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Diplomats are under no obligation to pay. Charging embassy staff is in violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention, which bars the taxing of foreign diplomatic staff.
The congestion charge has had at best mixed results. It might have reduced traffic within the congestion charge zone but as anybody who drives around London will know traffic has got significantly worse in areas just outside the zone.
Tbh most people hate driving in London hence only drive when it is absolutely necessary, or at least that's how I am...The congestion charge and this latest increase for 4x4s seems like a headline grabbing lazy way for our buffoon of a Mayor to appear as if he is doing something. More than anything we need improved national rail links into central London - as well as the criminally overdue Crossrail and vastly improved services on the LU. And singling out 4x4s seems like a bit of opportunistic persecution - unless I'm wrong in thinking that a Rav4 will have to pay £25 but a Bentley won't.
:eek2:
I think it's a crap idea because it won't make much difference. Well, it might if they're poor and driving a 4x4, but that's it.
No because VAT/duty are indirect taxes.
So, one bloke in a taxi is "public transport", me taking my kid to school is a car journey?
Debatable, it's not something that is clear-cut in law but like a lot of the embassies I'd call it a tax.
When British diplomats are given free passage through toll highways abroad foreign diplomats here might have a case to claim they should be exempt. But that doesn't quite happen does it.
The solution is simple then- extend the charging zone.
Well I work in Chelsea and I can assure you the local Sloanes don't hate driving around at all. On the contrary, there is nothing they appear to like more than to drive all of 1.2 miles to pick up Talluah and Christina from school in their 5.0 Range Rover Vogue. To the point where more and more schools are having to ask them not to park outside the school, or even better not to use their 3 tonne monster truck for the school run at all.
Are hired limos puiblic transport?
If not, why not?
And that's even before we take MoK's point about road space and pollution.
They are luxuries, impractical and ill-suited to be used in a city centre with any frequency.
If all cars that go into central London could simply drive into a reserve parking space there would be 20% less traffic around. But the immense majority of them do not have a reserved parking space. So taxis do reduce congestion by cutting up on the number of private vehicles driven into town.
But a taxi isn't a luxury compared to the bus, tube or walking?
Right-o.
A taxi is a private vehicle hired to transport someone in comfort. It is exactly the same as a limo, only cheaper and less comfortable.
And you are still to explain how one person in a taxi doesn't cause congestion, but one person in a Land Rover (which has the same footprint as a London cab) does.
And as I have explained twice before, seeing as 1 in 5 cars circulating in city centres are doing so in the hope of finding a parking space, taxis cut congestion by eliminating the need for people to bring their own cars into town and spend half an hour going round in circles hoping to find a space.
Taxis are for people going out on the lash who can't be bothered with nightbuses, and for business people who haven't driven to the city they're in.
Taxis are a private means of transport, privately transporting people in private comfort for a fee.
That is exactly what a hired limousine is.
I'm not saying taxis don't serve a purpose, but they are not a fundamental part of the nation's public transport system. As such, they should pay the congestion charge.