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Comment by gryf | Hacker News Reader

This is good news. The complainants however need to get realistic.

I drive a 2014 vehicle which is exempt from this regulation entirely and there is no daily charge. I bought it in 2017 knowing full well that this was going to happen. It's a modest 1.0L 3-cyl petrol. It's comfortable, cheap to run and has a decent safety rating.

The problem is really that people have got used to buying oversize, overpowered luxury vehicles when they really need to either not bother and use public transport or downsize to something with less of an environmental impact.

My neighbour has a 4.8L Porsche Cayenne. No one needs one of those on this planet and wanting one is no longer an excuse to own one.

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His Cayenne is compliant unless it’s a very old one and doesn’t comply with Euro 4 standard.

Any petrol car that is compliant with Euro 4 and any diesel car that is compliant with Euro 6 is ULEZ compliant.

The big impact would be on diesel vehicles since due to the NOx emissions cap they need Euro 6 which isn’t only stricter but newer so older diesel cars aren’t compliant whilst pretty much every petrol car from 2007 or so would be.

So tradesmen vans and other work vehicles would likely to be severely impacted by this which will increase the prices to the end consumer since they’ll just roll over the daily ULEZ charge.

Your plumber isn’t going to buy a new van especially since the enlargement of ULEZ is going to crash its value they will however pass the ~£20 charge onto you the next time you call them like they already do with the inner London ULEZ.

Just checked it. You're right. It is compliant! Colour me surprised. I still stand by my point about wanting something not being enough. He's single and drives a 4.8L vehicle to shopping and golf and back and that's about it. That's the hallmark of conspicuous consumption and I dislike that entirely. There is no outward responsibility at all.

I don't mind costs being passed down. My plumber has an electric van and his rates are far more reasonable than most in the area. Delivery vehicles in this part of London are moving over to electric as well.

> He's single and drives a 4.8L vehicle to shopping and golf and back and that's about it.

So then he's sparingly using the inefficient vehicle in a way that he enjoys? Seems legit.

I mean, one could always demand that others do marginally more efficient things at the expense of their marginal happiness. But there's no limiting principle. The logical conclusion of this particular line of thinking is that we all must ride electric scooters with studded tires in the dead of winter.

The logical conclusion IMHO is that we should all be using public transport. And if we don’t find that appealing we should consider it a public administration failure. No one should need a car. I’d take it that it might be necessary for rural areas but definitely not in a city.

Then what matters about the guy's car being a Porsche?

(I looked into buying a car when I lived in Manhattan for particular sorts of trips. This was after using a car share for a couple of years. Then the pandemic happened and I really wished that I had a car. Point being: the densest public transit in America and car sharing currently does not do away with the compelling convenience of private vehicles).

I live in a rural village. There's a bus, which I take in the morning when I get the train somewhere, it doesn't run in the evening though, nor does it go in the right direction to do things like after school clubs.

It would really be helpful to have a second car for those rare occasions, and I can get a second hand Micra with 12 months MOT for under £1k. I'd drive it about 400 miles a year, which would use say 60 litres of petrol a year and cause about 90 tons of CO2, costing about £30 in petrol tax for the pollution it causes. Fair enough.

However I'd have to pay vehicle excise duty of £180 a year, meaning the actual tax per mile is about 50p/mile rather than 8p/mile.

But this is where it gets bad. If I ignore the sunk cost of the car and the VED, the per-mile cost becomes lower than the bus, thus it is far more sensible to drive than take the bus.

In my opinion VED should be rolled into petrol pricing, or just road mileage pricing -- take an odometer reading at the MOT and charge 5p/mile, 10p/mile, 50p/mile, whatever. It's crazy that the tax per mile is an order of magnitude higher for a car used once a week to go 5 miles than a car driven 100 miles a day.

You only have one life. If you want to spend it using public transport, going through places you aren't visiting and stopping at stops you are not leaving at, then go right ahead (by the way, these are the main reasons why using public transport is slower almost everywhere). I'd rather spend that time doing something I enjoy.

