[Openstreetmap] UK Motorways 100% Complete

Rev Simon Rumble simon at rumble.net
Sat Jan 7 16:59:26 GMT 2006


This one time, at band camp, Jo Walsh wrote:

> i find it hard to imagine that "the public" would really swallow the
> idea of a GPS-powered road usage metering system. there would be so
> many loopholes. and it's such a security/privacy mess.

The public needs to realise that we're ALL subsidising the road freight 
industry.  When engineers calculate the wear a vehicle places on the 
road, they use a formula that goes weight X axle.  So a 1 tonne family 
car with 2 axles goes to 2 tonnes wear.  A 25 tonne lorry with 6 axles, 
as you can imagine, causes significantly more wear.

Lorries do not pay 72.5 times the road or fuel taxes, and they tend to 
be on the road a hell of a lot more than the average family car.

It gets worse: rail freight, which is generally thought to be better 
environmentally and socially, must charge VAT.  Road freight doesn't.  
Ignoring all the other distorting subsidies on both forms of freight, 
there's a 12.5% subsidy right there.

These road freight subsidies are why Tesco has only a few warehouses 
around the country, with everything being trucked dwn to them and then 
trucked out to the stores.  If they were paying anything near their 
actual costs, I suspect they might end up having store rooms in their 
supermarkets again.

-- 
Rev Simon Rumble <simon at rumble.net>
www.rumble.net

The Tourist Engineer
Nerds need vacations too.
http://engineer.openguides.org/

See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis,
and only enough blood to run one at a time.

- Robin Williams




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