British Road Charging
If you're a British citizen and Opel Manta driver then you probably know about the British Government's proposed road charging scheme. The government would like to tax car drivers for the amount of driving they do and they wish to do this through installing a "black box" in your car and using GPS to track your movements, calculate your mileage and then charge you accordingly.
We see problems with this...
1) The proposed charging system is hugely complicated and expensive. Why install black boxes in every car when you can simply add x pence to a litre of fuel? Therefore the more you drive, the more you pay. Simple.
2) There are a lot of privacy issues in tracking where you are going and when. It's OK for tracking criminals but it's an invasion of privacy for most good citizens and a false positive in terms of picking through the data.
3) Somebody suggested they could use the GPS data for hitting drivers with speeding fines. They already have the much-hated Gatso cameras and lazy police officers sitting in vans speed-gunning people along the A325 Farnborough Road (a dual-carriageway with a 30 MPH limit !!!) so this is just another stealth method of nabbing 'offenders' and swelling the coffers.
4) The counter arguement that we should first improve our roads before taxing the motorist is a good idea, but what does that mean? Widening the M25, for instance? Why not make it illegal for drivers to be middle lane morons and give them on the spot fines for driving without due care and attention? That would free up a lot of space on Britain's motorways!
Come on, UK Opel Manta owners, don't let them get away with it, sign the petition before the 20th February!