London's Mayor Targeting Gas Guzzling Vehicles
Mayor Ken Livingston is proposing raising the city's congestion charge for SUVs to £25, while providing discounts for low-emissions vehicles.
The mayor has said he wants a sliding scale for the city's congestion charge, instituted in 2003, with lower charges for low-emission vehicles and higher charges for "Chelsea tractors". The higher charges would be put into effect by 2010, with discounts introduced by 2008.
"Currently drivers pay £8 a day to drive into a central London zone, due to be extended westwards in February 2007.
Conservatives warned the price hike could hit small businesses and families."
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Ideological Crusade
Most air pollution from cars come from 10% of the vehicles on the road, those cars which are more than a decade old and improperly tuned. Emission control technology has been improved and installed at a rapid pace, so much so that a brand new SUV pollutes less than a 1995 Honda Civic simply due to the obsolete pollution technology in an older car...and driving a beater from the 80s is even worse. This is nothing more than a class envy issue (considering Ken is a former communist, not surpirsing)
If you really wanted to control air pollution, you'd charge cars that actually pollute more a higher charge....if you wanted to control gas consumption (and SUV driving) then you'd need to raise the gas tax, which would encourage fuel efficiency. If you simply don't like SUVs, then at least admit it and charge them without trying to cover-up one's intentions with fake science.
This is ideology trumping analysis.
Air pollution?? Is that what the article really said?!?
From the article I read it said the primary rationale for this proposal was CO2 emmissions, which most certainly are in proportion to the fuel efficiency of a given vehicle. And SUVs, which on average have a fuel efficiency 29 percent lower than conventional automobiles, produce 40% more in CO2 emmissions.
If you understood the basic chemistry of the combustion engine you'd realize that CO2 is an unavoidable byproduct that emmission controls such as cleaner burning engines and catalytic converters do nothing to address. Thus if you want to produce less CO2, you have to burn less gas through either less driving or better fuel efficiency.
Still doesn't make sense.
You're right on the CO2 point, as I just glanced at the article and grimmaced at the rhetoric and mistook CO2 for air pollution. However, the rationale still doesn't make any sense ...large Mercedes sedans get much worse gas mileage than smaller SUVs, but only the SUV is to be charged more? Plus, how many SUVs drive into central London daily? How much more CO2 do they release than would be released if smaller cars took there place? How many people wouldswitch to even less fuel efficeint large sedans? Why not just raise the a special Londonwide gas tax...that would cut down on everybody's driving? How much less CO2 would be released if everyone concerned about CO2 emissions simply killed themselves as CO2 is a natural byproduct of breathing?
Notice how London's central city charge was sold as a way to reduce congestion (hence the name "congestion charge"), which it did, but now it's being used as a tool to curb global warming and conspicous consumption....nice mission creep. I wonder which of Ken's politcal allies will get the extra revenue? I also wonder how much less CO2 would be emitted if Ken got rid of all the government cars for public employees in London...Sorry, comment drift.