Mups - have a quick look at the video I put up - it answers your question for you.
Not sure about the price cap, but wouldn’t argue about a progressive VED based on fuel consumption.
My mother-in-law reckons that she’s one of them.
I prefer to refer to her as a witch!
Very true.
When we were in Germany and, more recently, Austria we travelled everywhere by train.
Not only cheaper, but much more reliable. The only time we experienced a cancellation was once in the Black Forest where a local train had to be cancelled due to a fallen tree across the tracks. By the time we were to get the next scheduled train, it had been cleared.
How is it that they can be so efficient and we can not?
Unions?
Because the rail network is heavily subsidised by tax payers whereas in the UK taxes are used to fund a ridiculously over generous “benefits” scheme.
If you refer to foreign aid, then yes.
Some benefits are over-generous too, and I hear that there are many who manage to claim benefits illegally. That sounds to me more like inept management than the benefits being generous per se.
No. The extent of "Benefits"being paid to people in the UK is ludicrous. If people don’t get paid enough in the jobs they have then they should #1 get a second job and/or #2 reduce their living standard to line up with what they earn or #3 move to somewhere with lower housing cost.
As for overseas aid - that is utterly disgusting. Especially when the UK is having to borrow money by issuing Gilts (taking on debt on our behalf just to give away).
Then the money being paid to people here that includes child care allowance for dependent families overseas. Dependent families? Yer. Right.
As for child allowance, with the population numbers of the UK it should be a child TAX.
And trust me, I’m deadly serious.
I have just given my car to my son-in-law. Exec Honda Accord 2.2 litre. Has all the boys toys. I routinely got up to 70 mpg. Top speed, if you wanted to do that, was about twice the legal limit.
I agree in part.
As I have said elsewhere, child allowance should be reduced, or removed completely, to limit the number of children being born in this country. Numbers are unsustainable.
As for people being forced to take a second job, I think that is nothing to do with our benefits. If you are in work, I believe that you cannot claim any substantial benefits in order simply to increase your income.
Actually, I’m not sure what this has to do with smart motorways.
Completely agree, this is one of the stupidest ideeas I’ve ever heard of. As mentioned above the hard shoulder will eventually be restored to what it was origiinally intended for but likely not before a requisit number of fatalities have been registered and all the ‘jobs worth’ minions have expressed their sadness at the deaths.
I’m just glad that where we live it’s unlikely we’ll have to go on any so called ‘smart’ motorways.
There’s been an article on the news today - originally, on the early smart motorway schemes, there were escape points in the form of lay-bys every 500mtr. As the smart motorway concept was extended to other motorways, these escape points were extended to every 2000mtr. No wonder then that there are some fatalities, especially as the cameras used to detect stationary vehicles are non-existent on some parts of the motorway. Even where there are cameras, it takes an average of seventeen minutes to respond to a stationary vehicle before the lane is closed to further traffic. It takes an average of another seventeen minutes to get recovery vehicles to the stopped vehicle to remove it. That’s over half an hour of danger to pedestrians and cars.
If they want to spend £90bn to stop people using their cars then they should just pay this directly to people instead of wasting it on a ghost train line.
They should make more efficient cars instead of cutting speed limits. Causing more congestion just causes people to drive on a lower gear so counter productive.
Many older and disabled people depend on their cars or on deliveries of food by trucks. Even if rail travel were cheaper people would not bother because trains only have so much capacity. The only answer in our current society is to make cars increasingly fuel efficient and environmentally friendly.
Or even subsidise the purchase of electric cars and put in the infrastructure to charge them.
Better still, offer extremely cheap or free rail travel.
And RELIABLE!
We live in an area served by Northern Rail! :roll:
But even at the extortionate prices we have to pay the trains are totally overcrowded and the loos are disgusting. You’d expect at least a decent cuppa for the money. It’s better than it once was but for the price you pay it’s ridiculous.
When I used to do a lot of motorway driving there were only two reasons for congestion - accidents and roadworks. The first should be avoidable if you have a safe road system.
Roadworks are our biggest growth industry!
MUCH greater changes are going to have to be made than that. The whole approach to travel is going to have to change BIG TIME.