Most of these areas are already pretty heavily covered by traffic cameras, and many British public areas are covered by CCTV already. I’m not sure how the congestion charging cameras add any more of a civil liberties angle than already existed.
I have no statistics, but it just isn’t a hot-button issue for most people in the UK. Right or wrong, paying out an extra £1,300 a year (assuming 260 working days, unless my hurried maths are wrong) is seen as far more important than being filmed at the wheel.
Most British town centres already have a large network of closed circuit tv cameras so we are used to being on camera most of the time anyway. Also when driving through the ferry port of Dover all cars are scanned by cameras to check for criminals and smugglers.
I have heard supporters of the scheme including the mayor saying part of the attraction is that it will cut crime, as stolen cars etc will be able to be tracked in real time. Most people are happy about this -the civil liberties aspect has hardly rated as London has got very high crime rates.
I doubt whether I will be allowed to follow my sons driving into London even if he was old enough
It may indeed be a hoax, but if you read that quote again it mentions a European Union Debt Collection Agency, not the European Union Debt Collection Agency, so we shouldn’t presume it means a government organisation – a private company could be used.
chappachula
Of course people here are familiar with Orwell (who spelled that word “night” by the way), but these cameras do not film “every citizen, every day”, they film people driving past the cameras – just as you are filmed by the security cameras when you enter a store.
Whatever people’s opinions are about the Congestion Charge scheme – and personally I don’t like it even though I don’t drive in London – the authorities managing the system have far more important things to do than respond to stupid phone calls from parents and spouses wanting to check tapes, even if they had the right to see them (which they don’t).
“these cameras do not film “every citizen, every day”, they film people driving past the cameras – just as you are filmed by the security cameras when you enter a store.”
No, mr Everton–you are wrong here. The traffic cameras are totally different than (or do you Brits say “different to”?) the cameras in a store.
The traffic cameras are linked together,and positively identify me and all my movements, so I can be tracked everywhere I go. When I enter a store, nobody tries to identify me, (unless a crime takes place), and nobody keeps track of my movements when I leave.If I happen to be filmed buying bread, nobody can know that an hour later I went to another store and bought milk.There is no link between the 2 cameras in 2 locations, and no easy way to identify me.
This information is available on the site already linked to by more than one person:
The cameras do not record people’s movements around London to check your every move, they check to see which vehicles have entered the charging zone, record car registration numbers to compare against a database and trash them when the match/no match decision has been made. The only exception would be a the request of the police as part of an ongoing investigation. Frivolous misuse of the records is prohibited by existing laws.
So although the authorities have the technology to monitor vehicle movements, what they don’t have is the time, inclination or lawful entitlement to cross reference the information. Drivers in the USA are also recorded by the police if they feel it’s necessary – where do you think they get that stuff for America’s Worst Drivers?
Of course it’s sensible for all of us to keep control over what information the authorities have about us, and I appreciate your motivation in raising the point here. We are stupid if we take the trustworthiness of government agencies for granted. But there already are citizens’ groups here that do monitor the government in just this way – they aren’t being allowed to use recorded images of vehicles as part of some Big Brother style operation.
What’s to keep people from taking their tag off at the picture point and putting it back on after? Or covering it up? Are there officials standing there watching?
What about vandals bashing the cameras continually out of anger?
With all this revenue, London better be planning a big project to help the problem… is this a permanent thing?
“There are cameras on all routes into the centre to read number plates, and there are fines (starting at £40) if you don’t pay.
There are exceptions (one is any vehicle with 9+ seats), but it’s late so I won’t be posting them here”
Thats odd, on the news here in California they said payment was on the honor system, but that $8 is correct.
What tag? Do you mean the number plate? If so there’s nothing physically stopping you from removing it or covering it temporarily but it’s against the law and you’d be captured on film driving an illegal vehicle. AFAIK, nobody stands next to the camera to check whether that’s what you’d done and I did see one guy who has invented a James Bond-style plate covering device.
There are already cameras used to record other traffic violations such as speeding and vandalism doesn’t seem to be a major problem with them. We’ll have to wait and see.
All the profits are supposed to be going into improvements to public transport systems. It’s only intended to be permanent if it works and the Conservative mayoral candidate has already pledged to abolish the scheme whether it works or not, so in the end it’ll be up to the voters whether it stays or not.
Wouldn’t a simple solution be to build a highway bypass around Central London?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think people tend to avoid congested traffic areas if at all possible, and if there were a faster way to zip by/under/over/through Central London without stopping, my guess is that would win.
Then you wouldn’t need to set up cameras and fine people for dashing by at 4 miles per hour.
I realize this course of action would require something London probably lacks: money and politicians with balls - (we have a serious lack of both in big cities in the US as well).
