Road tax set to double....

[G60Jet 1]

Global warming = end of last ice age....the ice has been melting since then...of course its going to speed up theres less and less ice to keep the oceans temp down.....basic science me thinks.

[vr6storm 0]

I hardly think our nation of 60million by going green is going to save the planet when China's 1.3 Billion nation are in the middle of a massive car ownership explosion not to mention their power station building phase they are going through

[PhatVR6 0]

rip off britain as per usual

[mic_VR 3]

If I were you I'd get that tax done tomorrow Roddy, because if he increases Road Tax it will be with immediate effect - I got caught out by this 4-5 years ago and got stung for an extra tenner.

 

And no - it doesn't matter what the amount on the renewal form is - check the small print - they can increase it if Brown increases it in the Budget :(

 

You're kidding! I've got to get my insurance before I can tax the car, that won't be until next week now...... Damn money grabbing b*****ds! :mad:

[Jim 2]

Thing is though - I do agree that we need to do something about our usage of the automobile in this country. The dependence we have on cars is just insane. The traffic around where I work just drives me insane. Trying to get to and from work on a day is just beyond belief sometimes.

 

Problem is I don't think taxing us more and more is the answer.. all that happens is it just comes out of our pockets and goes into the governments so that they can spend it on things that we don't want or benefit from. What the hell does that achieve? Its not saving the environment.. its just ripping us off!

[scarlet_vr6 0]

deep breath otherwise I'll rant. This sort of thing really makes me angry. It is (as everyone has said) just another con. The global warming doesn't exist nearly as much as they say. Apparently their figures are incorrectly worked out anyway, although I struggle in my rage to remember where I heard about this.

 

It wouldn't be so bad if the money from ROAD tax was spent on ROADS but it isn't and I know I'm not the only one who has damaged her car recently from the bad surfaces (mine was an alloy cracked beyond repair after hitting a pothole in the dark). It makes me so mad esp since I know I can't do a thing about it :censored:

 

It also seems so unfair that just cos my main interest is having a nice car, I have to pay more for my hobby. I know that tax is on everything but motorists are just so picked on. Why didn't I choose a nice cheap hobby like space travel or something????

 

ok so maybe I ranted anyway! Few things make me angry but this totally winds me up. Time for another deep breath and a different thread I think :wink:

[vr6storm 0]

rip off britain as per usual

 

............and no doubt we will be helping fund the London Olympics too........which tbh is really only going to benefit London

[Goldie 2]

and no doubt we will be helping fund the London Olympics too........which tbh is really only going to benefit London

 

I know the Olmpics is a big earner but i agree with you vr6storm, the cash wont go beyond the M25...

[Tempest 0]

The traffic around where I work just drives me insane

 

No less than 3500 people are employed by Warwick Uni, someone told me today, and each and every single one of them (well almost, I guess), drives to work and back home again every day. Madness. That person who told me lives in CV4, hence on the doorstep, and knows. Unfortunately she also brings her kid to school by car, again madness.

 

The guy who led one of the investigations on how global warming is not caused by man's CO2 emissions has been exposed as a bit of a fraud on the German Roccoforum. Tim Ball works for an agency sort thing, sponsored by mainly the US and Canadian power industry, also M$ and some more high-profile companies.

 

My counter argument was that the government's studies are just as fraudulent, as these days everone only commisions and funds research projects that deliver precisely the results they want out of that reserach, not the truth.

 

Tempest

[PhatVR6 0]

see, they keep doing this and ripping us motorists off, then keep blaming it on "congestion" and global warming, when in reality they know for a fact that no matter how much they charge us to use the roads (which we are already paying too much for) we will still continue to use our cars.

 

they don't want us to use them less, they want it to stay how it is, and just rip us off. and they know we will continue to use our cars, and continue to pay. we are stupid. just stop paying,it's the only answer. if everyone got together and just refused to pay it what would they do?

 

if they really wanted to stop it then why don't they stop all the stupid finance deals on new cars to stop people buying them all the sodding time when there's nothing wrong with their old one.

 

EDIT

 

proud owner of two gas guzzling, noisy 3.2 engined cars that only do 23mpg.

[Jim 2]

No less than 3500 people are employed by Warwick Uni, someone told me today, and each and every single one of them (well almost, I guess), drives to work and back home again every day.

 

Lots of people who work at Warwick Uni actually come in from ridiculous distances every day.. some folks I used to work with in my last position at the uni used to drive in from Oxford, amongst other places every day!! Rather them than me!

 

I do want to move closer to the uni so I can cycle in, but do like where I live at the moment. Its a bit of a difficult decision to make really.. low crime, quiet area, and a garage and traffic chaos.. or saving like £70 a month on petrol and getting a few less grey hairs.

