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Punitive pricing
Page 28
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IN REPLY TO John Hunt's comments on road user charging (CM 8 March),Punitive pricing will not remove a single truck from the roads. He is probably right that we will get some form of charging scheme, like it or not, but history has shown that no punitive pricing policy has grasped control of traffic congestion as we already pay the highest price in Europe to use our roads.
Some may point to the London congestion charging scheme, but this only works because there is a way round the charging zone. When the option to avoid it is removed, congestion will return.
In fact Ken Livingstone's London low-emission zone (LEZ) may actually be the foundation from which a workable charging scheme manifests itself, as this incorporates a direct link between CO, emissions and the price paid.
The only real solution may be a harder pill to swallow. It is no good allowing vehicles into an open market unhindered and then trying to control their use: the only morally, socially and workable solution would be to control the numbers of vehicles before they hit the roadthus removing the problem rather than trying to treat the symptoms Kevin Duck by e-mail