Association of British Drivers responds to Dispatches: Bottleneck Britain

The ABD issued a press release in response to Monday night’s Channel 4 documentary.

"Channel 4 did a good job showing that many ordinary people are fed up of the way that motorists are treated by the authorities and are ready to make a stand against parking restrictions, speed cameras and charging schemes," said the ABD's Nigel Humphries. "But the programme failed utterly to deal with the arguments for and against road pricing. Instead, it weakly took the Government line that road pricing was the inevitable solution to congestion but that this is tough to sell to a cynical public."

Naturally it is pleasing to see my views echoed by such an obvious authority.

The ABD also pointed out the following points missing from the program:

• Traffic levels into city centres like Manchester are static and falling and have been for years. Congestion has been increased in such places by deliberately obstructive measures like bus lanes, traffic lights and road closures.

• Traffic growth is concentrated on major out of town routes where the charges suggested on the programme were minimal and public transport alternatives non-existent.

• The motorist already pays £45bn in tax and is getting a raw deal on transport

• Singapore, shown as an example of road pricing, is a small island with one city and a splendid, comprehensive mass transit system.

• Diversion effects of tolling as drivers change their behaviour to reduce costs, were not considered


"The bottom line is that road pricing is grossly wasteful to collect, massively inconvenient to pay, worrying from a civil liberties viewpoint and has to be punitive before it can have any impact on traffic levels," continued Humphries. "Its a political non starter - punitive, regressive and unfair taxes on transport will damage the economy and quality of life of British citizens far more than the congestion they purport to remove."

Dispatches – Bottleneck Britain

On British television tonight on Channel 4 was an interesting documentary on the state of British roads. Are we headed for gridlock and what can be done about it? Because my viewing was interrupted by a telephone call and because the program was so interesting I watched it twice thanks to the Channel 4 +1 service on digital television.

The message appeared to be that road pricing is necessary to both encourage people to modify their behaviour and to pay for improvements in public transport, which is hailed as the cure for all our ills. Now I may be mistaken but there if the revenue from road pricing is necessary to pay for improvements in infrastructure then isn’t there a danger that if it actually succeeds in reducing the number of people driving at peak times it will fail to raise enough money to make the necessary changes.

Road Pricing

Parliamentary consent has been given to allow local authorities to trial methods for charging drivers based on the time of their journey on a particular road. The idea is that the highest charges for using the busiest roads at the busiest times will deter drivers from making un-necessary journeys at peak times and thus keep the roads clear for essential traffic.

Now it is good that the government wants to tackle congestion. The free movement of people and goods is vital to the economy of the nation. The problem is that Britain is densely populated, everyone is crammed into a relatively small area and when we go to work we end up going to the same places.

Sadly the proposed solution appears to be based on flawed assumptions. I would suggest that the biggest flaw is the idea that a big scheme like road pricing is the answer. Grand schemes are a great way of being seen to do something (which government always likes to do), but may divert attention from the boring practicalities of solving the problem. In the case of traffic management small improvements such as redesigning junctions, revising traffic light timings, removing traffic lights where practical and removing “traffic calming” measures may yield greater benefit but won’t make front page news.

Public transport is touted as a way to reduce congestion but it seems that funding for new initiatives will only be granted for local authorities where road pricing schemes are implemented. My fear is that the road pricing will come before any public transport alternative is put in place. You also have to be sceptical of any support for future public transport schemes give that cost-benefit analyses carried out by government always count lost revenue from motorists as a cost.

The biggest problem is that no consideration is given to the fact that there are already incentives to reduce congestion. The biggest incentive is congestion itself; no-one wants to sit in traffic and, where possible, people plan their journeys accordingly. Of course workplaces expect their employees to start on time – and usually the same time - which means sitting in traffic. There is also the question of cost, sitting in a traffic jam burns fuel to no good purpose – anyone stuck in traffic is already in effect paying a healthy sum to the government for the privilege. Assurances that other motoring costs will be reduced are met with understandable cynicism.

Maybe there is a place for road pricing in managing Britain’s road network. Simply raising awareness of the issue is no bad thing. I would suggest that road pricing is better left as a last resort rather than using it as a quick fix.