61% of Londoners support congestion charge, says Mayor Livingstone
By now, you're surely aware of the efforts of London Mayor Ken Livingstone to increase London's congestion charge. You're also likely know about the distaste that Porsche feels regarding these changes. Back in late February, Porsche polled Londoners themselves and found that 74 percent of Londoners think that the new £25 congestion charge is too high. Hmm... Livingstone's got his own survey too, and he says, "This robust survey provides further clear evidence of the strong support from Londoners for these measures, with 61% behind the decision to charge £25 for gas-guzzlers. Moreover, 65% say that the overall policy is good for London." Who's right? Don't know, be we do konw that someone's wrong. Unless 74 and 61 make 100 in some sort of new math.
This ongoing debate seems far from over. We're sure that more numbers will be thrown around from both camps (and just about anybody else who has an opinion) which support their viewpoints. Round and round we go!
[Source: What Car]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rgseidl 8:48PM (3/20/2008)
Lies, damn lies and statistics!
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GenWaylaid 10:34PM (3/20/2008)
Why do people even bother to cite surveys anymore? Any air of legitimacy just gets canceled out by your opponent's survey.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 10:34PM (3/20/2008)
looks pretty obvious that the two claims are mutually exclusive, someone is also obviously pulling the numbers.. Livingstone, when he says "robust survey" is obviously pointing the finger at Porsche. It reminds me of how Monsanto got GMO approval in the EU through a sample of some 12 cows they did some tests on (and even there they "smoothed out" some horrifying symptoms the cows had had..)
I'm more inclined to believe the "robust" stats. The UK consumers are buying ever greener cars (especially last year) and if Porsche drivers were already an eyesore to the vast majority of drivers, I imagine the situation is only more exasperated as time goes by...
What they really need to look at in the UK is updating their sales taxes and yearly registration on gas-guzzlers, just as has been done in Spain and France, in two ways
(1) by not waiting until 2010, by which time the proposed measures will already be outdated. these need to be implemented already in 2008.
(2) by improving on the Spanish and French measures. i.e. by increasing on the 2500 euros (I believe 900 pounds was approved last week) and/or (hopefully and) lowering the 225 CO2/km higher threshold to something well below 200.
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Niralisherni 5:59AM (3/21/2008)
Perhaps a lot of Londoners are actually conscious of and care about the environment and actually believe that the tax is a good idea. Or perhaps a lot of Londoners are planning to get themselves greener vehicles such as electric cars so they are not going to end up paying in any case.
-http://zapworld.com
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kballs 12:59PM (3/21/2008)
I thought you only had to pay the charge when entering the city... if you already live there, then you don't have to pay, so if anything "Londoners" won't care... if they still have to pay (based on parking instead of entry) they also might not care as much because they can take public transport or walk since they aren't going far.
Either way, most of the people paying the charge aren't from within the city... so why not survey THEM? The people most affected by the charge don't have any say in the matter... all they can do is try to jump through the hoops and get a green vehicle, or avoid it altogether by riding public transport.
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Mobius_1 12:04PM (4/01/2008)
Did Ken Livingstone ask any drivers?
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