General Chat

What do you think of the Liberal Democrat idea of charging anything from £850 to £1,500 per year tax on a family car: Will it just drive the low-paid off the roads?

Plus they want to add at least another £2000 on top of your normal council tax depending on your house valuation. Fancy saying that this is there policy - do you think they will get many votes - I don't think so. Lin

Are they mad!!!! My son (who does not drive) came to see us. He travelled from Ipswich to Essex. There is no direct route by train, so it took him 4 and a half hours! His heavily pregnant girlfriend did not come with him, he said Good job, the journey would have killed her! It takes an hour and half by car, sometimes less if roads are good. Please, dear God, don't let the maniacs take over the Asylum, we have a rubbish transport system in this country! We pay good money already for the road system with Road Tax, M.O.T.'s, high fuel tax and toll roads, that's without all the other stuff they hit us with like fines for parking or speeding or just being a car driver!!! Dartford Tunnel is already paid for from the toll revenue and yet they still collect it! Why is the motorist so heavily hit at every turn--because we are easy targets that's why!! I will never vote Lib...they don't live in the real world at all. Sounds like a good vote winner for another Party.....bet Labour and Con's are rubbing their hands in glee!!! Nanna-Moo :((

Nann: don't start me on the Dartford Crossing, I am SO mad that they reneged on the promise to make it toll-free when it had been paid for. Their official excuse is that they need the toll booths to discourage over-use of the M25 and to regulate the traffic into the M25/A2 and M25/M20 junctions. They could have done both of those with a bunch of cones! It can take 3/4of an hour or more to get through the tolls: whatever visitors coming into Dover must think, I dread to imagine, coming into Calais on 1st class motorways then on our side being faced with the dreadful Dover/Canterbury A2 then that delay at the tolls!. As for 'green' motoring taxes, surely the charge should be on usage, not ownership? Seems the 'Ban the 4x4' bandwagon has got out of hand.

Brian All it will mean is there will be more 'tax dodgers' than ever before! Kim :-((

I wonder how many of them live in a village with a bus one morning a week, no shop, no bank, no petrol pumps? Nearest doctor's surgery 5 miles away, which they are thinking of closing, for a practice which doesn't encourage home visits. Nearest hospital 25 miles away. Children 'bussed' to school either 5 or 10 miles away - if there is a problem/emergency, parents are asked to go immediately. Nearest taxi 10 miles away - so 2 double journeys. Jay

lol Brian!! M25?-you mean the car park that surrounds London!!! Yes I think the toll road works then!!! :)) Hubby has to use the tunnel everyday, both ways, says it's always busy, they are raking it in by the bucket load....but they waste it.......and wonder why we motorists are so fed up. Give us a break somebody please!!!! Canvey Island needs a third road, has done for over 30 years but the powers that be keep saying it 's not needed. This year they finally admitted, after a review, a third road would be beneficial (they could have asked any Islander we would've told them for free!). Gridlock every morning and if there is an accident on the A13, you might as well park and walk or go home!!! Been promised a link to Benfleet station too, long time coming, would ease a lot of congestion in the mornings with drivers just doing station drop offs! How long has it taken powers that be to come up with that one??? Beggars belief, any Islander would have told you it was a good idea, been talked about for years....no one listens or does anything.......rant, rant, rant....... Nanna-Moo :((

What is supposed to happen to the OAP's? And to anyone whose mobility is limited? My OH has had three hip replacements, a knee replacement, and a triple bypass............our car is not a luxury..........without it we'd be prisoners in our home. Or is that what they want? Reg

Simply-they don't care about us-just the money they can take of us!!! Nanna-Moo :((

IF they spent the money on a PROPER, long-term alternative transport system... IF they stopped putting such a ridiculous amount of tax on fuel... IF they stopped draining the life out of town centres by allowing building of huge out-of-town places (which need a car to reach)... IF they stopped inheritance tax and put more realistic bands on stamp duty... then maybe!!

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£1500? My car cost less than that!

Sorry to be the party pooper here, but I do think we need a tiered vehicle taxation system in this country. Anyone who thinks it's reasonable to drive a vehicle around which does 15 or 18 mi. per gallon can clearly afford to pay £2000 a year road tax. It's perfectly possible to buy a reasonable vehicle which will carry a family in comfort and do well over 40 to the gallon. I cite my last vehicle, a Mondeo 1.8 TDI estate. 44 to the gallon driven sensibly. I now use public transport and an electric bicycle, and manage quite well thank you. And I'm not a hippy youngster in the first flush of youth, but a 59-year-old with one hip replacement and another on the way and a dodgy ticker. I would support any government that was prepared to do two things. Firstly bring in a taxation system to reduce the proliferation of cars and prevent the concreting over of the southeast. Secondly spend more money on our public transport system, perhaps renationalising it and taking trains out of the hands of Branson and his like who are clearly pricing their market toward the business user. I do have sympathy with people living country districts, but at the end the day it's their choice, it's unreasonable to expect all the benefits of living in the countryside with the facilities that us townies enjoy.