andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2008-05-26 11:15 pm
andrewducker) wrote2008-05-26 11:15 pm
Oh for fuck's sake
There's a BBC News story here saying that the government shouldn't put up petrol taxes...because theey'll hit the poor harder than the rich.
OF COURSE THEY WILL!!!!!
All taxes, except for ones that are (in some way) means-tested, hit the poor harder, because the poor have less money.
If the tax didn't affect people by making it harder to drive everywhere all the damn time, it would be a tad pointless, especially when this is something the government has said it's supposed to encourage.
Oh, the stupidity.
OF COURSE THEY WILL!!!!!
All taxes, except for ones that are (in some way) means-tested, hit the poor harder, because the poor have less money.
If the tax didn't affect people by making it harder to drive everywhere all the damn time, it would be a tad pointless, especially when this is something the government has said it's supposed to encourage.
Oh, the stupidity.
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Where I work is literally minutes from two different train stations and is about thirty seconds from pretty much -all- the bus routes that go through this part of Edinburgh.
People who live in places that are on those same bus routes or rail lines still drive to work "because it's easier".
When I worked at ScottishPower in Camelon, only two of us on my team regularly got the train. Everyone else drove. Except, with only one exception on a team of thirteen, everyone lived either on a direct bus route or train line from the office. You could see the office from the station. Some of these people lived pretty much next to bus stops, but they wouldn't use them. They wouldn't get trains, or would get the train and run up and down trying not to pay because they objected and would rather drive.
All of this is the problem. The problem is that people believe cars should be used over and above everything else.
If you can't teach people that this is the problem then there is no fucking hope. If you drive from down in the borders to your work outside Edinburgh, or out from Stirling to Kippen where there's precisely two buses a day, at entirely useless times - that's fine. you can hardly do that differently.
People who drive from one end of town to the other because they're too lazy to walk when there are no obstacles in their way, or do everything incluidng buying a shit car and spending hundreds keeping it running and buying petrol daily because their car gulps it up when they could step out of their house, walk for 90 seconds and get a bus that drops them directly outside their work (again, not an exageration - I could point to the places on a map and name the person I used to work with)
At the Prudential there was free bus transport from around the central region. Completely free, got you to work for nine, picked you up from work at five. People who worked 9 to 5 and lived right by the bus pickup points would still often drive, because they had a car and because it was "easier".
This is the problem.
The problem is having out of town shopping centres and not bothering to put in things like pavements or regular bus routes. The problem is spending all your money on things that aren't public transport when you're a government that claims to be in favour of greener living.
Saying that there are people who need their cars is fine, I completely agree. But the problem is all the others. They don't. And if they can't understand that, there is no point to this.
It's like mobile phones, and the internet. Once I had each of those, I came to rely on them and felt that I needed them. I -could- get by without them but its easier to use them. If I had a car, I'd probably be the kind of person I'm talking about. The thing is though, right now I'm not, so I can see this.
Unfortunately, it's a lot like They Live right now and other people can't see this. Don't defend people who do need their cars. I'm not attacking them. It's everyone else.
A very complex tax on cars, based on where you are, access to relevant public transport and what you use your car for would be perfect, but unfortunately completely unworkable. That way you could tax cars that were obviously being used as luxury items but ones that were an essential could be taxed -less-. Pity it wouldn't work.
The problem is that people equate cars with freedom, even if that car is itself a massive debt because you bought it on credit or at best a massive cost. Car adverts equate car ownership with freedom, with peace, with fulfilment. Not with debt, with cost, with pollution.
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This will not be the case in future. If people want to pretend this isn't going to happen, they can.
But right now, the best thing would be to try and educate people into considering whether they -actually- need a car, not whether they -want- a car. For people who do need a car, they can go on as they are. People who don't really need a car? Well heck, they can feel proud that they gave something up to do their part to save the world. It's slowly starting to happen that way with plastic carrier bags, after all. And taxing people off the roads is having an effect in some parts of Britain. The problem is that the investments in public transport are in totally the wrong place for the most part. Doing it in London where, as far as I'm aware from family and friends, people don't generally drive to the shops, or on intercity train lines going from London to Scotland rather than local services or rather better bus services pretty much everywhere - it's not hard to see where the problem is. The Stirling Alloa train line, and extended the Bathgate line- great! There being only one bus in the morning and one in the afternoon out to some of the villages here, so you have to own a car to drive a fairly small distance...not so great.
In the long run, I don't believe it truly matters. I think that oil, the environment and so forth have been pushed too far, or that things are continuing without change enough that massive changes will occurr and huge shifts will have to happen overnight regardless of whether people want them or not. In the short term, I think it's worth doing what we can, but in the long run, I don't think we necessarily have time any more.
