Transport

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London was the first city in the UK to start taxing the poor for owning a car ...ooops started off cynically there!...it will get worse before it gets better ..i'm off on one! - But to be honest £8 ( per working day ) may not sound like alot to some that depends on your earnings and that is the problem with regressive taxation - if you work in the city on £250,000 pa with an annual bonus of £500,000 £8 might be easily affordable but if you are trying to make ends meet and are on min wage £8 out of net income is alot ( thats £1600pa - so you need to earn £2300 to pay it c 25% of your annual income ) - not only that because you may be on low wage you may not even have a bank account so its not that easy to pay it - you can't pay online - you may have a PAYG mobile which makes its difficult to pay by text message so you end up having to pay up to £150 ( plus it gets worse they have the power to clamp , remove your vehicle charge you for storage , disposal etc could run into hundreds ) for accidently not paying & you may not even know you had driven in a charging area because they charge you even more money to call them to find out on a premium rate number ( they call it 'lo-call' I beg to differ! ) .
So what's the alternative ? public transport can be unreliable - admittedly in London compared with the rest of the UK its pretty good with an integrated system . We have one here in WM but personaly I haven't tried it yet so cannot comment. But the problem is its not attractive enough to get people out of their cars.
In Utopia Maybe one of my books I have put alot work into looking into an alternative and propose that ALL 2nd class travel on public trasport throughout the UK will be free on production of a 'compulsory' annual travel card . I say compulsory but it would be voluntary in same the way ( don't worry i'm going through a 'if I ruled the world moment ! - its a book not a manifesto ! ) the unpopular national ID card is i.e. life will become increasingly difficult without one as you need one to make any journey in a car or public transport including taxis - you would need it to pay for fuel , you would need it to travel 'free' on a bus , train etc . This would only cover basic 2nd class travel and companies may charge extra for booking seats in peak periods & pre reservations or traveling 1st class etc . But what it would do is to make people think shall I get in the car and damage (a) my wallet & (b) the planet or shall I travel for 'free' on a ticket I've already paid for . The cost would only be £365pa which compares extremely favourably when you think an annual season ticket to London by train can easily cost iro £10,000pa . The pass would also mean that you would not need to have to pay car tax on each car you own/ drive only an MOT for each car on the road would be required on ALL cars/vans/lorries including those cars visting from other countries ( now ive started its hard to stop ! ) neither would you need to have 3rd party insurance. ( you would however need to consider having fully comp , fire and theft ) As you fill up your car you be paying for 3rd party insurance related to the car you are filling up and your risk profile ( all big brother stuff we know all about you ! ) . The price you pay for your petrol/derv would also be related to the economy of your car i.e a car that does 26mpg would pay the current 95p/litre but a car that does 13mpg ( eg Bentley Anage ) would pay £1.92/litre - which would be a double whammy - but it still allows people to make THEIR own choice - they can travel 'free' on public transport or they can drive a gas gussler and pay c £13,500 pa in fuel ( based on 20,00 miles ) . Alternatively they could buy an economic car like a citroen C1 or 2 which does 68mpg and pay only 37p/litre ( the current goverment would only reward that driver by making them pay £35 annual car tax instead of £190 - no surprise its not made many people change! ) which means their annual fuel bill would only be £490 - obviously the downside is that we could still have lots of congestion if people all decide to drive citroen C2s ! - but at least we'll be tackling the emissions side of things. I also looked at a 'typical' family eg Ford Focus ( 42 mpg ) - which would pay 60p/litre ( instead of current 95p/l) with annual fuel bill of £1290 . This would be a saving of £870 against the current cost which may seem a bit strange and against the grain but the difference would be that ALL revenues from fuel & the annual travel card would generate £53bn and would be directly re-invested in 'free' & sustainable public transport and road improvements . It does rely on people still using their cars to an extent and it is unlikely that the WHOLE population would take advantage of the free public transport but it would help the poorer members of the population who are consistently trapped in poverty and require state assistnce to survive.
If you are still awake and enjoyed reading this watch out for UTOPIA MAYBE where I will go in more detail ( oh no not more ..please don't i hear you say ) not only on transport but on a formula I have developed that would provide for a tax free society ( initially set at 9% flat rate of net worth across the board as opposed to current system which increases the more you earn i.e 22% to 40% - a very poor system since you are already paying more tax by the very nature you are earning more ! - the 9% is designed to reduce to 3% over a period of years and finally zero after 50 years or so ) under this system the state flexible retirement age is set at 16 !! ( yes 16 NOT 68 as is currently proposed - don't worry i will explain but not here - it sounds crazy but you'll be amazed when you see it - cause it works! ) . UK plc is currently worth some £6 trillion and c 50% of that is locked up doing effectively 'nothing' for the country whilst under the current regressive regime someone earning c £10,000pa ( theres a theme running through this - have you noticed !? ) with a company car driving 20,000 private miles pa will pay c 80% in tax ! (hence why we have so many people in the state benefit trap ) - the thing I find extraordinary is that there has been an earnings limit of £8500 pa for years possibly ten ( its never raised ) before which company car tax is 'nul & void ' i.e below that you do not need to pay company car tax - when it was introduced it may have had some relation to the min wage but not any longer since thats now above £5ph so someone on min wage would have their tax allowance wiped out by company tax then pay something like 70p a litre in petrol tax ( out of TAXED income ) while filling up their car ( while the person filling up next to them on £50,000pa pays comparitively less in tax percentage wise ) -I better stop now as im going on & on ! - thanks for reading - I hope you get my point -watch this space