> He's single and drives a 4.8L vehicle to shopping and golf and back and that's about it.

It sounds like he drives significantly less than the average family of 4. Isn't he therefore consuming less than them, in a 20 year old Kia Carnival?

Even some older petrol cars are compliant - my son has a 2002 Seat Leon that is compliant.

The article mentions a £110 million fund which, in part, will be used to help van owners retrofit their vehicles to make them compliant.

Perhaps that will help?

I can't comment in any more detail as I don't know how much engineering work is required for these types of changes.

A big problem is that there are no good small cars available.

I want a small car with an interior comparable with that of the S-class, does not exist. Closest thing is the 911, which is still quite wide and not all that comfortable.

If I want an "appropriate" sized car for London, I'll have to drive some shitbox.

> I want a small car with an interior comparable with that of the S-class

Yes, building a small car with a large interior remains a challenge...

The interior size isn't the problem, it's the interior quality. A Toyota corolla has way more than enough interior space if you remove the rear seats.

That interior adds mass and you need a bigger engine to lug it around. That's exactly what needs to go away.

Mercedes sells a S-class with a 2L i4 engine, I don't think this is really going to be an issue.

You want the leg and head room of an S class in a sub compact car?

Maybe ask Dr Who for help.

Shouldn't be a massive challenge without a rear seat wasting space.

But no, I was talking about the quality of the interior and not leg or head room.

A class AMG or any of the premium lines?

The AMG-version, while a fun car, will be even less comfortable than the non-AMG.

The A-class was unfortunately built to be an economy car, slightly improving the interior materials doesn't solve that. You can't option it with fancier seats, suspension or insulation.

The whole point of dealing with climate change and pollution is that we all have to make some compromises. If yours needs to be either paying more to drive in London, or driving a more eco-car, or not driving there at all - that sounds pretty good to me.

Oh I don't care about paying to drive in London, I'd be celebrating if they raised the congestion charge tenfold.

I'm just pointing out that the current vehicle market forces anyone seeking a comfortable, low-NVH car to get something quite large.

EDIT: HN ratelimits prevent me from replying below, so here you go:

> You can drive whatever car you like in London, but you'd have to pay both congestion charge and ULEZ charge

I know! I very happily pay these charges and want them to be vastly higher.

> Alternatively, you might need to be less fussy about what you call "comfortable"

No, why? I didn't work this much to be less fussy about comfort.

I just think it'd be nicer for everyone if there were cars on the market that filled my needs without wasting absurd amounts of space on a rear seat that gets used a couple of times a year.

Regulators should address this by imposing taxes on vehicle size.

You can drive whatever car you like in London, but you'd have to pay both congestion charge and ULEZ charge. Alternatively, you might need to be less fussy about what you call "comfortable".

  >The whole point of dealing with climate change and pollution is that we all have to make some compromises...

Said a load of government ministers and other junketeers, after flying halfway round the world in private jets, to attend a conference discussing the environment.

I always dislike this line of argument, it feels unproductive.

I detest frivolous use of fossil-fuel private jets and all flights of them should absolutely be taxed to the roof and the funds used for climate mitigation.

However, if you’re a bigshot person who can have outsized influence (like POTUS or some billionaire or something) then by all means attend the relevant conferences and make an impact.

If your beef is that the conferences are not effective then that’s something we can discuss, but don’t distract by talking about the way people arrive, unless it’s to propose some kind of carbon/pollution tax in which case I wholeheartedly agree.

  >I always dislike this line of argument, it feels unproductive.

Even if you believe these kind of conferences are productive; why couldn't they have organised it virtually over Zoom/Skype/etc.? If ever there was a chance to 'lead by example' COP27 [and previous COPs] were a golden opportunity. But, instead it was the same old same old; lots of rich political and industry leaders and their hangers-on, flying off into the sun in their private jets, for a cozy get-together. And then emerging aterwards to tell the rest of us to try harder.

