Once again, Adrian mashes up several different postings by more than one author and then twists things around to suit his own arguments.
And I take on board the well made point that this is way off topic so this will be my last post on the subject <snip the reply to part of a Roger Millin post> > "Bru" <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> Poorer people generally don't drive, so they will be little affected > >> by road pricing. > > > >I won't quote masses of stats (tempting though it is ... the relevant > link > >is http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai/hbai2008/contents.asp ) but > there are > >about 5.6 million adults in the UK below the poverty line > > Er, I think you'll find that uses the nonsensical concept of > *relative* poverty line, under which someone with only one TV is > deemed to be poor if everyone else has two. There are indeed truly > poor people in UK (e.g. without enough to eat), but fortunately not > that many. It's only nonsensical if you personally decide it's nonsensical. It's merely a statistical tool. However, I do agree that the criteria does place a lot of people in "poverty" who I would not personally consider to be impoverished > >"Poorer people" generally DO drive, > > By "poorer", I mean those who can't afford a car. There are lots of > those. Uh? So poorer people are people who can't afford a car. Okayyyyy ... so poorer people (by your definition) are completely irrelevant to the discussion on road pricing since they will be unaffected. So what about, oh I dont know, let's call them "not so well off people" who can, barely, afford a car then? > >Try doing the weekly shop for a family of five by bus. It's not an > option > >when either you're home or the cheaper supermarkets is not on a bus > route. > > Which is why you sometimes see the apparently-bizarre situation of > poor people taking taxis to get their groceries home. I used to see > it frequently when I worked at a supermarket. And, sad to say, poorer > people do indeed often live too far from cheaper supermarkets to use > them, and so fall prey to over-priced local shops. Yes, you see just that. And the equally large group of "not so well off" people who can, just afford a car. > >Try getting to work by any other means that a car when the only job > you can > >get is working shifts with weekend work included in a warehouse built > beside > >a motorway junction miles from the nearest large population centre. > > This is a long-known contributor to unemployment. Is it? News to me. What is your solution to this problem then Adrian? Solve *this* one with market forces! After all, it's a problem that was created by market forces in the first place. > The fact remains that poorer people frequently can't afford, and > therefore don't have, cars. A very broad assumption based on a vague and arguable definition of poor > >very few people outside of London, and perhaps one or two other major > cities, are making > >significant numbers of avoidable journeys. > > I think you need to reconsider the definition of "avoidable" that you > are using. No Adrian, actually it is YOU that needs to reconsider your definition of avoidable, not me. Which of these journeys would you define as avoidable then? 1. A 6.2 mile round trip every day to work 2. A 5.8 mile round trip once every 10 days or so to the supermarket 3. An 11 mile round trip once every few weeks to visit parents 4. A few hundred miles once a year going on holiday In the case of 1, there is no available alternative transport at all - there is no public transport and no pedestrian route to the place of work. Cycling would be technically an option but cycling along a busy dual carriageway ... I think not. In the case of 2, public transport would be an option but would a) be significantly more expensive than by car, b) would only give access to a more expensive supermarket and c> would involve over 3 hours on a bus rather than 20 minutes in the car. In the case of 3, there is no alternative on the usual Sunday (the only day of the week that doesn't clash with work commitments) as there is no bus service on a Sunday. I suppose, in the case of 4, we could go without a holiday > >Road pricing as a replacement for fuel duty is a daft idea too. > > > >Fuel duty is actually a very logical method of collecting income from > >motorists. > > But it has the fatal flaw of not varying with the road you drive on. > To cure congestion, it is essential that the price/km to the driver be > much higher on congested roads. Fuel duty cannot do that. OK, so why bother curing congestion at all? Congestion rarely if ever affects my life so why should my journeys cost me more? Why not just leave things alone since congestion is likely to be self limiting anyway. <..> > >For starters, try to grasp the fundamental difference between an > essential > >good or service and a luxury one and then realise that for most of the > >population a car, and most of the journeys made in that car, fall into > the > >first group. > > Rubbish. > > "Essential" things include food, water, shelter, clothing, medical > care. You can't live without those. You can live without a car. No, I can't. And nor can many others. The extent to which I cannot live without a car is demonstrated by the fact that in about 15 mins Enterprise Rentacar are picking me up to get a rental 'cos the bloody cam-belt just snapped on my Renault. If I don't rent a car we'd have to get taxis to work and back which, because of our hours of work, would cost over £80 per day. Ergo, the car is an essential. Yes, we *could* live without it (since we could give up work, move into rented accommodation and sponge off the state and survive) but we would not have a life without our own transport. > >Trying to price people off the roads just will not work as a > sustainable > >long term solution. > > Why not? Almost everything else in society works that way. Actually, it doesn't. You just think it does. It won't work because putting up prices does not, in the long term, reduce consumption of anything. In the short term, those who can afford the higher cost continue as before leaving the less well off to bear the real burden. In the long term, society will adapt to the higher cost of road travel - wages will rise etc. In a matter of a few years we would be right back to square one. The effect of market forces is always short term. Prices go up, consumption goes down, wages rise, consumption goes up again. > The problem is that road travel is effectively being subsidised by > being provided at below the market price, and using a daft pricing > method. As a result, we are collectively travelling much more than is > sensible. At the market price (of anything) some people decide not to > buy. That isn't being "priced off", it's simply how a market economy > works. Hey, I just realised I've been "priced off" buying a Porsche! > I must write to my MP. And here is a classic demonstration of the futility of arguing with you. If all else fails, simply repeat the original point again disregarding the intervening arguments to the contrary. I have no doubt that you will persist in ignoring the very real problems that general road pricing could (depending on how it is structured) cause the less well off and especially those who live in more rural areas because that is a social issue which cannot be addressed in terms of pure market economics. You have yet, of course, to actually present any coherent, cohesive and practical argument in favour of road pricing that deals with how the people who can no longer afford to travel are supposed to get to work, to the shops etc. You are not a dangerous man, but you most certainly are a foolish and naive one. Fortunately, I very much doubt whether anybody in power is actually going to listen to your half baked ideas anyway! <snip the reply to the other thread about ANPR - can't be bothered any more)
