot of sense

"So... a toll road! Anyone looked at the M6 toll road recently? It's an amazing bit of road - almost free of traffic. Even when the M6 is blocked it's still freeflowing. The charges are exorbitant (especially if you live half way along it and you still have to pay the full price). The private company running it is still struggling to make it profitable, so that looks a good model to copy eh?"

Someone from Germany pointed out that years ago, a toll was made for HGV's on the autobahn, so they started using the smaller roads, and then a toll was made on those roads, so now they use country roads instead. Way to go gov't. Go follow a policy that's failed miserably elsewhere, but instead of creating a **** storm for a minority of vehicles, you're effectively forcing millions of cars on to smaller roads (A roads?)

And then if you copy the German model once again, but by applying it across the board, people would start to use country road, towns, cities, villages etc... Yeah the people are really going to love that idea....

There are many laws that non motorists can see, and think "Ha. Im glad I don't have a car etc..." but these laws, if expanded will hit every one across the country, because let's face it, who really pays the toll unless there really are no other roads available?

The only time I could actually see myself on a toll road is if a company is paying for that route, or if in the near future I have a (pregnant) wife and you need to go the hospital and she's screaming in the car, and you get yourself down to the nearest hospital (which happens to be past a toll road), and you go on the toll road for your own sanity, and to get her there as soon as possible.

Come to think of it, it could be applied to all emergencies.

The only other time I can think of me using a toll road, is when the alternatives are far too confusing ie: you have to go down a *lot* of side roads, small roads etc... and can become easily lost and/or when it's actually cheaper to pay the toll than go around it, or when you need to get somewhere fast (ie: the example above), so you pay the toll

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 10

Rakas21

Original post by The Mr Z

Who pays for the non-toll roads? You know, 99% of the roads in the country.

You thought that one through, I can tell.

Alternatively you could think logically, i would simply increase the number of toll roads.

Reply 11

ch0llima

Watch as these charges come in yet there is absolutely no increase in road maintenance as a result. Sorry, but I've been driving since mid-2004 and you become very cynical about these things.

Reply 12

The Mr Z

Original post by Rakas21

Alternatively you could think logically, i would simply increase the number of toll roads.

You haven't thought about the infrastructural requirements. Suppose every motorway and A-road in the country was a Toll road. That still leaves over 90% of roads as non-toll roads because, surprise, the majority of the roads in the country are B-roads and lower.

B-roads and lower, like for example the one leading to your front door, cannot feasibly be turned into Toll roads.

Now, given these toll roads are being operated by private companies with a responsibility only to maintain the toll road itself and taking all money left-over from that as profit, rather than using it to subsidise upkeep of other roads, you're now expecting maintainance of all the other roads in the country to come from general taxation.

In the meantime, fuel duty effective forms a tax on distance and speed travelled on all roads. And given the wear and subsequent required mantainance of road surface is dependent on the frequency and speed on which it is driven, the total amount of fuel used is roughly proportional to the required mantainance of the nations' roads.

So, either you go for toll roads on all the important routes and general taxation paying for upkeep of all other roads, or you go for fuel duty and drivers paying for upkeep of that which they drive on. Which of those is more in line with your principles?

You're a really rubbish conservative.

Reply 13

Hopple

I don't get why it must be privately owned? Sure if it's profitable for a private company to run, the government can run it for cheaper and break even. I also wonder about the risk of regional monopolies with some companies charging stupid money, maybe leading to the government having to subsidise tolls until the contract is over - it's not as if it's easy for another company to build a competing motorway.

There's also the fact that to run a car on the roads costs money already, the government gets enough to repair and build roads from road tax, petrol tax etc.

Reply 14

The Mr Z

Original post by Hopple

Because this is a post-Thatcher neo-Liberal plan. A state-run toll system like the French have would be superior in almost every way, but UK politics has forgotten the concept of state-owned enterprise in favour of blind privatisation and pandering to vested interests.

Reply 15

Sephiroth

This plan will fail miserably. I don't drive but I am planning to by this time next year because the bus services in the northeast are atrocious, and that's without factoring in the crazy prices. But as a money saver I would not go near a toll road unless I was desperate, IE emergency. Unfortunately forcing more people on to A and B roads is just going to lead to more congestion and more accidents. But that's all fine as long as some rich company can earn a few quid...

Reply 16

MagicNMedicine

Original post by Rakas21

A very good policy targeting the people that use these roads rather than making everybody pay via income tax or VAT.

I agree with Rakas here and fair play for him being the one sticking his neck out. Systems based on user charges like this that mean the people that benefit most from particular roads, pay the most, are the most efficient. They provide the best incentives to changing behaviour in an efficient way - if a road is expensive to maintain or very much in demand (and hence likely to be congested), the toll goes up, increasing the incentive for those that don't absolutely need to use it, to find alternative routes. The problem with freely provided services whereby the user doesn't pay at the point of use is that they just provide incentives to overconsume.

I find a lot of the time there's a lot of hypocrisy amongst advocates of low taxes and the small state, they want the low taxes but they still expect lots of things to be provided for free. I bet a lot of people that criticise the size of the state, would be horrified at the thought of having to pay tolls on every road, because they expect to be able to freeload.

It's similar with healthcare, if you want to move to a system of more private provision its logical to expect people to pay user charges and those that turn up in A&E smashed on a Friday night to be expected to pay for the privilege of their treatment, or for smokers/the obese to have to pay higher contributions to the cost of healthcare: this is what a private system would ensure, but sometimes you find the same small state pro privatisation people argue against this on the grounds of the "nanny state" deciding who should and shouldn't get treatment.

Reply 17

username129099

Once again the government scrabbling about to get money rather than addressing the actual problem. £50bn is taken from road users every year, only a small amount is spent on the roads. Once again another form of stealth tax, taking more while convincing people you aren't.

Perhaps we should look at why our roads are overloaded. Perhaps if our rail network wasn't so stupidly expensive due to years of private underinvestment ( :rolleyes:

) then we might alleviate the pressure on our road network.

It won't improve the road network, people aren't going to suddenly stop using key road routes, just like they can't avoid using other critical parts of our countries infrastructure. Why on earth would a company improve the quality of it service instead of lining its pockets when people are going to use the product regardless. Quite simply they won't, as has been seen in the UK train network, the water network, the telecommunications system. We seen this happen before and its failed.

Reply 18

thunder_chunky

Original post by ch0llima

Watch as these charges come in yet there is absolutely no increase in road maintenance as a result. Sorry, but I've been driving since mid-2004 and you become very cynical about these things.

I think you raise a pretty good point here. Unless it means a great increase in care of roads, as well as all round management of them then I think this will just piss a lot of people off even more. And it's private companies. I don't see it ending well.