http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18064363

I'm expecting you and your vehicle being tracked no matter what happens

Against.
this is what a tolled motorway looks like :


AKA maintained, renovated so that fuel consumption is lower, where high speeds can safely be maintained. It costs a lot more per mile than a mile of english motorway.

Selling the existing road stock to private companies sounds ridiculous. those motorways are incredibly run down already and will get worse if managed by private companies.
But it seems this country hasn't yet realised that PPIs and contracting out vital parts of the economy doesn't make sense.

PPI is the stupidest idea since the soft cheese cauldron.

if anybody believes that other road/car/fuel taxes will vanish or be reduced if and when they (whoever) allow road tolls
please think again because its not going to happen, it will just mean another added tax ...

maybe when the big boys pay tax it may help the average person ...

the truth about tax via panorama on the BBC ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... About_Tax/

+1 for against. Chances are whatever new system would work out to be more expensive for drivers. Pay-by-the-mile woulf probably involve black boxes fitted to cars, collecting more than just what type of road you're on.

Pay by the mile would have to be more expensive overall. The government needs x amount of revenue, but then there's the cost of running the system on top of that.

You can guarantee any black boxes, not already fitted to new cars (as I believe the US is planning to do soon), will cost the driver/owner money to have fitted and maintained.

I'm against tolls on principle. You only need to look at the Dartford crossing to understand why. In that case, the tolls were introduced to fund a second tunnel bore, then a bridge. Now both have been paid for, why are we still forced to pay money to use it? The claim is the money is used for maintenance, but it's a nice little earner in reality. Captive market and all that. Personally, I avoid it and use the Blackwall tunnel, or time my crossings during the free periods overnight.

If we have a road system funded from taxation - as it is now - then bloomin' well spend some of the tax income on the infrastructure. Don't privatise it, especially if it means I don't get a chance to avoid a privately-owned road if I want to.

Perhaps the money collected from the road fund licence should be spend on the roads. For a change.

It's not been a road fund licence since the 1937. All proceeds since then have gone to the Exchequer.

Why? We have much more important things to fund than roads.

There's always something more important than infrastructure.
Infrastructure is like water supply and electricity, we take it for granted until it's not working anymore.
It's a lot cheaper to resurface a road than redo it from scratch.

Some insurance companies have started a black box scheme.

Signing up for it reduces your premium, with the opportunity to reduce it further depending on driving data recorded by the box. The cost of the box and fitting is (apparently) more than offset by the savings. It collates info about cornering speeds, accelleration rates, average speed and rapid braking to produce a score; which will dictate what, if any, further reductions you are entitled to.

You can log in at any time and see your current score, presumably to keep tabs on your own driving, or your partner's (if you share a car).

I can see that kind of thing increasing, maybe even becoming mandatory, and eventually being used for road usage pricing.

My worry is that it could be used to punish you. Take a corner a tad harder than you ordinarily would - whoops! That's 3 points and a £60 fine (or whatever it is these days). Speed hit 30.1mph? Bam! 3pts and a fine. Try to avoid a pothole? That's erratic driving. Points and fine! Revved the engine too hard? More points and fine.

This is my worry with blackboxes being fitted to cars. It's snooping through the back door.

Yep. You do get the feeling that it's only a matter of time.

which ever costs me less