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OMG, I actually remembered something from A level economics
I used to ride a motorbike and it did 80-100mpg depending how I rode it, in the year I had it I only put £40 pounds of petrol in (or thereabouts) and I took it out every day. But with the petrol and tax vs. peoples earnings, everyone complains but nobody seems to do anything about it. Having a big car is about status, even if it costs you more and there's no real benefit to you, people will pay a lot more to show off.
Those that need a 4 x 4 for a genuine reason, probably wont have tinted windows and all the bells and whistles, but will still suffer just the same. My friend has a jeep that is falling apart, but he drives it offroad all the time. But he'll have to pay the same as those shiny black ones that never go offroad in their lives.
Curiously, usually driven by women
I think people should be encouraged to ride motorbikes. Except for the death factor (12 times more likely to die in an accident on a motorbike than an accident in a car) they make perfect sense. Except for the high maintenence costs, but if there was more demand for them from pragmatic users rather than as a leisurecraft, then there would be more developments, like stopping them rusting all the time (how come cars dont seem to rust but bikes do if they caught in the rain??), having more inbuilt storage and basically making them uber good.
Sorry, I just envision a society where a small car will have 2 people in, a large car 4/5 (like a family) and single commuters will travel via bike or public transport. Increasing efficiency by shedloads!
Congestion charge is mislabelled anyway. It's a based on the amount of congestion and the area in, but is actually just another car tax and has nothing to do with how much you contribute to congestion. (quoted from more a level stuff)
I got a D in transport
Ah, I apologise for my oversight. Well, I would say you were one of the unlucky ones. Do start inside the congestion zone then? I thought it was mainly businesses and banks and services and the like there...
This is true but the hope is that making these cars more attractive will lead the demand for hybrid cars to increase, thus car manufacturers will try to make more of their cars environmentally friendly.
Just you wait for the hybrid powered 4x4 that can't pull itself up a 30 degree incline let alone a trailer. Hopefully if they make it expensive enough people will buy it anyway.
Tis quite alright, one of the people I paddle with lives in it.
imagine having 3 kids who all need car/booster seats in a small car?
It's not just 4x4s that come into the high bands, several family cars do too.
London is still a very polluted place to live. Asthma cases in children are higher today than at any other time in history. This is much to do with road traffic. We need to cut down emissions by any means necessary. Targetting the most polluting vehicles around is the sensible way go around it.
A Ranger Rover will do 13mpg in urban use. That is nothing short of a disgrace.
In addition to pollution 4x4s have been proven to be extremely dangerous vehicles. To pedestrians, to other road users and even to their own occupants. They are bulky, wide and completely innapropriate for city use.
I work in Chelsea and I see how 4x4s are used. I can assure you that in 12 years of working in the area I don't recall ever seeing a single one with any traces of mud or evidence of ever having been off an asphalted road. However I see many of them every day picking up little Tallulah from school for the 1.5 mile trip back home. To the point where some local schools have told parents not to come anywhere near the school with a 4x4 due to the congestion they cause and the danger to other children.
We need to change the system, we need to provide safe routes for children and their parents to walk to school, we need to get public transport to a state where it is a reliable and time efficient way to get to places, which for short journeys it often isn't. Charging high band cars more will hardly dent the pollution problem (especially when low band cars pay nothing).
Most saloon cars are not only adequate but more than plenty for a family of five.
With a Volvo Estate you can add a large dog and as much luggage as anyone is ever going to need.
And for larger families, there are lots of people carriers that don't fall anywhere near the Band G that is being targetted.
I have 3 siblings. When I was a kid my family of 6 got around and went on holidays for long distances in one of these:
And yet you see mothers of two children being interviewed on the street indignantly claiming they need a Range Rover because they have 'a family'.
Yeah right...
Maybe that's you. I know several (quick finger count to 6) people who have Landys or vans for their work, and that's their only car. They don't necessarily have familys.
How do you work that out? The higher the charge for Band G cars, the fewer they will be driven around. If 1,000 people who drive a Band G car switch to a Band A or B vehicle we are talking a reduction of thousands of tonnes of CO2.
You can fit a full family of 5 in a large saloon or a estate car. Let alone a family of 4, which from what I see on the street form a large part of the Chelsea 4x4 ownership club. For larger families there are plenty of people carriers with the same if not more interior space available than a 4x4 and a fraction of the emissions.
If he wanted to be accurate surely he'd be better calling it the 'Capita Extra Profits charge'
Ken is the only directly elected mayor London has had. (Although Ken previously led the GLC in the 1980s until it was abolished, GLC leaders weren't mayors).
How exactly does he do a 'fucking good job'? He's backed Ian Blair 100%, he's disgusted gay, feminist and Jewish groups by cosying up to homophobic Islamists that condone wife-beating and he was thick enough to compare the poll tax riots to Tiananmen Square. Meanwhile Londoners are paying more council tax than ever thanks to Ken. Yeah, great. With the right candidate the Conservatives have a good chance of beating Ken thankfully, the last local elections showed a massive Conservative revival with the Tories taking control in Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing and Bexley...Ken's days are numbered.
We couldn't...
But we all just piled in the back of the van
(sorry, OT)
Most people don't buy a 4x4 because it's practical, they buy it because it's a glamourous, desirable car to have. I said most, not all
And do you really think that a plumber or an electrician (who generally make very nice amounts of money anyway) who can spend £35,000 on a 4x4 can't spend an extra four grand on a second hand van?
No idea but I regularly see loads of vehicles (mainly 4x4s and vans) with them.
I think it's illegal to fit them. But you still see vehicles with them on. I was really really annoyed once because I saw one of the 'monsters' outside a primary school picking up kids.
Then they drove for all of 20 seconds to get from the school to the shop.
'twas another woman. I don't know why, but IME it's usually women driving 4x4s
He invited one such extremist to talk about something else. Still a very stupid move indeed, but why don't you look at all the good things Ken has done for the gay and lesbian communities, and why don't you ask what their opinion of Ken is? Their general opinion of Ken appears to be excellent across the board.
So? Why should that bother Londoners?
They also have a considerably cleaner and faster moving city with the bus service in particular having improved many times over.
Most Londoners care most about transport. Ken pisses on anything any other candidate from any other party could possibly offer. He's also given Londoners the Congestion Charge, which is what the majority of them wanted. Who cares is some Surrey-based stockbroker has to pay the charge or leave his car outside London?
You think?
Look familiar? It should do, because practically every builder, plumber and electrician with a family drives one of these. It cost £9000, not the £35,000 you assume everyone spends on a 4x4. Have you ever heard of a little thing called second hand? It's what people resort to when they need a car that's out of their price range when new. And it's these people that you always end up hurting when you charge people flat rate taxes, not the people who don't need a large vehicle.