Khan's ULEZ scam >road charging

[Dave Moore]

Hi,
when money is concerned, pollution doesn’t always count. I recently moved from Scunthorpe where they have one of the biggest steelworks in Europe and is the second most air polluted town in the UK after Port Talbot(another steel town) and I think you will find that these steelworks spew out more air pollution than cars. To produce 1 tonne of steel produces more than 1 tonne of CO2 which we actually need for plant life and before somebody says we don’t need CO2 then consider how much steel is in a wind turbine, how much concrete or other resource And concrete certainly isn’t green. One of the main output of pollution from the steelworks is Dioxin in vast quantities and they are in the process of shutting the coke ovens down in Scunthorpe but they will still need coke from somewhere. Within 1/4 mile of the steelworks is a Morrisons and a retail park surrounded by a large housing estate. Planning permission was initially refused for housing due to pollution levels and then suddenly there is now this large estate that continues to grow. There’s very little change to the air quality but suddenly we have this large estate. Go figure.

Regards,
Dave

 

[clogs]

the average MP lives with/next to us/you, well almost
but
those with the clout who have no idea what's going on.....living in secure housing......filling their pockets .....are in control.......
Where's all the money gone for HS2.....? I suggest pocket filling.....who's doing the accounts.....?
I've always thought if you want to be a politition or a high up civil servant inc families
their full banking/tax dealings should be open to the general public.......
Well that should finish the Labour party for a start...but they claim to be just like working class.....
Conserv's have always had money....

Anyway who voted Khan in........?

man.....done my time in the UK n glad I'm out of it.....
Biggest traffic traffic jam we had last week was around 100 sheep.....hahaha.......

 

[PDW125]

So it looks like Khans ulez scam is now evolving/evolved into road charging as TFL have listed on their Website to recruit someone to run pay per mile

You may want to check the 2016 transport futures policy for London by a certain ex-PM that included ULEZ and distance based charging as stated intentions. All Khan has done is accelerate the implementation of it.

Thank god we rejected it in Manchester but it’s coming.

Manchester haven’t rejected it at all - the infrastructure is all there, they didn’t switch it on because of Covid and the economic impact, nothing to do with the choice of the people

Pollution is much lower now than when I was a kid, and much lower than when my Grandad was a kid.

Far from it - pollution now from NOx and PM2.5 are higher now than any time in the past 100 years.

Sadist Khans scheme is obviously a cash grab and the green agenda is just the excuse he needed to get away with it.

Partially correct - it’s to fill a gap between funding from the government for TfL (which Boris started to reduce when he was Mayor) but also aligned to the DEFRA targets previously linked. But the stark fact that 400 schools are now no longer in areas where emissions are classed as dangerous to health is something that should be considered.

Pay per mile.

The more you pollute, the more it costs.

Even more than that - the more you drive, the heavier the vehicle, the more impact you have on the road system. I don’t agree with the current Road Fund Licence rules on how vehicles are calculated as it doesn’t differentiate. Interestingly the best way would be to scrap RFL entirely and increase fuel duty … more miles, more polluting vehicles would pay more at the pump, the issue there though is one of notional double “taxation” by adding VAT on duty, and one of profiteering by the fuel companies. The one I don’t agree with is this stupid idea of now charging more to park a vehicle based on emissions which is being implemented by the councils who also like the LTZ setups but apparently don’t want ULEZ which I find interesting ….!

 

[Keith Cocker]

It’s a scam. Thank god we rejected it in Manchester but it’s coming.

Once they have taken our ICE cars away from us, they will put a “slavery tax” on electric cars making them for the rich only.

I find it hilarious that the eco nut jobs think a tiny nation scrapping cars will make a difference when 95% of the world burn garbage and animal dung to cook and keep warm.

How anyone can be fine with having 11kg of cobalt in their car batteries, mined by the hands of children in the worst conditions imaginable is beyond me.

If rising seas are an imminent threat why do all these banking bosses have beach front property in California?
How can you get a 40 year mortgage in London if it will be underwater in 20?

I watched an old witch at the world economic forum basically say, “The commoners don’t understand carbon emissions, we need to focus on water. Everyone knows they need water”.

