The Government is keen to save £5 billion per year on disability benefits. Will they achieve it? No chance in my opinion when they ignore such abuses as have crept into the Motability scheme which provides vehicles for disabled people – including tax and insurance.
There are now over 850,000 cars on British roads under the Motability scheme, a number that is growing by around 15% per year. But the biggest concern? Many of these cars are not being driven by the people they were intended for.
It is claimed that in many cases, the disabled person never even drives the car – it’s a convenient loophole for others to exploit. With three named drivers allowed on each Motability car, it’s all too easy for families to use the vehicle while the original claimant rarely, if ever, gets behind the wheel. The qualifications for a Motability vehicle are similar to those for PIP – including ADHD, anxiety, and agoraphobia.
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The Lower Thames Crossing tunnel has been under consideration, but not actual construction, for many years. It would relieve traffic congestion on the A2 and M25 by allowing traffic to avoid the Dartford Crossing. Many people, including me, would benefit, but this is what the FT had to say recently on the planning impediments to getting the project moving forward:
“Lower Thames Crossing has cost £1.2bn even before construction starts. The scheme to build a 14-mile road and tunnel to connect Kent and Essex has become a totem of Britain’s snarled-up planning system, in which ventures are tied up with years of delays and mountains of expensive compliance documents.
The planning document for the project — the first wholly-new Thames river crossing east of London in 60 years — runs to 359,070 pages, while around 150 staff are employed on the project, as well as an eight-strong management team.”
Comment: This is a typical example of UK management incompetence with overpaid consultants creaming off enormous fees and delaying projects while environmental concerns are exaggerated by pressure groups.
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London Mayor Sadiq Khan has launched yet another grab for more power when he already has too much. He is proposing pedestrianisation of the major shopping area of Oxford Street to be done by setting up a new Mayoral Development Corporation which will take over the powers of Westminster Council. This is another blatant power grab by the Mayor which needs to be opposed.
Pedestrianisation of Oxford Street is a good idea in theory but ignores the practical problems associated with diverting bus routes and providing access to cars, taxis and delivery vehicles.
New York Congestion Charging
New York recently introduced a congestion charge to limit traffic in Manhattan and raise money for the local transport authority. But with Donald Trump now in power the Department of Transportation has given New York City a deadline of March 21 to end its congestion pricing plan.
We need someone in central Government in the UK to follow this lead and scrap congestion charges which simply do not work and are just a tax raising wheeze. Local authorities and the Mayor of London should not have the power to raise taxes in this way.
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According to a report by Shahzad Sheikh 140,000 drivers lost their licenses last year. This is a 15% increase. Why are the numbers rising? It’s from lowered speed limits, more speed cameras and more enforcement mainly although using a hand-held phone is also a problem.
Have these tougher measures actually improved road safety and reduced the number of casualties? In essence no.
In 2023 there were 29,643 killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties, little change compared to 2022 according to the latest DfT report based on police STATS19 reports.
Clearly the policies adopted on improving road safety are not working even ignoring the fact that these figures need adjusting for changes in the number of vehicles on the road and traffic volumes.
Congestion Getting Worse
TomTom, the provider of SatNav systems, has recently reported on traffic volumes and congestion. London as usual comes out badly and is getting worse. Average time to travel 10 km in London is now over 33 minutes. That makes it by far the worse of major cities in Europe. See https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/ for more details.
The London Mayor’s Transport Strategy to reduce congestion and improve road safety is not working as could be expected. When dogma takes priority over rational analysis and sensible policies there is no improvement.
New York recently introduced a Congestion Charge for the Manhattan area to cut traffic congestion and improve funding for public transport. Is it working? That’s debatable and surrounding areas like New Jersey are complaining. Donald Trump is trying to overturn the change.
I suggest that any improvement will be temporary as traffic will soon adjust to fill up the new road space. You cannot price people off the roads as there is too much unsatisfied demand, as has been demonstrated in London where the data has been ignored.
The Government has rejected a Parliamentary petition calling for repeal of the Climate Change Act. See https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/701600 . The Government has rejected this petition with this summary comment: “There is no ‘two-sided’ debate on anthropogenic climate change. The Government’s policy to support ambitious action on climate change reflects the overwhelming scientific consensus”. Meanwhile most of the rest of the world, including the biggest emitters of CO2 continue to ignore it while the UK incurs very substantial costs in trying to meet an impossible target.
The UK population have never had the opportunity to vote on this subject. Why not? I guess the Government does not believe in the wisdom of crowds.
Electric Car Market
The electric car market seems to be rapidly changing. The former market leader of Tesla is no longer in the lead having been overtaken by BYD as the world’s biggest EV seller. German and US manufacturers have also stepped up their game in terms of product features and quality. Where is the UK? Absolutely nowhere with even Jaguar Land Rover backing the wrong horses. To quote the Brown Car Guy “China now produces 70% of the world’s EVs, meaning there’s a buffet of options that are more affordable”.
Some of the decline in Tesla sales has been attributed to Elon Musk’s involvement in politics – even an allegation that he made a Nazi salute which I consider quite ridiculous. Like Donald Trump he seems to be making a positive contribution to US politics to my mind. Anyone who buys a new car based on the political views of someone who only owns about 13% of the company is surely misguided.
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The Chancellor is backing the expansion of London Heathrow Airport with a third runway. This has of course been proposed in the past but plans have always been thwarted by political and legal opposition. Rachel Reeves believes it would assist her plans to grow the economy, and it should be pushed through. Even if she manages to overcome all the hurdles it could be many years before we see the new runway.
