Driving in Britain has become an endurance test for even the toughest of motorists, with the outcome of a once simple journey being raised blood pressure, a bill in the post, or both, according to an opinion piece by Duncan Barkes.
Long gone are the days of simply driving off with a pocket full of coins for a parking meter and the need to avoid an overzealous traffic warden. Traffic wardens have now been replaced by parking or civil enforcement officers, who dress in a way more suitable for an early morning drugs raid as opposed to the once smart uniform required to slap a ticket on a windscreen.
Cameras and fines blight UK roads
A trip to any UK town or city sees the motorist run a gamut of cameras that exist to capture the motorist for making the slightest innocent mistake. Stray into a criss-cross yellow box by a yard because the driver ahead misjudged the road space available, and there will be a camera to capture the misdemeanour, followed by a fine in the post.
Cameras blight highways, enforcing everything from the right of buses to use their specific lanes to implementing London's Congestion Charge, which only seems to have achieved the opposite of what it was originally set up for apart from handily replenishing the Transport for London coffers frequently. ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras, supposedly used to help the police catch wrong 'uns, raise questions about how this squares with the near record number of uninsured cars still on the roads.
Speed limits and clean air zones
Cameras are also used to enforce speed restrictions on road systems that are increasingly complicated and seem intentionally designed to catch out a driver. These include 20mph speed restrictions, a great measure at peak times around schools, care homes or busy areas, but the road safety argument does some heavy lifting on a deserted road at half-past four in the morning. Average speed limit cameras seem to be growing in number, especially in rural parts of the country, enforcing stretches of road with varying limits that must be incomprehensible to someone who had never driven that way before.
The monitored motorist also has to deal with cameras in place to uphold Ultra Low Emission (ULEZ) or Clean Air Zones which can vary depending on where you might be in the UK. London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan extended the capital's ULEZ zone to capture as many people as possible who cannot afford to upgrade their old banger and to fleece them for £12.50 a day, while Newcastle's Clean Air Zone Toll will hit drivers for up to £50 depending on the unsuitability of the vehicle. Birmingham's version of this tax on the motorist costs £8 a day, while in Bristol private motorists are hit for nine quid, all enforced by even more roadside cameras.
Manchester's proposed scheme was scrapped in 2022 by the then Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham after a backlash, and the taxpayer last year had to pick up the £600k tab for having the road signs removed. The other issue with these zones is that they unfairly hit those with diesel work vehicles harder, another cost to businesses at a time when they can least afford it.
Call for fuel duty freeze
All in all, driving has become a dystopian nightmare, before looking at other measures in place to get cash out of motorists including the daylight robbery of drop-off charges at the country's airports which outrageously range up to £10. The British motorist is being fleeced at every turn and treated like a potential criminal before they reach for the keys of their vehicle. The least this government can do is not unfreeze fuel duty in the looming Budget to give us all a slither of respite in these hellish and costly times.