The “west” is a joke. Thank god BRICS will be taking the lead in the near future.

What a pile of ill-informed nonsense. I find it amazing that some people don’t appreciate the scale of the problem we face with the changes to our climate and environment. I suppose they are often the same people who are Covid deniers, vaccine resisters and Brexit voters.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Covid deniers, vaccine resisters and Brexit voters? You forgot Tories and heterosexuals.

 

[paulrbarnard]

A study in the U.S. in the 1830s after population increased dramatically year on year for several years said that N.Y. would be 2000 feet deep by 1900.

The big horse apple.

 

[Jacob]

Politicians seem unable to understand that problems in cities and large towns often don't really affect the rest of the the Country.

ULEZ is being applied where most needed i.e. polluted inner city of London, and eventually other cities too I expect.
The age of the private car is over but it may take some time to wind it down. Easy to forget it's only been with us for about 1 generation - there were no cars on our street when ar worra lad. Personal EVs probably not viable in the long term. Public transport and rail most likely solutions - electric powered from wind/solar/hydro sources.
Big changes are on the way - or if not, then even bigger changes from climate change. In fact it's almost certainly too late, I'm of the "we are all doomed" school of thought.

 

[BruceK]

I drove 3 miles round the North Circular back in 2016 in my privately registered (PLG) Hilux pickup. I didn't realise that it wasn't compliant (if it had been a Hilux Surf estate with the same engine there wouldn't have been a problem) and received a fine for £500, reduced to £250 if paid within 14 days. The real issue was that I didn't receive any notification until 73 days after I'd travelled, so, if I'd been travelling that route every day, I could have been fined £35,000 without even knowing I was breaking the rules. There's no information on my vehicle's paperwork telling me that it's non-compliant and I have to go online to find out whether or not it is. I wrote a letter begging for forgiveness but it fell on deaf ears and the reply told me that ULEZ had been publicised back in 2008 so I should have known. With such big fines there should be some system which flashes up a warning when a vehicle is non-compliant. It would be easy and cheap to install as they already have number plate recognition. There's no way I would have gone round the N circular if I'd been aware. I even wrote a little song to Sadiq Khan about it but that didn't even merit a response. I too believe it's a scam. They want to collect as much cash as possible and are doing so under the pretext of keeping London clean.

 

[Spectric]

2Hours and luckily didn't have anything frozen or very perishable or would have been bin fodder.

I thought people in London lived on take aways or used restaurants because they are so readily available.

 

[Jacob]

It’s a scam. Thank god we rejected it in Manchester but it’s coming.

Once they have taken our ICE cars away from us, they will put a “slavery tax” on electric cars making them for the rich only.

They already are for the rich only.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I thought people in London lived on take aways or used restaurants because they are so readily available.

A few still cook but they get the ingredients delivered.

 

[Steliz]

I suppose they are often the same people who are Covid deniers, vaccine resisters and Brexit voters.

What a pile of uninformed nonsense.

 

[selectortone]

there were no cars on our street when ar worra lad

Eh? I'm not much younger than you Jacob, but I remember cars in the 1950s. A quick google tells me there were 4 million licenced vehicles on UK roads in 1950, of which 2.5 million were cars.

When my family used to travel up the A1 from East Anglia to Co Durham I can clearly remember being stuck in traffic jams in places like Grantham, Newark and Doncaster before they were bypassed.

We used to make that journey two or three times a year to visit my Dad's parents in Birtley. Single carriageway all the way and full of cars and lorries.

 

[Jacob]

....... They want to collect as much cash as possible and are doing so under the pretext of keeping London clean.

It's working though. No pretext needed, London has falling levels of air pollution. Good thing too!

 

[PDW125]

I drove 3 miles round the North Circular back in 2016 in my privately registered (PLG) Hilux pickup. I didn't realise that it wasn't compliant (if it had been a Hilux Surf estate with the same engine there wouldn't have been a problem) and received a fine for £500, reduced to £250 if paid within 14 days. T

ULEZ wasn’t in place in 2016, that was the LEZ only which affected HGVs and other larger vehicles - sounds like you have a plated vehicle or one that has been registered as a pickup bodied LUV (potentially when it was imported ..?) so is actually not PLG on its V5.

