13.2.07

Anti road-pricing petition - Is this real democracy?

zero emissionsMore than a million people have signed a petition against road-pricing. Do they realise that it was started by an organisation that still refuses to believe the link between man-made emissions and global warming.

Is this real democracy? Will the government again be bullied into backing down on dealing with the problem of congestion and climate change by another knee-jerk reaction? I for one hope the Government remembers their indifference to the million-people-march against the war in Iraq.

The petition argues that the distance we drive is already taxed via fuel. This may be true for now, but - as more environmentally-friendly fuels are used - won't there be a proportionate decrease in revenue from these vehicles?

There are already approximately 32million cars on British roads and this figure is rising all the time. It is doubtful that more roads would ever be able to meet the increasing demand. The more congested our roads become, the less efficient combustion engines become. Put simply, more congestion = more emissions.

Luckily, not all motoring organisations are in denial. Check out this future car rally planned for World Environment Day (050607): Revolve: Towards Zero Emissions

For the sake of media headlines, if nothing else, you can sign one/all of these counter-argument petitions here:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TRACK-CARS/
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/proroad-pricing/
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/yes2roadpricing/

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one! I was hoping there was someone else out there who agreed with me.

Anonymous said...

Strike one for sense and justice!! The Government gets lots of slagging (and sometimes rightly so) for all sorts of things but is doing it's job properly when it considers a number of proposals on issues like this, including radical ones, gets them as far out into the public consciousness as possible and consults widely and properly on how their policy on the topic should grow and develop.
End of party political broadcast - but I'm forwarding this further to try to do my bit.

Anonymous said...

There is already a running topic on this on the ctc forum.
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4400

Anonymous said...

My working life is focused on travelling the length and breadth of the country to undertake my roles in life and for me, and many thousands of others, the car is an invaluable resource without which I could not function. There is simply not a 'public' or commercial transport structure that is affordable, convenient or available for me to do the job I do now, and one I am about to take up. However, thank you for attempting to put a balanced view - I hope it doesn't succeed.