The Davos Agenda clearly involves drastically reducing and ultimately eliminating private car travel for virtually everyone. Possibly the simplest route to achieving this is road usage charging. At introduction charges will be reasonable and limited but will soon after be escalated to crippling levels that few can afford. Little surprise that the first moves towards widespread introduction of road charging are in London. The London Assembly has a ” consultation” on their proposals. This closes on Friday 10th March. If you are in London please try and respond by email. We have produced suggested responses below.
Pay per mile: Consultation ends this Friday 10th March. Please edit as you wish and forward to friends and contacts. London being used as prototype for rolling out elsewhere.
If we ‘pay per mile’ then our miles are tracked and recorded. Either that means a camera on every junction, or it means we are required to carry a smartphone or similar tracking device for every journey we take, such as existing anti-theft devices. This is ‘already here’ technology, not something for the future as this scheme’s advertising is suggesting.
And any one of these technological methods can, either now or before long, be adapted to cover all journeys, whether by car, cycle, foot or scooter - possibilities that are not ruled out in the documentation.
In the 2019 report “Green Light” on the future of London road charging by the Centre for London https://www.centreforlondon.org/reader/green-light/ we see described an app called “City Move” that people are expected to sign into before making their journey. This will suggest alternative modes of transport or alternative times. An expectation to use such an app is just a stone’s throw from a requirement to gain a permission code for one’s journey. Questions asked in the consultation imply a need to explain or justify one’s journey.
Where bureaucracies can take power, they usually do - and it is an unwise nation that builds such capability into their infrastructure. This is why we need to get involved, and alert our friends to it despite the very short timeframe.
Pay per mile: Consultation ends this Friday 10th March. Please edit as you wish and forward to friends and contacts. London being used as prototype for rolling out elsewhere.
If we ‘pay per mile’ then our miles are tracked and recorded. Either that means a camera on every junction, or it means we are required to carry a smartphone or similar tracking device for every journey we take, such as existing anti-theft devices. This is ‘already here’ technology, not something for the future as this scheme’s advertising is suggesting.
And any one of these technological methods can, either now or before long, be adapted to cover all journeys, whether by car, cycle, foot or scooter - possibilities that are not ruled out in the documentation.
In the 2019 report “Green Light” on the future of London road charging by the Centre for London https://www.centreforlondon.org/reader/green-light/ we see described an app called “City Move” that people are expected to sign into before making their journey. This will suggest alternative modes of transport or alternative times. An expectation to use such an app is just a stone’s throw from a requirement to gain a permission code for one’s journey. Questions asked in the consultation imply a need to explain or justify one’s journey.
Where bureaucracies can take power, they usually do - and it is an unwise nation that builds such capability into their infrastructure. This is why we need to get involved, and alert our friends to it despite the very short timeframe.
The control is getting worse.