Zoom meetings are good for quick status checks, routine procedures or information dissemination without much interaction.

Real work, hard work and sensitive work does not happen over zoom, but face to face.

Brabus SMART car would be exactly that.

I've driven one, it really isn't that different from a regular SMART.

I also got to try the bizarre Aston Martin Cygnet, just a Toyota with fairly little lipstick on it.

You may think it's good news, but do you think any petrol or diesel car will be exempt in the long run - even your modest 1l? Do you think electric cars are clean - their manufacture or energy?

What is really occurring is geofencing. In Oxford, you will not be able to travel from one zone to another... Its just a trial... right?

I'm the name of saving the world you are cheering on constraints on movement - we are moving into a virtual existence where the physical becomes an open prison.

Of course, China continue to open coal power stations etc, while in the west we kill our old yet functional power stations and increase the electricity butted we need. The West is committing hari kari. And call it 'good'! Its insanity.

How anyone can cheers these anti-human changes on, and even ask for more, beggars belief. You must be coding the dystopia, work in government, or some such, I think.

No I certainly do not expect any car to be exempt.

I'm cheering this on because they are constraining the future. This is putting pressure on society to adapt slowly and not pushing it out until we fall off a cliff (war). Electric cars are merely another crutch to carry on our bad behaviour as a species. Especially luxury ones.

We need to start reshaping society around less transport. The fossil fuel glut and geopolitical situation around where we get it from is already causing us serious problems and this will only get worse. We need to drive efficiency and renewable energy and energy self sufficiency first.

For me, you are voicing principles that have been engineered in you. No one can choose constraint, etc. You say there are serious problems, but you have precisely zero personal evidence, like everyone else. You only have the (self-serving) stories that the authorities tell you. Oh, and, they will be doing the constraining. And you will pay. Its a good gig, if you can get it, I guess...

> You say there are serious problems, but you have precisely zero personal evidence, like everyone else.

You state this as fact, without even checking with them what the problems are or how they know they’re there.

Perhaps check if you are yourself consuming distorted information from self-serving outlets?

Have you got personal evidence of the serious problems?

I can’t speak to what the other person was thinking. But in relation to geopolitical problems of the dependence on fossil fuels it’s perhaps most obvious to point to Putin’s war in Ukraine and how he calculated he’d get away with it because of Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.

That’s without even starting to calculate the cost of climate change.

What future is that? Future with no right to own or repair your hardware, where you own nothing and are completely dependent on the system to survive? The system that is just aching to introduce shit like social score and whatever comes after that? The solution to all the problems is easy, but nobody is brave enough to admit it: we need to reduce the number of people on this planet. Especially in severely overcrowded countries with unsustainable population projections.

> Do you think electric cars are clean - their manufacture or energy?

You fundamentally misunderstand the issue at hand. This is about reducing local emissions, which you achieve by taking these measures. How a car is manufactured or the energy required to manufacture it is of no concern here, unless the plant would be in London of course.

"Geofencing"? Give me a break. Not being able to drive from one place to another in a straight line by car doesn't mean your city is becoming a prison. It's called "filtered permeability" and many cities in the free world (e.g. in the Netherlands) have done it since the 80s and it's fine. You have to go a bit further -- I'm sure you'll be alright a few extra minutes inside your climate-controlled metal box.

If like me you don't own a car, you already live in a de facto "geofenced" world. I physically cannot get from my city to the city next door by bicycle in a reasonably fast and safe manner, even though they are less than 10 miles apart. Why? Because the roads aren't safe enough. What should be a pleasant 40 minute journey through the lovely British countryside, is instead a nasty 2 hour trudge through zigzagging housing estate streets and terrifying close passes with lorries on A-roads. Or I could take the train, but it only comes once an hour and there are still annoying trips to and from the stations.