[dr_mat 0]

deep breath otherwise I'll rant. This sort of thing really makes me angry. It is (as everyone has said) just another con. The global warming doesn't exist nearly as much as they say. Apparently their figures are incorrectly worked out anyway, although I struggle in my rage to remember where I heard about this.

 

ok so maybe I ranted anyway! Few things make me angry but this totally winds me up. Time for another deep breath and a different thread I think :wink:

 

You probably watched the same channel 4 global warming "documentary" as a lot of other people. Interestingly that documentary was itself based on plenty of completely fabricated data, which they neglected to mention. In fact when they printed their "damning" global temperature graph showing the change in temp up to "the year 2000", they were lying. The graph is correct, but the data in the graph only goes up to 1988. They just extended the scale and pretended it was for 2000 instead. The rate of increase has been much higher than they indicated.

 

The reality is that for sure the temperatures seemed to be rising anyway. But since the industrial revolution and particular since we got to be a "sophisticated" society (with dole cheats and sky dishes being the epitome of sophistication in my mind) the rate of temperature increase has rocketed.

 

And then there's the issue of mutual responsibility. I drive an expensive car to run, for sure, but I only do ~5k miles/year, so I probably use less actual fuel (this is a globally shared resource, remember?) than the girlfriend's nice and efficient Peugeot. Those who claim they have a "right" to do what they want with their cars are missing the point - we all have equal right to that shared resource, and in a fair world those that use the most would run out first, leaving those of us who are more reasonable in our approach to luxuriate in our fossil fuel burning a while longer. Of course that's not going to happen, so the BMW X5 drivers will continue to hog far more than their fair share of *my* lifetime fossil fuel ration just because we live in an unfair world. Que sera.

 

 

Anyway, the only way that anyone would possibly reduce congestion in this god forsaken little country is to make public transport feasible. It should be euro-style pricing (i.e. fixed price for a journey of up to one hour), you should be able to buy the tickets in advance, from anywhere, with discounts for buying in bulk. The buses should be quick, frequent, cheap. The trains should be the same.

 

But the problem with this country is that no-one is prepared to pay for all this. Reality is that the countries with good public transport are the ones where it's (more) heavily subsidised. The UK seemed to think that it can be made to make a profit. Well duh, it's a public service fer christ' sake.

 

In fact right now we're in the worst possible scenario: we have private industry running our public transport infrastructure, and they are making PROFITS and taking dividends. And they are also receiving GOVERNMENT funding to achieve that. WTF?

 

Well I wrote more than I expected to there, and I ought to point out that this is not particularly ranting about your comments, scarlet_vr6, just general comments about the "state of the nation" .. !! :)

[Yandards 0]

Public transport is in most areas, rubbish.

 

I used to live a mere 40 minutes car journey from my work, it would take nearly 2 hours on a bus and I would have to change buses too!!

 

The other issue here is equality. If a vastly improved public transport system is made available it will only really work for those people who work during normal office hours. Ergo, shift workers will still need a car to get to work, higher taxes will obviously kick into effect to pay for the 'improved' service but shift workers are penalized.

 

Just another thing to toss into this particular hat ;)

[CoxyLaad 0]

public transport might work in city areas, but its got no chance rural areas, I have to walk over a mile just to get to the bus stop, then we are lucky if we get one bus an hour, so, when I say "i am just popping to the shop for some milk" do I take the car and be back in 10 minutes, or take the bus and come back in 3 hours (if I am lucky)

 

Its never going to work.

 

something else that tickled me the other day, someone claiming people exercising is a big polluter, all that CO2 from exhaled breaths - now couch potatoes have an excuse - 'I am doing my bit for the environment! :lol:

[Tempest 0]

at the uni used to drive in from Oxford, amongst other places every day!!

 

That's another good point, that the government have chosen to completely neglect so far. they demand we be flexible, mobile and everything to get jobs. On the other hand the penalise us for going to our jobs. I would agree with Dr.Mat that the government should then offer better public transport (after they polish up its image, as I personally don't like public buses with all the yobs on there).

 

However, it isn't necessarily any better in other EU countries. Germany's public transport is a bit of a disaster, too. Netherlands are quite good by comparison, but only as the country is relatively small, and even there things are far from perfect. i know, as I always have to use the train to get home to my parents from Amsterdam airport. I have experienced quite a few near-plane-misses due to the Dutch railway system cocking up spectacularly again, customer service claims ... what customer service? My fault for using them. As long as the government don't clean up issues like that, how can they expect us to give up on cars.

 

Oh, we need to start travelling less, but then see original point made above. Industry won't offer jobs where the people live, so people have to travel. Catch 22.