Is it necessary and a good thing? The issue to my mind has always been the increased noise and pollution from expanding this airport in a London suburb. A much better plan has always been to build a new airport to the east of London on Maplin Sands or elsewhere in Essex/Kent.
Other alternatives are expansion of Stansted, Luton or Gatwick airports, or even better, expand regional airports. Is it really necessary to have people travelling from all over the UK to Heathrow just to catch a plane to their ultimate destination? It is not and the financial cost of expanding Heathrow is enormous – for example it requires major alterations to the M25/M4 which will add months of disruption to key roads.
I have always opposed Heathrow expansion and will continue to do so because of opposition to the noise that it causes that affects a very wide area of London. Heathrow Airport is also one to avoid in my opinion by any sensible traveller.
Lower Thames Crossing
Apparently the Chancellor is looking at a private finance deal to get the Lower Thames Crossing built. This is a tunnel near Tilbury to divert traffic from the Channel ports to avoid them using the M25 and Dartford Crossing. This is a very worthwhile project that makes a lot more sense than expanding Heathrow Airport.
Just Stop Oil Appeals
Yesterday appeals were heard in the Court of Appeal over the sentences on Just Stop Oil protestors who blocked the M25 for 4 days. That included 5 years for Roger Hallam who helped to organise the protest. Were the sentences justified? Well the cost imposed on the millions of road users who use the M25, and the general inconvenience caused do justify stiff sentences in my opinion. That is particularly so after Hallam in April 2024 was given a suspended two-year sentence for attempting to block Heathrow Airport with drones. Basically he and his supporters are persistently attempting to disrupt normal life. These are not “peaceful” protests – they aim to cause the maximum disruption they can just in the cause of bringing their views into public attention.
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The election of Donald Trump as US President is going to mean some substantial changes to environmental policies which will impact motor vehicle production and usage in the USA. Some of the changes that are being made by executive orders are:
Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, an unrealistic attempt to halt climate change.
Declare a national energy emergency which will unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules.
Begin the repeal of Biden-era regulations on tailpipe pollution from cars and light trucks, which have effectively mandated automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles.
He might also revoke federal support for congestion charging in New York.
Would it not be great if we had similar policies adopted in the UK? Motoring is getting needlessly expensive from tough and expensive regulations that will have minimal impact on the climate or air quality.
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The Freedom for Drivers Blog which mainly contains my comments on transport and other news (see https://freedomfordrivers.blog/ ) has been hosted by WordPress for a number of years. It has provided an easy-to-use blogging platform. However I have recently noticed that the “subscribe” function that enabled people to get notifications of new posts stopped working some months ago. I am therefore removing mention of it from past blog posts.
You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/Drivers_London where new blog posts are usually mentioned.
You can of course easily review the blog for recent posts or search for any topic of interest to you at any time.
Unfortunately the Subscribe function in WordPress no longer works and their support appears to be negligible so I will be looking at alternative platforms which are as easy to use. I already use Wix for the Freedom for Drivers web site (see https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/ ) so that may be an option but if you have other suggestions please let me know.
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A legal challenge over the use of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) to raise money by fining motorists is being mounted in the London Borough of Croydon. The judicial review claims the Council is using LTNs to raise revenue which is illegal. The claim says there is no environmental benefit and it is just about filling holes in Council budgets.
Comment: It is a worthy challenge to stop the misuse of LTN legislation to raise taxes. There is clearly a financial motive behind many LTN schemes as Councils are under great financial pressure at the moment. They anticipate large numbers of fines from such schemes.
The barrister representing Croydon residents is Kevin Leigh.
Drivers in South-East London will be hit by high charges to drive through both the Blackwall Tunnel and the new Silvertown Tunnel when it opens
Silvertown and Blackwall User Charges – 06:00 to 22:00
Charges paid via Auto Pay
Charges paid via other channels
Standard off-peak charges
Peak charges Mon-Fri only Northbound 06:00 – 10:00Southbound 16:00 -19:00
At all times
Motorcycle, moped, motor tricycle
£1.50
£2.50
£2.50
Car and small van
£1.50
£4.00
£4.00
Large van
£2.50
£6.50
£6.50
Heavy Goods Vehicles
£5.00
£10.00
£10.00
Penalty Charge Notice for non-payment – £180 (Reduced to £90 if paid within two weeks)
Charges will apply from 06:00 to 22:00 seven days a week. For drivers registered for Auto Pay, the off-peak rate of £1.50 for cars, motorcycles and small vans would apply the majority of the time. To manage traffic congestion during the busiest times, there will be a peak charge for four hours northbound in the morning (from 06:00 to 10:00) and three hours southbound in the evening (from 16:00 to 19:00), Monday to Friday. People using the tunnels at night (22:00-06:00) won’t pay anything.
To help residents, small businesses and charities, and to support people to use new public transport connections, a wide range of concessions and discounts is being provided, including a 50% discount available for low-income residents in 12 east and southeast London boroughs and the City of London. Those boroughs are Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley, City of London Corporation, Greenwich, Hackney, Havering, Lewisham, Newham, Redbridge, Southwark, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest. Blue Badge holders should also get a 100% discount.
Comment: the new Silvertown Tunnel had to be paid for somehow and the charges are not unreasonable. But they will deter people from commuting through the Tunnels and make life expensive for some people. The charges are unlikely to stay at the proposed levels for long though.
It has been reported that Sadiq Khan will receive a knighthood in the New Years Honours List. A person less worthy of receiving an honour I cannot imagine. A person who has destroyed the London road network and raised taxes to meet his own vanity projects. There is a petition you can sign against this on Change.org – see https://chng.it/RNcYPm78Qh