Even within my city there are zones where one has to make a 3-4 mile detour on a bike to get between places that are less than a kilometre apart, because the direct path is a 50mph motorway and there are literally no bike paths or canal towpaths or even pedestrian paths to get directly from one to the other. This wasn't done on purpose, just sheer carelessness and car-centric myopia. But that doesn't make it any less infuriating, that I pay for these roads with my taxes yet am unable to use them.

Why don't I deserve to have my journey be reasonably direct and safe, just because I don't have a car?

And then there are the people who want to ban escooters and rip out bike lanes and so on -- I bet you think that's just common sense and not the cruel assault on liberty and mobility that it really is.

For my part I welcome the ULEZ and things like it. Every car taken off the road is a car that can't smash into me.

Remember you position, and tell me in 5 years tell me whether you are more or less able to move.

remindme 5 years, lol.

The way you choose to live btw - everywhere by bike, public transport, uber, or wherever - is the biggest part of the trick. You believe you are choosing to go along with the provided plan; quite wise really.

If you love cycling, great. Your grannie or child might not. So people in just the next town, are, as you say, now out of bounds to you. And you are happy about it.

You already have less freedom of movement than your parents did, and are happy about it. The plans are quite detailed about all the other things you will get a chance to be happy about. Online everything, micromanagements of resources.

As long as you are able to maintain a rosey outlook about it all, you're free, right? Just don't choose outside of the (shrinking) menu, and you'll be fine.

That was the status quo before fossil fuel proliferation. Most people were priced out of transport. And that's how it's going to be again.

That’s not even necessary. We can have tremendous public transport for the mass routes and then tiny e-bikes/scooters whatever for the last mile, with safe streets because of fewer cars and better designed streets.

So really, everyone can use nice transport and rent the occasional car, the only thing that’s not sustainable is for the majority of people in a city to drive a car for the majority or sometimes all of their trips.

> Remember you position, and tell me in 5 years tell me whether you are more or less able to move.

Checking my local council's upcoming plans for bike lanes and public transport regeneration, I'm pretty confident it will be "more". They're a sluggish lot, our council, but they'll eventually get round to doing the right thing.

>If you love cycling, great. Your grannie or child might not

I find it absolutely hilarious that of all the examples you could use, you say "grannie or child". Tell me, which two demographics are statistically the least able to drive anywhere? That's right, the very old and the very young. The very old, because of physical and visual impairments that make them unfit to drive (and often, but not always, unfit to cycle). And the very young, who are unable to drive either because it's illegal (<18s) or because they have no money (students and underemployed school leavers).

For your information, neither of my grandmothers can drive. And I'd prefer if you didn't just assume that I only cycle because it's an eccentric hobby (I actually do it for health and economic reasons, not for fun).

>So people in just the next town, are, as you say, now out of bounds to you. And you are happy about it.

I'm not at all happy about it, I believe I used the word "infuriating". It is insane that two cities, both >150,000 people and less than a stones throw from each other, have no safe cycling link. But, at least there are plans to build one, soon(tm).

> The plans are quite detailed about all the other things you will get a chance to be happy about. Online everything, micromanagements of resources.

My eyes are about to roll out of their sockets. I'll take the safe bike lanes and breathable air, thanks.

Well, the plan does suit cyclists, for sure.

But not everyone is one. Not everyone wants to be forced to cycle, even if others think its good for them.

Cycling is not driven by what people want - around my way bike lanes are basically empty, while traffic is congested. I do cycle by the way. I just don't like being forced to.

The same councils that once built roads are now paying to get rid of them. Give it 50 years and they'll be putting them back again. Hard graft, that is.

Glad your council is acting so sagely, according to your view. It isn't acting sagely according to mine. But, just as long as you love how you're being governed, that's great, isn't it?

You have this hypocritical outlook: when any bike lanes are built, you think that's the powers that be "forcing" you to cycle. But then what about all the places where literally the only way to get to them is by car? Is that not being forced to use a car? Seems like it to me. There are a lot of places like that.