Preparing for big serious changes before they happen is a pretty good plan right now though. Having something in place as regards power generation for being a small country without enough money to import it when a bidding war starts over short supplies, for example. That'd be a good thing to invest in as an example. Not just waiting and going on as we are because freedom is important. Freedom is important. So is the future. The government, and indeed most governments, as Andy has often said to me, is interested in giving people one of those while not doing much to safeguard the other.
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People are often surprised at how much I walk around London and even in Farnham. People are amazed I go regularly to one particular pub because it's an half hour walk away (and I walk fast. It's probably two and a half miles), but hell, I like the walk. And since last summer I've lost two stone, mostly because I've been walking much more. Sure, if I'm trying to move stuff it's a pain not having a car (or the ability to drive), but it's easy enough to get a friend to help or a taxi if I'm really desperate. If I want to go to London it's an hour on the train - and it would take longer and probably end up costing more to go by car (considering parking and so on). Public transport in the South East is amazingly good. People complain about it a lot, but really they often have no idea how good it is compared with everywhere else.
My parents, on the other hand, pretty much need to have a car. Public transport in rural Scotland is awful, my parents go long distances often and are getting too old to lug around heavy cases. But currently my situation (and the situation of most people in my area) is completely different. People don't need cars most of the time.
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I happily walk to the industrial estate retail park with a big supermarket that's a half hour walk away from here to shop, just because.
the southeast is about the worst place for train costs for actual distance covered, if I remember rightly? Here is second worst ;-)
I have walked quite a lot but not lost two stone :-( Sometimes I find a stone in my shoe :-(
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The initial thought was move somewhere where one of us can give up the car, so it may be somewhere in between. Still no transport. Also very little chance of us working anywhere closer to each other.
Stay a little bit too far away to cycle in and the road is too dangerous to attempt it.
Various methods have been tried to replace carbon based fuels, some are suitable for the cities, but none that I know off are any good for country life. Even looking at the so called green cars - the batteries are not any where close to environmentally friendly and the road I drive would rely heavily on the fuel.
Occasionally I have caught the train up north, but the times aren't suitable for my work patterns, still need someone with car to pick me up and I find myself trapped in Ayrshire. NOOOO!
Speaking of Ayrshire they now run a biobus - you get a discount for passing on your old cooking oil. Great idea with low useage, but think of the global problems if it takes off on a larger scale? Grain crops are already on the increase, but not necessarily as food. All these options usually have the nasty glossed over side - icky horrid solar panel chemicals that are impossible to dispose of and short lived in power cells, the problem with suicidal birds in wind farms (maybe that is just evolution). Fuel issues are always going to be one of compromise.
Roll on the nuclear transport?
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Unfortunately it's hard to get people to step back and think about whether they need are car in order to get into/out of their rural home/work that is impossible to get to otherwise... or whether they need it to get two minutes down the road to the shops.. and even then, some people are simply not going to understand what you're saying to them. Trying to convince people that what they have now is a luxury, even if they think it is a fundamental right and freedom is going to be something governments will be doing a lot of over the next few decades.
Hell, even the government is planning building projects that assumed continued growth, continued fuel usage. Look at the plans for heathrow, for building motorways - if less people fly and drive, those plans are going to look pretty stupid. But then, this is a government whose long term plans involve no contingencies for running out of oil, and an expected price of $70 a barrel.
It's funny - more than most things, all the discussion on the news about running out of oil, and food, and water - that's what makes me feel like I'm living in the future. Not being older, or the year being 2008, or computers. I grew up reading slews of dystopian SF of varying quality, so here we are :-D
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I thought that there was a muffled cry within parliament to try and restore old community values to cut commuting and therefore cut the transport issues. I can't for the life of me see how this is achievable. Policies like this are the most difficult to reverse.
Luxury is strange concept. I appreciate I do live a life of luxury - I can afford to travel and visit friends, or eat whatever I choose when I choose without thinking about it. I am am not rich by local standards, but still comfortable. I will usually be the first to admit that it is something I take for granted. I suppose to much of the world the average working class brit is often equivalent to how we perceive the sheiks. Money - or what it has become today - I find a harder concept to come to terms with.
Dsytopian futures and promises of tomorrow. Technology begats technology. There have been huge developments within the last decade, it is difficult to pin point great break throughs after the silicon chip. It is strange to look around and see inventions documented in SF. I expect I will see many more in the future. Just think what it must be like to be Patrick Moore!
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