One exception: Although I know nothing about Boston and have never been there, I read they spent an ungodly amount of money to run a small stretch of highway under the city to aleviate traffic congestion there. Perhaps sending someone from the City of London to check it out might be in order.
This might degenerate into arguments about who are True Libertarians, but one of the broadsheets (I think it was the Independent, but their search facility is currently down) ran the article last week specifically linking the idea to F.A. Hayek c. 1940. It quoted a speech by Livingstone in which he admitted that this was the historical roots of the idea. Given the influence Hayek has had on the “libertarian” wing of Thatcherism and Livingstone’s impeccable anti-Thatcherite record, then, if true, it struck me as commendably candid.
It’s been tried. Several times. The latest implemented idea was doing a bypass around Greater London.
As someone in the front line - Tube user and with an office overlooking Marylebone Road (one of the boundary roads and predicted to have increased traffic as a result) - it’s gone strikingly well so far. The half-term argument has some plausibilty, but it’s not as if one normally notices half-term in central London.
This might degenerate into arguments about who are True Libertarians, but one of the broadsheets (I think it was the Independent, but their search facility is currently down) ran the article last week specifically linking the idea to F.A. Hayek c. 1940. It quoted a speech by Livingstone in which he admitted that this was the historical roots of the idea. Given the influence Hayek has had on the “libertarian” wing of Thatcherism and Livingstone’s impeccable anti-Thatcherite record, then, if true, it struck me as commendably candid.
It’s been tried. Several times. The latest implemented idea was doing a bypass around Greater London.
As someone in the front line - Tube user and with an office overlooking Marylebone Road (one of the boundary roads and predicted to have increased traffic as a result) - it’s gone strikingly well so far. The half-term argument has some plausibilty, but it’s not as if one normally notices half-term in central London.
bonzer’s right that there are several ring roads within Greater London and they’re all already heavily congested – even the most recently built M25 orbital motorway.
From the Transport for London site referenced earlier, you can view this map (PDF format). If you do you’ll see that the street pattern makes it practically impossible to build another ring road anywhere near the congestion charge zone. If you tried, you would have to demolish thousands of privately-owned properties which, especially on the western side are very valuable. The whole process would cost many, many millions of pounds and the current owners of those properties would be extremely uncooperative.
As far as politicians with balls are concerned, Mayor Livingstone is far from universally popular (what politician ever is?), but he’s had the courage to put his job on the line with this policy. In any case, it takes far more than abstract balls to force people to sell/sacrifice billions of pounds worth of real estate just to make the traffic flow better.
The above comments explain objections to ring roads to divert traffic from the congestion charge zone, but we didn’t address your suggestion about a tunnel.
The main problem with building tunnels through the centre of London is that it’s already like a Swiss cheese down there – there are ten different underground railway lines running through the zone in addition to tunnels and pipes for water, gas and other services. There are geological reasons that limit the amount of tunnelling that can be done beneath London anyway and it’s more difficult and expensive to use that method in this city compared to many others. But the other problem is availability of funds – a project was planned to build a new fast rail link across the city, but that has been shelved in the past few weeks because the money has run out.
In any case, studies that argue against road building as a solution to congestion always claim that the new roads become full faster than they can be built. The principal intention behind the Congestion Charge scheme is to encourage people to use other modes of transport instead of driving cars.
While I share your caution about allowing the Government to monitor us too closely, the cameras are filming the cars, not the people. You could park your car outside London and use public transport if it bothers you.
Also your rhetorical question is rather silly.
We teach Animal Farm and 1984 in Schools here, because we are proud of having such a good author.
Hasn’t anyone in America heard of NSA’s ECHELON system?
How much does the US spend on spy satellites, and what democratic control do citizens have over them?
Same system is planned for Edinburgh soon, with 2 zones.For non car drivers & asthma sufferrers this is great news.
Slightly O/T : yesterday I paid my TV licence (to the state), cost me £112 for a year - what do you think of THAT?
(all TV owners in UK must pay this every year)
Just one point: We don’t pay the state, we pay a private company who has contracted with the BBC to collect the license fee.
The BBC is not state owned anymore (I think), it’s a corporation. It is subject to a certain amount of control by civil servants, and an independent regulatory body (OFCOM) as there are laws holding it back: political partiality, commercials etc.
Personally, I think £112 pa is quite reasonable for the volume and quality of ad-free product they produce.
So does this charge apply to motorcycles as well? I find it pretty bad that they would charge the same amount to Motorcycles as they do to a normal car, especially since they take up much less space. I read though and seached two of the above linkns but nothing was said at all about motorcycles, though the article did have a picture of a lone biker.