Drivers to pay extra climate costs

[fungus]

I have just been browsing Pistonheads and found this,




Tuesday 13th OctoberDRIVERS TO PAY EXTRA 'CLIMATE COSTS'?
Climate Change Committee demands big increases in fuel and road tax



Road pricing forms major part of strategyThe cost of motoring could be set to rocket in the next decade, if the UK's independent advisory committee on climate change gets its way.

A report published by the Committee on Climate Change - an independent body established under the Climate Change Act last year - recommends that a national road pricing system and significant hikes in fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty should be introduced. The committee has also demanded more stringent enforcement of speed limits.

The plans form part of a wide-ranging package to bring down average new car emissions down to 95g/km of CO2 from today's figure of 150+g/km.

"It is sometimes argued that if road pricing were to be introduced this would have to be offset by a reduction in fuel duty" says the committee's report. "From a carbon perspective, however, this would result in increased emissions (i.e. fuel consumption and emissions are potentially more responsive to fuel duty than to road pricing). From an emissions perspective, therefore, road pricing should be introduced as a complement to fuel duty rather than a substitute."

Far from reducing the cost of road tax, the report actually recommends significant increases in that, too: "Fuel duty is a potentially powerful lever in encouraging purchase of lower carbon cars (e.g. a 10% increase in petrol prices through a fuel duty increase could result in a 4% decrease in fuel used per kilometre)."

The report concludes that road pricing could be a "useful component of a strategy for transport emissions reduction, and the Committee recommends that this should be seriously considered by the Government."

The committee also suggests that a rigorous enforcement of motorway speed limits - which could possibly be lowered to 60mph - as a way of helping to reduce emissions. It says that this could be done either through an increased use of speed cameras or using Intelligent Speed Adaptation, which could potentially enforce physical speed limits on cars fitted with such technology.

The report also advises that the UK ought to have "3.9 million drivers trained and practicing eco-driving by 2020" and that it wants "240 thousand electric cars and plug-in hybrids by 2015, and 1.7 million by 2020, supported by appropriate charging infrastructure."
Author: Riggers

I can only assume that the members of the climate change committee are being paid enormous salaries, as they obviously don't seem to be worried by the effects that their proposed measures will have on the economy and jobs. The cost of consumer goods will increase by a considerable amount, which will push up inflation, leaving the poorest struggling even more. Many families will be adversely affected, as for many there is not a viable alternative to using their car.

As a driving instructor these measures will push up costs considerably.

Take the typical one hour lesson. The pupil might drive ten or twelve miles. At the proposed £1.50 per mile, thats £15-£18per lesson on road charges. Add in the extra increase that they propose for fuel duty and vehicle excise duty, and what would I have to charge to cover costs, let alone make a profit.

Nigel ADI
IAM observer

[jont]

I wonder how many miles could be saved if stamp duty were abolished. Many people commute long distances because the cost of moving house is prohibitive. But of course, this proposed measure has very little to do with real change, and everything to do with the huge black hole in the governments coffers. It also seems they have realised that ever more efficient cars will drop their tax take from fuel duty alone and therefore need some other measure to compensate.

[zadocbrown]

I wonder how many miles could be saved if stamp duty were abolished. Many people commute long distances because the cost of moving house is prohibitive.

Yes. If we stopped looking for ways to force people off the road while lining the pockets of the government; and started to examine why we need to travel so much in the first place, we might make some progress. Most of the journeys made in cars are the result of economic, social and logistical pressures - nobody ever made a journey just because the price of fuel was favourable.

[daz6215]

Most of the work that goes on in offices could be done in homes these day's, the whole working culture needs to change if they want people to change their driving behaviour. The infrastructure of the western world is currently built around the road networks, do they really believe people will abandon their cars in favour of an unreliable public transport system? never in a million years! the cause of the traffic on the road lies with people commuting back and forth to their place of work, so if their place of work was able to be done from home then why not?

[waremark]

For those of us who enjoy driving more than we enjoy saving the world the credit crunch may prove to have a silver lining. The man who matters here is David Cameron. How much have you heard him talking about green issues recently? He will have far more immediate problems to worry about when he takes office, and will be reluctant to adopt policies which will make it harder to recover from the economic crisis.

Meanwhile I believe that the most popular announcement from the party conference season was the conservative promise that there would be no more speed cameras. I suspect public opinion is: 'if the price of making the roads safer is more speed cameras, then it is not a price worth paying'. And the conservatives are going along with it.

[TripleS]

Apart from a powerful urge to tell the Climate Change Committeee where to go, words fail me; almost!

As somebody has already said, a lot of our problems could be eased considerably by changes to working arrangements; and fuel consumption and emissions could also be usefully reduced if we got rid of the added congestion that is being caused by Local Authorities and their barmy 'Traffic Management' policies. They are adding to our problems rather than improving anything.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[nodigitsever]

and still there is no absolute proof that Global Warming is man made!, despite the FACT that the Sun is hotter than any time in the last 1,000 Years!

it's all about TAX Ladies and Gents

you would not really trust a Government that are Fraudsters would you?, ie. MP's expenses and getting away with Fraud?

"THERE WILL BE NO BIRMINGHAM NORTHERN RELIEF ROAD"!

liars, liars liars!

[nodigitsever]

do TRAITORS have the right to be in Authority?

Assassinate the lot of them!

[michael769]

despite the FACT that the Sun is hotter than any time in the last 1,000 Years!

There's no absolute proof of that either. We've only been able to measure the temperature accurately for about 75 years!

[Porker]

This is an interesting item on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=216v5AoQcFQ

regards
P.

[kfae8959]

Oh dear. Oh dear indeed. I'd like to encourage readers of this forum to exercise the same discretion about Mr Beck that the general public in the US already uses automatically!

[Porker]

You may not be a fan of the man, but which part of what he said was untrue?

P.

[kfae8959]

Well, there's plenty of literature available to help us inform ourselves - far more than I could sensibly cite here. The solecism of Beck's segment is his elision of "global warming" (a term that has fallen out of use because it's widely recognised as misleading) with "climate change".

David

[Gareth]

"global warming" (a term that has fallen out of use because it's widely recognised as misleading) with "climate change".

The substituted phrase not only replaces global warming but also the concerns of a couple of decades ago that we were headed towards another ice age. It seems to me that if some people are claiming that humans are causing greater change in the environment beyond the 'climate change' that is naturally occuring, they ought to be able to do better than simply say it is (still?) changing.

Beyond that there is the dishonesty of first saying that the earth is warming up, and then without a word of explanation why that model is no longer correct, to say it is changing more.

[crr003]

Well, there's plenty of literature available to help us inform ourselves - far more than I could sensibly cite here. The solecism of Beck's segment is his elision of "global warming" (a term that has fallen out of use because it's widely recognised as misleading) with "climate change".

Good post - not often I have to look up what two words mean in a post!
Always learning..................