There's no information on my vehicle's paperwork telling me that it's non-compliant

V5 tax class as per DVLA is the clue - you need to confirm that as it isn’t TfL data that has caused the problem it is DVLA data

There's no way I would have gone round the N circular if I'd been aware.

You were already in the zone (it goes to the Greater London Authority boundary) but it was just the image that they used from a North Circular camera on the PCN.

 

[Jacob]

Eh? I'm not much younger than you Jacob, but I remember cars in the 1950s. A quick google tells me there were 4 million licenced vehicles on UK roads in 1950, of which 2.5 million were cars.

Yes I know they existed but there really were no cars on our street when ar worra lad - nobody owned one and there were non parked, except when dropping off etc.

 

[Agent_zed]

world burn garbage and animal dung to cook and keep warm.

Whilst garbage (by which I assume we mean things like plastic waste) will contribute to overall CO2 increase, animal dung will not. Animal dung and wood etc is part of the carbon cycle. it is neutral. Grow plants -> plants absorb co2 -> direct burning or animal eats it -> burn dung or wood -> same co2 released as was taken in the beginning. Also the amount of energy consumed by 3rd world persons is a fraction of the average westerner.

Lets be clear, ICE cars are not super eco friendly things either. Plenty of modern slavery to get resources to make them also. Plenty eco destruction, like the 10km dead zones around oil rigs.

I agree in part that electric vehicles in their current form as not the answer. We have become used to having hulking great cars to move 1 person less than 10miles in most cases. Most families have 2 cars so would make sense to have a larger car for the family use and a micro car eg Twizy, Ami etc for commuting. Or even one of the numerous pedal assisted vehicles that are coming out. Check out the biohybrid it looks awesome.

I visited Holland recently and it was amazing to see so many people of all ages cycling. That is what should be happening in the major cities. Sure there will be cases where you need a large vehicles but that should be a case of renting one for a specific task. Driving a huge car because you want to go to ikea twice a year is pretty ridiculous.

I am excited for the innovation of small vehicles. For too long we have just had to accept the boring metal boxes that are essentially the same as they were 50+ years ago minus a bluetooth connection (they literally advertised cars based on this innovation to transport!). People might actually enjoy moving around more rather than sitting in traffic with a glum look on their face in their Ford/bmw/Audi SUVWhatever.

 

[BruceK]

ULEZ wasn’t in place in 2016, that was the LEZ only which affected HGVs and other larger vehicles - sounds like you have a plated vehicle or one that has been registered as a pickup bodied LUV (potentially when it was imported ..?) so is actually not PLG on its V5.



V5 tax class as per DVLA is the clue - you need to confirm that as it isn’t TfL data that has caused the problem it is DVLA data



You were already in the zone (it goes to the Greater London Authority boundary) but it was just the image that they used from a North Circular camera on the PCN.

PLG on my V5. 1998 Hilux Pickup, not plated, not imported, always been PLG.

 

[Spectric]

I find it amazing that some people don’t appreciate the scale of the problem we face with the changes to our climate and environment.

I don't think it is always a case of not accepting the scale of the problem but more a case of realism in that a problem can only be solved by some form of action. The climate / enviromental issues are getting worse and will not just go away but it needs global action to resolve and whilst a lot of people are happy to acknowledge the problems and talk about them till the cows come home there seems little in the way of action except a lot of nit picking here and there that is not going to change anything.

I think the biggest reason for this lack of action is that the people in power know that to make a change will require both a global collective response and a massive social upheaval that will impact how we live and what we do in the UK, they have seen the response from the people during the Covid lockdown and cannot see a way forward. This has resulted in coming up with daft ideas like going carbon neutral that will have no global impact at all if we go it alone, but it will cause the UK other issues with the economy and cost of living.

 

[naughtymoose]

I'm glad I moved out of London when I did. If the emissions zone had been extended. I would certainly have had to pay a charge for having a non- compliant vehicle.

But then you'd be living in a heavily polluted area, which is severely detrimental to health!

As you say, the intention is laudable.

Collectively, we need to up our game on: saving the planet, improving education, fighting the twits (in general), improving working conditions and pay, etc, etc.

We need to be f***ing nice and considerate to other people!