>Cycling is not driven by what people want - around my way bike lanes are basically empty, while traffic is congested. I do cycle by the way. I just don't like being forced to.

I hear this all the time, it's bullshit. This has been studied, when you build proper bike lanes and related infrastructure it increases the amount people cycle. When people are polled, a huge percentage of people say they would like to cycle more but are worried about safety. So they're either building shit bike lanes where you live or you're just inattentive or lying.

(And occasionally I bike down certain roads and there isn't a car in sight. What entitled motorists, we build these lovely roads for them and they don't get used, grumble grumble)

These sorts of things (bike lanes, LTNs, ULEZ, etc) are actually quite popular. This is 100% clear from how people actually vote in council elections. It's really just a loud minority of affluent Clarksonoid motorists that get up in arms about it. Local governments are steadily realizing they can just call your bluff and win.

Most of the cycle lanes aroud here are just cut out of the existing road, so they are just driven on.

They are also not a network, just some roads have a part painted for cycling. Or parked on, which is the usual scenario.

Banning driving on the pavement would go a long way into solving traffic problems in cities.

Is this British or American pavement that you are referring to?

As far as I am aware, it is illegal in the UK to drive on the pavement.

I think he might have meant "parking on the pavement" and mistyped.

How do you get your car onto the pavement without driving it on there?

Prevent that and you cut vehicle ownership in towns and cities dramatically, thus reducing congestion and pollution

Parking on the pavement is a terrible move as well, as it impacts wheelchairs and pushchairs.

Although people can park in bike lanes without parking on the pavement when sections of existing roads is marked as bikes, we should ban parking on all these features, set the fine high and enforce it to clear all the illegal parking.

A proper bike lane will have at least a solid white line that a driver is not allowed to cross (other than when accessing an adjacent property where they have to give way). Same as a bus lane. Thus it's impossible to legally park in those lanes

Yay, councils. Yay, bikes.

Is there any talking with you?

> But then what about all the places where literally the only way to get to them is by car?

Right. Councils, governments have designed the transport system around cars. They did this, spending our money to do so.

Now they are spending more money (on things you like) and you are happy. But the new system can't possibly work. Most people won't cycle to places. Is it wrong to expect the 'social contract' we were promised to remain intact? Shouldn't we agree to change? Isn't that how things are meant to work?

Is it ok, for the governance structure to tear the status quo up, and partially implement a new system, at our expense, and with a loss of service? Did you ever get an opportunity to vote on this? No. The reason is that these are all sustainable development plans from the UN. Councils write their implementations based on the UN templates. This is why it is the same story everywhere.

Plainly you are from the 'government is there to help' school of thought - the case for global cooling, no warming, no change, has been made to you, and you are convinced something must be done (despite the lack of any personally verifiable evidence).

But you can surely see this is authoritarian? No one has chosen this. The governance structure provides all the information and the solutions - judge, jury and executioner. Surely you can see that in aggregate we lose freedom of movement and money - as someone else said above - we are constrained. (They were happy about the constraint - they want to be constrained! It's insanity.)

Even if you as a cyclist gain more cycle lanes.. Isn't the point of life to live freely, as you like - is government there to lightly imprison us or help us achieve more freedom? All of us?

I think it is clear which direction we are moving in. And it amazes me that well-meaning people are cheering and demanding other people's losses. All this on the basis of information that cannot be personally verified, even if there appears to be consensus.

You do realise that the very worst of us want to govern us? That they want power to force us? They have education, media, nudge units, etc all sorts of tricks and narratives to engineer our consent, regardless of reason, if it furthers their agendas.

Anyway, I'm blathering - all the best.

what is anyone even supposed to say to this? you have persecutory delusions.

here's an idea: why don't you actually go to your local council meetings and find out how your city is actually run. there's a lot of graft and incompetence and pandering, but I assure you the UN depopulation plans are nowhere to be found.

Sustainable development goals

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