 

Tempest

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Who's up for another Peasants Revolt? It's been 600 odd years since the last one, I think we're due another.....

[dinkus 10]

The problem is - public transport will not make a profit if it's run as people want.

 

The best city transport system I've seen was in Toronto - it's $2.50 (about £1.20) to ride anywhere in the city by bus, tram or subway.

 

It was reliable, quick, clean and fairly comfortable and one of the most efficiently run transit systems in the world. Yet it still needed subsidising by the government by millions of $ a year.

 

This is all very well if you happen to live in an urban area - I admit that we really should be expecting a better and cheaper service in the UK's cities for this. (We won't go into the fact that Toronto is a modern, grid-based city with wide roads - unlike most UK cities).

 

However, outside of urban areas public transport isn't really a viable option as such. If you're travelling between cities, then it works fairly well with the use of trains, but after that you need to drive to get anywhere.

 

The population is too sparsely distributed to make buses or trains even financially viable, but because most of the MPs either live in London or have enough money to be able to afford to drive everywhere, they don't think about it.

 

At the moment it works the wrong way around - the people in small villages and the like have to pay the most for fuel and they're the people that need it the most!

 

My suggestion would be to get rid of road tax, and have regional taxation differences on fuel and stop the fuel companies price fudging. That way you get more expensive fuel in cities where people should be using public transport and cheaper fuel in rural areas where people don't have a choice.

[craigowl 0]

Re car tax and emissions/engine size.

I blame my mistake on the wife - she worked in the Post Office and confused me! :oops:

[Yandards 0]

Ahem, Dinkus.

 

I think you will find that most MP's claim fuel and travel allowance, hence the reason that the average yearly expensive for the scummers is around £75,000 / year.

 

That figure does not even include staff costs, just purely expenses - none of which can be used for political lobbying, i.e. mail shots etc, so WTF are they spending it all on?

 

Viva la revolution!

[craigowl 0]

"Temperature

Mean temperatures during winter (Dec/Jan/Feb) were close to 2.0C above

average across the British Isles, except over Ireland where

the anomaly was closer to +1C. All three months were

warmer than average, with January being especially mild.

According to the Met Office, in England it was the fourth

warmest winter on the Central England Temperature

(CET)series; the south of England has recorded its warmest

ever winter. Not surprisingly, the incidence of frost was

below normal, and on many days during the stations in

England and Wales, in particular, reached 10C or more. The

Met Office noted that the 12 months ending February 2007

has been the warmest period in the last 348 years on the

CET, with a mean temperature of 11.23C."

 

(From the Climatological Observers Link[COL] bulletin for March 2007, recieved today. COL is part of the UK's Royal Meteorological Society.)

 

 

The UK has one of the longest, if not the longest, climatological datasets in the world, and having worked for many years with people who use it, I am afraid it is on the cards that global warming IS happening during the period we are living in. I have had a personal interest in the climate of the UK - particularly Scotland - for over 40 years, and can confirm that we are living in a climatic period that is unprecedented in my lifetime.

 

There is no conspiracy from UK government scientists on this - it is clear to me that they are loyal to the science, not politicians.

 

I have the same disappointment as others in that I drive only a couple of thousand miles per annum in the type of car I have waited years for, but we cannot deny that most of the world's climate is not changing.

 

Whether restricting peoples driving will make any significant difference at all, though, I am not yet convinced.

[G60Jet 1]

the uk is cleaner than it ever has been....i mean how much soot and ash where thrown into the sky juring the industrial revolution!!

[coolrado 0]

the uk is cleaner than it ever has been....i mean how much soot and ash where thrown into the sky juring the industrial revolution!!

 

The odd thing about that was that there where more particulates from soot/ash in the atmosphere and they actually acted as a shield against the suns rays, almost like a second ozone layer and actually slightly counteracted global warming, a similar thing was being discussed recently about the reduction in diesel particulates having a NEGATIVE effect on global warming.

 

There is evidence from various sources including Dendroecology and varve chronology that shows drops in global temperatures following volcanic erruptions and meteorite impacts which have released large amounts of particulates into the atmosphere.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Global Warming hasn't been measured for anywhere near long enough to be able to give fully qualified facts that's it's going into meltdown.

 

It's a big crock of schitt.

 

"Oh dear, we've used up all the oil reserves - let's make up some b0llocks about the world heating up and introduce some green taxes to control all the plebs"

[Andy665 0]

Living in Shropshire I'd welcome warmer weather and higher sea levels - live far too away from the coast at the moment :D

[G60Jet 1]

Living in Shropshire I'd welcome warmer weather and higher sea levels - live far too away from the coast at the moment :D

no mate keep london dont south we dont want a "new london" popping up north of the watford gap now do we!!