'Interesting, but desperately flawed'

'An interesting idea, but unnecessary and desperately flawed.

'The voucher concept:

1. Penalises rural dwellers, who have little choice over transport options;

2. Rewards city dwellers with a 1500 share that they are unlikely to retain;

3. After 2-5 years, ownership of the road system would be concentrating into fewer, private hands.

4. Road pricing could then become a robber-baron-takes-all greedfest.

5. Freedom of movement for individuals would be reduced by imposing a financial straitjacket.

'The researchers have neatly avoided real issues, such as pothole maintenance, by childish blue-sky tinkering.'
David Jefferis

'Is this not like paying for something we already own? The only 'people' to benefit would be the Government, who'd get extra money from it and a nice get-out clause, because they can say it's not up to them anymore.

'They'd try to sell the idea as a brilliant way out of doing what they should have been doing all along.

'If the public own a road, how is it going to be handled when there is an accident and the family sue? Is every person liable because we didn't maintain the road? Also, how exactly are we going to charge foreign drivers for using our road?

'With our road tax/fuel tax/VAT, we've already paid for all this.

'I nearly fell off my seat with fury when they had the story the other week about how we going to pay for repairing all the potholes.

'Truck/car/bike users have been taxed to the hilt and had nothing but excuses for the repeated failure of the Government to maintain even the roads they have at the moment.
Ian Woolley

'Whilst I like the idea of some of the benefits of private road ownership, such as fewer speed cameras, I think I still put myself strongly behind Government ownership of transport infrastructure.

'As much as I'm sure that it'll reduce the cost of roads to the motorist at first, as soon as the big corporations move in I can see the cost of using the roads going up, while the quality of service stays as it currently is, or even decreases, as they make sure that they pull in those profits.'
Paul Kendler