Petition against car tracking

[Sharkith]

The free market solution is to allow doctors be licensed from more than one licensing body, and let the market decide. Btw, this also covers the quality issue. A doctor can lose his license if he does something incompetent and it is in the licensing body's interests to make sure doctors that it licenses maintain a high standard.

This is kinda like a brand name. Do you go to an NHS certified doctor or one certified by a private buisness? Most doctors would probably try to get certified by as many as possible.

Not sure that any of that answers the problems I posed above. The costs of multiple liscensing will be passed on and you still have very little regulation of the kinds of treatments provided. Not only this but you ignored that this is not the same thing as having your car fixed Lairiodd. This is your body and you are in a position of not knowing very much about it.

The tendency for any company to over produce is still there and after all we are talking about physical bodies. The closest system to the one your advocating more or less exists in America and they have the worst health overall in all the OECD countries. What your suggesting is a step back in over 100 years of social democracy - a pipe dream.

[Sharkith]

.... erm, isn't the whole point to move people from congested roads onto less congested ?

basically this is where the government become incoherent as usual in a desperate bid to confuse everyone...

[Sharkith]

I finally had some time to look into this one and I am reassured that the approach the Government has adopted is very sensible. They have prioritised the public's perspective and clearly with the petition and the response to the initial suggestions they will now know that there is a lot of work to be done clarifying the problems associated with this kind of scheme. The timetable is more like 15 years than immediate which is very reassuring.

All in all I was more encouraged by the reports than some of the responses I read here. First of all Gandelf they see the problem not as people 'needlessly' driving in congested areas. They correctly identify that everyone would prefer to avoid congestion and so this is not a tax on congestion as is being mistakenly portrayed in this thread.

As a result of the emphasis on choice the government is supporting a range of initiatives. They want to enable drivers to know exactly how to avoid congested roads and accidents by enabling more up to the minute information through sat nav systems and are prioritising sophisticated technological solutions in this regard. In other words they are trying to help rather than trying to tax for the sake of it.

The choice issue is closely related to how they see pricing. They recognise that there is huge variablility in how people use the roads - hence why the starting point is your choice and my choice. As a result they recognise that they cannot have a one size fits all solution. So pricing will be under local control and should reflect local patterns of car use. This however needs major research and several pilot schemes in different parts of the country.

Apart from this they are looking to improve public transport and by improving accountability. One of the suggestions is to have a single point of evaluation for performance. So for example the currently very patchy system will be brought under one system of evaluation and this should eventually lead to greater consistency accross the country. I will be interested to see how they are going to do this but this is a really important move. We can only hope it has a positive effects.

There is much more in the report but essentially they realise the crunch issue is trust and they need to work on appropriate solutions in terms of communicating that this is not going to be nor will it allowed to be another tax. The last issue we will have to wait and see.

Finally there are plans for these things across Europe and the system they implement has to be compatible with other European systems to allow ease of payment. I am wondering if any such system has already been implemented in Europe?

So its a good read and well worth checking out.

At the moment they know there is much to do all we can do is continue to express our concerns and hope that through the feedback they get it right.

I would be interested in seeing what the Tories think. So quite good news from my perspective.

Oh and the privatisation issue is also a major concern for me given what happened with the Rail Network.

[Xest]

Dude, no fucking way.

You just agreed with me on something.

Is this like a phsycological trick or something, you like agree with me here to trick me into agreeing with you in the other thread somehow? Or is it money you're after or what ?

[Sharkith]

Dude, no fucking way.

You just agreed with me on something.

Is this like a phsycological trick or something, you like agree with me here to trick me into agreeing with you in the other thread somehow? Or is it money you're after or what ?

lol I was with you on a large part of this discussion like I am with you in a large part in the other discussion. I think your style of argument and posting makes it difficult for me to agree with you 100% because you are too willing to gloss over certain details in order to hit hard with your points. I have told you that loads of times in PM's. What should I do roll over and allow you to inflame what could be a productive discussion or just keep poking at the details to clarify things and have some fun with you at the same time?

A good example of where you over step the mark is that earlier in this thread you refer to this as a tax on congestion. The White Paper and the Road Pricing report avoid that language for obvious reasons. So the words in bold were reserved for your earlier comments. I think if you look at the report that this is about how to imrpove road traffic flow and effeciency and that the concern is less to do with congestion although those are important background details. Then the subject is easier for people to discuss. What the government are doing is working on it as a positive problem and that is very sensiblke politically. Even if the root problem is the same.

Like I said before I would read it to see what I thought. I found it much more positive than your posts here led me to believe. You are great fun to read even if you frustrate a lot of peeps.

edited to change this:"I think your style or argument and posting makes it difficult for me to agree with you 100% because you are too willing to gloss over certain details in order to hit hard with your points." to this "I think your style of argument and posting makes it difficult for me to agree with you 100% because you are too willing to gloss over certain details in order to hit hard with your points."

[Ovi]

[Quote=Sharkith]
I think if you look at the report that this is about how to imrpove road traffic flow and effeciency and that the concern is less to do with congestion... [/quote]

What's the difference?

I agree in general with what you said, but I don't understand what the difference is between "improving traffic flow & efficiency" and "reducing congestion", aren't they 2 different ways of saying the same thing?

I can see a psychological difference in that people what rather something was improved rather than trying to reduce something, but isn't that the only difference?

[Sharkith]

Ovi,

thats a good question and your totally right its the other side of the same coin but the issues are not the same - do you get what I mean? The distinction in this seems to be between congestion and effeciency and the governemt have come down on the side of producing effeciency rather than reducing congestion. Why?

Well in all likelihood congestion will not go away whereas effeciency gains can most likely be claimed. In fact the predictions are that congestion is going to get worse. So why start with a no win siuation?

This is why detail on semantics is really important - the governement wants to be seen to contributing to quality of life rather than problem solving a problem that is never going to disappear. Governements are primarily concerned with establishing that they have made improvements it is typcially how they think. So in this case it focuses on providing a positive change rather than a attempting to solve an impossible problem.

Can you see that calling it a tax on congestion, which is unavoidable, is less convincing than calling it a payment for improvements in choice and better roads?

Its all about how they can get support to make the decision.

I would be interested to see what Gandy thinks of this angle on it.

Sharktih

[Lairiodd]

Not sure that any of that answers the problems I posed above. The costs of multiple liscensing will be passed on and you still have very little regulation of the kinds of treatments provided. Not only this but you ignored that this is not the same thing as having your car fixed Lairiodd. This is your body and you are in a position of not knowing very much about it.

I know how a car works in theory, but I wouldn't be able to fix one if there was a big problem.

It probably wouldn't cost that much really for the multiple licenses. It would probably involve certification of courses in some way and also a mechanism for a doctor to lose his license, either after a major mess up or perhaps by continual assesment.

Also, if it was expensive, then doctors would probably just pick 1.

The tendency for any company to over produce is still there and after all we are talking about physical bodies. The closest system to the one your advocating more or less exists in America and they have the worst health overall in all the OECD countries. What your suggesting is a step back in over 100 years of social democracy - a pipe dream.

I realise it is unlikely to happen. Also, the US system is still paid for by the US government via lots of regulations.