Vote against the real Big Brother

[John Sims]

This may have been posted elsewhere, or previously, and if it has I appologise.

Was sent the following, and thought you might be interested:-

[FONT=palatino linotype"]If you drive a car, please read -


[FONT=palatino linotype"]Sarah Kennedy was talking about this proposed car tax scheme on Radio 2. Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the 'Pay As You Go' road tax.

The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it and 750,000 signatures are required for the goverment to at least take any notice.

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.

The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill.

If you are concerned about this Orwellian plan and want to stop the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible. Sign up if you value your freedom and democratic rights -
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[FONT=palatino linotype"]http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltaxhttp://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltaxhttp://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax
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At this moment of posting there are 699,155 signatures so it is going in the right direction.

 

[cococola]

Ive put similar link on works email list and reccomend anyone to sign up.

 

[andymorris]

Its now at 889,000 signatures, Lets hope that Big Brother doesnt get inside our cars.

 

[924nutter]

It just goes to show that politicians know jack shoot about PCs and their abilities.
According to 'computer.howstuf works.com', computers need 1 byte of data per carachter or space, so even the humble 7 digit registration needs 8 bytes on a computer somewhere for when it needs to be viewed or turned into hard copy. Now if this system is to work in realtime that means a minimum of 8 bytes per car per..... what shall we say, per second. just for the i.d. Now what do you reckon at peak times, 15 million cars in motion? So that would be 120 Mb/sec, or about 15 times better than the best 'up to' broadband download speed, all trying to be absorbed by our gps systems. Wireless systems seem to be capalble of about 2Mb/sec. If I designed gps satellites I certainly wouldn't have designed in extra weight for something like that kind of extra processing capabillity. The technology exists today to build the tracking devices but if they were going to be any good, a certain Mr. Livingstone would be using them in London even as we speak wouldn't he.
Or am I talking bo****ks[&:]

 

[924nutter]

And another thing. Why should I have to have two trackers just because I have two cars? I can only drive one , so straight away anyone with two cars gets hit twice for trackers.

 

[924nutter]

And another thing, I bet there will be a sudden spate of unexplained failures of the tracking devices. Link them to the mot, I here you say.

 

[924nutter]

And another thing, how long before some bright spark comes up with a gadget to disable the tracker. It's probably designed already.

 

[924nutter]

And another thing. What happens if your speedo cable breaks 'accidentally' and the milage on the odometer and the milage when read at the MOT ( you betcha they will) are different?

 

[924nutter]

This just in. if every house in the uk changed to one energy saving lamp, it would be the same as taking 200,000 cars of the road in terms of CO2 emisssions. So Mr Blair what deal are you going to do for me?[] I have got five energy saving lamps. I am saving so much, I don't even turn them all on at once.[]

 

[Fen]

I've got 9 energy savers []. As I run less economical cars than I might it's my little bit for the tree huggers - and boy were the bulbs expensive.

I never did get the email to confirm my signature - anyone else have that problem?

 

[Mark_Bennett]

The emails took a day to turn up for me - and they went in my "bulk/spam" folder as a default...

 

[carlmthompson]

ORIGINAL: 924nutter

If I designed gps satellites I certainly wouldn't have designed in extra weight for something like that kind of extra processing capabillity.

The GPS satellites are passive, so no extra load there. You can get connections as big as you want - 1000Mb per sec is the new home standard (just put a few of these together to get what you want.)

However, the main problem with the government as ever running with this is that they farm out all IT projects to big IT firms who take all of the money and constantly fail to deliver the goods.

My bet is that they would farm this out to the insurance companies and make it their problem, charging a whopping tax on the proceeds while providing extra cash for the insurance industry at the same time. Everyone's a winner. Well, at least if your the government or an insurance company[]

 

[Mikie_gb]

I am now a sustainable development consultant, who drives a Porsche, smokes like a chimney and eats meat. It is now part of my job as a building designer.

Organise a time and a place and I will give you all an unbiased presentation on how screwed we are going to be in a short while as car drivers. ie we won't be. The likes of the 944 will disappear over night, as very suddenly a low value high performance car will be unsaleable and undrivable due to converging factors.

For your information incandescent light bulbs are obsolete and likely to be voluntarily withdrawn or banned from sale. Anyone who still uses them should be made to stand in the corner and chant 'My Porsche will be crushed because I/we wasted all the oil running crap light bulbs'.

 

[944Turbo]

Another worth signing here
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam/#detail

After all if scameras were really at blackspots would you rather be staring at the speedo or looking out for hazards? A hazard sign would be more effective but then it wouldn't raise money for camera empires to waste.

Tony

 

[924nutter]

Is that Mb/sec or mb/sec? There being a difference of a factor of eight between a mega byte (Mb) and a mega bit (mb)

 

[John Sims]

It was suggested on the news tonight that,despite 1.1 million noting their disapproval on the web site, our democratically elected Government, will still most likely trial the system in Birmingham or Manchester.

To slightly misquote Monty Python and the Holy Grail...

"The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held Excalibur aloft from the bosom of the water to signify by Divine Providence.. that I, Tony, was to carry Excalibur ... That is why I am your President."

 

[eastendr]

ORIGINAL: 924nutter

Is that Mb/sec or mb/sec? There being a difference of a factor of eight between a mega byte (Mb) and a mega bit (mb)

Or even Mb / MB

I think this government have forgotton that they govern only by our consent, which we have to renew every 4 years, or even sooner if we get really ssiped off.

This one could well grow beyond the fuel protests, but on this occasion not back down. Bring it on!

Note: the 'pissed' has had the four letters reversed above - just having fun with the fuck filter [] [] []

 

[944cabby]

Does anyone know what the tories or lib-dems stand on this issue is?

 

[sawood12]

I have absolute confidence that any government is not capable of implementing such a laviathon of a system that can simultaniously track millions of cars on the road at the same time. The concept is so flawed that they would have to implement an equally complex system to look out for people trying to shortcut it. This government has thrown lots of ideas around about many issues, most of which are not technicaly feasible. What happens for example, you breakdown and get towed or trailerd 100 miles home by the RAC?? Do you have to rely on the RAC to report the pick-up to the authorities so they can subtract that milage from your quota?? What about roads that are close together and the problems of the sensors on one road picking up signals from the tracker in a car on the other road. There are so many scenarios you could think of that might trick the system and there would have to be a whole new government department headed up by yet another overpaid and utterly uselsess MP to process all the complaints and claims.

IF the motorist absolutely has to bear even more tax I would prefer to get rid of annual road tax and put a bit more tax on fuel. This way if you are a high milage driver of an uneconomical car then you will pay more per mile. It's fool proof, free to implement and works. And it would justify the cost of plenty of engine performance mods as they make the car more economical and cleaner!!!

 

[georgethackray]

A bit of news - apparently, Radio 4 covered the petition yesterday, and today many people have contacted Radio 4 to say they couldn't get to the web site to register their disapproval.
It seems that the fault was down to 'too much traffic'!!
Anyway, I've signed it.There are 1.3 million signatures there now.....