PR452: The fantastic price of roads pricing

news: for immediate release

The costs of installing roads pricing are the same as the cost of doubling our
entire motorway network according to recent figures.

An article in The Telegraph [1] reported that DfT costs to create the roads
pricing infrastructure have been estimmated at £62 billion.

The Prime Minister's response to the road pricing petiton warned darkly that
motorways cost up to £30m per mile.

Department for Transport reports that we have 2,199 total miles of motorway
network. [3]

A simple calculation reveals that the total installation costs of roads pricing
are about the same as the cost of our entire motorway network.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "It is hard to believe that anyone is stupid
enough to believe that fantastically expensive roads pricing would be anywhere
near as effective at managing traffic as a doubling of our entire motorway
network."

"The Prime Minister warned darkly of the costs of building motorways while
glossing over the costs of roads pricing. How barking is that?"

"The 'Toll Tax' is a crazy grand design beloved of no one except politicians
and technology suppliers."

"All roads users should get along to www.traveltax.co.uk today."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

[1]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/19/nroads19.xml

"A blueprint drawn up by the Department for Transport showed it could cost £62
billion to set up and £8.6 billion a year to run."

[2] http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page11050.asp

"Tackling congestion in this way would also be extremely costly, requiring
substantial sums to be diverted from other services such as education and
health, or increases in taxes. If I tell you that one mile of new motorway
costs as much as £30m, you'll have an idea of the sums this approach would
entail."

[3]
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/tsgb/2006edition/sec\
tionsevenroadsandtraffic

Table: 7.6: 7.6 Roads lengths: Great Britain: 1914- 2005

Total length of motorway network, 2006: 3,519km = 2,199 miles

3,519km = 2,199 miles (from 5/8)

Miles of motorway purchasable with roads pricing infratructure costs:
£62 billion / £30 million = 2,066 miles of motorway.

Costs of our total motorway network at present day prices:
2,199 * £30m = £65.97 billion.



About Safe Speed
================

The Safe Speed road safety campaign is primarily the work of engineer-turned
road safety analyst Paul Smith.

Since setting up Safe Speed in 2001, Paul Smith, 51, an advanced motorist and
road safety enthusiast, and a professional engineer of 25 years UK experience,
has carried out over 20,000 hours working on the campaign with well over 5,000
of those hours researching the overall effects of speed camera policy on UK
road safety. In addition to those 20,000 hours, Paul has funded to campaign to
the tune of £10,000.

We believe that this is more work in more detail than anything carried out by
any other organisation. Paul's surprising conclusion is that overall speed
cameras make our roads more dangerous. Paul has identified and reported a
number of major flaws and false assumptions in the claims made for speed
cameras, and the whole "speed kills" system of road safety.

The inescapable conclusion is that we should urgently return to the excellent
road safety policies that gave us in the UK the safest roads in the World in
the first place. Far from saving lives, speed cameras are a dangerous
distraction.

Safe Speed does not campaign against speed limits or appropriate enforcement
of motoring laws, but argues vigorously that automated speed enforcement is
neither safe nor appropriate.

Safe Speed is very slimly funded by voluntary contributions to the web site.
We are urgently seeking improved funding.

The Safe Speed web site contains more than 350,000 words of road safety
analysis and information. We are seeking publishers for 'the book of the web
site'.

It has turned out to be quite an amazing story and there are opportunities for
journalists and broadcasters to explore how all this came about, what it
means, and where road safety has gone so badly wrong.



Contact Safe Speed
================

description: Safe Speed road safety campaign
web: http://www.safespeed.org.uk
email: psmith@...
telephone: > 01862 893030 < primary number
ISDN Audio: 01862 894772
mobile: 07799 045553

Location: North Scotland

We are always available for further comment on your road safety story.

To be added to our PR distribution list send an email to
psmith@... or visit our press pages at:
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/prindex.html

Recent press releases (since November 2004) are automatically and immediately
uploaded to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SafeSpeedPR

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Scrap Speed Cameras Petition: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/scrapcam
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