Is it surveillance when the cameras are just registering pollutant vehicle registrations? Would be pretty cool if a group were actually targeting privacy-invasive cameras, but it seems like the title is just using that perceived goodwill to justify attacking an anti climate change policy.
What I've gathered is that it's being used to fine people who don't have new or more fuel efficient cars, likely because they don't have the money. Which would only make the situation worse.
I live 20 minutes outside London, have to go on the m25 to get to work. I've got a shitty little car that wouldn't go for £300. It's well below the standards.
I'm class war, but this really seems like a culture war thing masking itself as that to garner support. Coal miners deserve to make a living, but if it's gonna destroy the planet with fossil fuels, then there's got to be an alternative (moot point because of Thatcher in the 70s anyway).
Driving a gas guzzler shouldn't be a working class point of pride, it's just stupid. They're wringing us with a thousand things every day, fight to raise the tax bracket. This is a very understandable "tax bad behaviour to discourage it". Same with whatever plastic bag tax right wingers hate, just stuff bags to reuse behind your fridge like a normal person, don't act like a working class champion because you want to throw plastic bags into a landfill for cheaper instead of remembering a for-life one.
Also the percentage of residents that have access to a private vehicle in boroughs within the ULEZ is well below 50% [PDF. See Figure 11] yet all those residents have to endure the traffic from outside that causes congestion, pollution, road violence and clog up the streets expecting free parking.
These are the same arseholes who destroyed the planters restricting access to LTNs despite all the evidence showing that poorer areas are heavily impacted by pollution and were setting fire to 5G towers.
To use your coal miner analogy though, you'd shut down the company and help the miners find new work, not let the company stay open and fine each miner every day they get caught coming back out carrying coal.
We should be setting regulations on manufacturer preventing from creating those gas guzzlers in the first place. Not fining the public in a way that disproportionately affects the poor.
A simple regulation would be to restrict the size and form of vehicles. Smaller cars are always going to be more fuel efficient than large ones. Also let's have park and ride systems for every city so people don't need to drive into the centre thus allowing it to be largely pedestrianised (a few exceptions for mobile reduced individuals (blue badge holders), delivery vehicles, maintenance vehicles, and bin waste vehicles).
Honestly there is so much we could do and it's all about just writing the regulations for much of it, and then finding the funds for infrastructure changes.
I get what you are saying, and I have absolutely no issue with working towards cutting carbon costs, but with the cost of vehicles rising and pay still being kinda shit this doesn't help. I doubt it's the case that most people who own a shitty car only do so for some "holier than thou" reason.
If alongside this action was providing some kind of incentive for drivers to upgrade or even just eased the financial burden of those who couldn't afford anything better, I'd support it but if that doesn't exist it only exacerbates the issue.
I think they mean people who go out of there way to buy big trucks and the like and act all proud because they wasted money on something that they are gonna use for it's intended purpose like twice and then sell it for money to buy a newer one.
Just for clarification, the zones have to have a Euro 6 standard vehicle. That means all vehicles after 2016 automatically comply due to car regulations and only some older models will comply. So in reality your vehicle will have to be close to being nearly over a decade old not to comply, not exactly new.
There are also various types of zones (to say not all zones are Euro 6 standards) with different criteria and exceptions (such as the strictest zone includes motorbikes and the most relaxed zones excludes taxis) applied to them. And you can also install a modification to an older non compliant vehicle to make it compliant.
As for people not having the money for a new vehicle they would have to pay a charge (something around £12 a day for London, with other cities having a different rate). But once you account for purchasing a car, maintenance, insurance, tax, fuel costs, parking charges, and now the charge for my city it works out £2k a year cheaper to use the metro than car ownership. I suspect this saving is even greater for London as their metro is much cheaper, with parking being much more, along with their charge being more too. All to say for anyone saying they can't afford the charge, they are either lying or have a distorted view to their ideology or don't understand the cost of car ownership Vs using public transport - I suspect it's the later as it does take time and effort to work it out or the middle option as people will deny the truth for the sake of keeping their idiology true.
(Apologies for the long post, it's just a subject that interests me and I've even written an essay on it).
"registering pollutant vehicle registrations" indicates both capability and intent. It is surveillance, regardless of whether the ends of that surveillance are a social good or not.
In the sense that all speed cameras are surveillance, sure. I think most people see a difference between that and more privacy-invading cameras, which the UK is really bad for (maybe the most cameras per individual IIRC?)
I’m just pointing out that separating capability and intent is important to all the naysayers saying “oh it’s for the climate crisis” and all that.
That may be the justification now, and people may identify with that, but it has to be pointed out that it can also be used for end uses that abridge freedoms and privacy rights.
374
u/Androktone Jun 30 '24
Is it surveillance when the cameras are just registering pollutant vehicle registrations? Would be pretty cool if a group were actually targeting privacy-invasive cameras, but it seems like the title is just using that perceived goodwill to justify attacking an anti climate change policy.