On Sun, 9 Dec 2018 17:15:08 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:35:56 on Sun, 9 Dec 2018,
Billy Bum Bandit No Mates remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 09:23:54 on Sun, 9 Dec 2018,
Billy Bum Bandit No Mates remarked:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/u...don-pollution-
charge-may-be-mayor-sadiq-khans-poll-tax-moment-kf8h2z5hm?shareToken=50
fd0db33f7e78ede69332bfd5bf9172

"the charge, levied on older and more polluting vehicles...
applies to nearly all diesel cars and vans licensed before
September 2015"

In other words, not just "older" ones, but almost all that aren't
effectively brand new. And of course the ones which escape the charge
are precisely the generation where some manufacturers were recently
caught fiddling the testing.

If they were genuinely wanting this charge to persuade people to buy/use
less-polluting vehicles, it should have been set for diesels at the
previous 2009 Euro-5 standard, because not everyone can afford to scrap
their three year old car.

Yes, this is turning into a hefty stealth tax, affecting far more vehicles
and their owners than was previously recognised. As you say, other than the
newest models, practically all diesels would incur the daily tax.

Although I don't drive inside the M25 very much (mainly rat-runs around
accident blockages on the M25) I might have not so willingly recently
bought a Euro-4 diesel car if a Euro-5 one would have been OK according
to the mayor.

All the mayors idiotic tax will achieve is sending perfectly good cars to
the scrapheap too early which - if they're replaced - will released a whole
lot more pollution into the atmosphere. That and a huge rise in the number of
cloned and foreign plates being used inside the zone which coupled with the
total lack of traffic police these days will just lead to people taking the
****.

All this because of his dogmatic attachment to his no rise in fares policy
and the screwup that is crossrail.

People inside the cordon would not have very often passed the cordon
[outbound] in their normal lives, and hence would rarely have had to
pay.

Unlike with the congestion charge zone, this new zone won't have just an in/out
line you can avoid. Even if you start your journey in the zone and never leave
it you'll still apparently be caught by ANPR (presumably yet to be installed)
and charged/fined.