Letter From Boris

[Rubens]

Received my letter from Boris reminding me that my perk of congestion charge exemption ends on 24/12/2012 Think the LPG Transit's days may be numbered.

It coincided with a year long test I'd been running on petrol consumption. Apart from start ups I've only run out of LPG once in the year and only covered 12 miles before finding gas, which I thought was quite a good effort, but still managed to consume £220 of petrol over the year. Throw in the extra servicing and potential extra maintenance and I think its time to go back to a Diesel van.

Whilst I was saving a tenner a day in charges it was a no brainer but like most loop holes they're always closed in the end.

Forgot to add can't seem to better 16mpg on gas whether I'm driving like Miss Daisy or Lewis Hamilton, where as my mates new shape diesel Transit manages well over 30 mpg on diesel on similar journeys to mine.

[dannyf]

some of the new van's are C free
i know our works vans dont have to pay

[woody]

there is no exemption from the Con charge anymore,if you have a vehicle that is exempt now it wont be come december this year,it is done and gone thanks to Boris the blithering idiot Johnson.
Any new vans purchased do not qualify and hav,nt done since 24th december 2010 again thanks to the bumbling mayor.

Ask me how i know ,easy, 95% of my business was from Fords and citroen,peugeot.....but not any more,again thanks to our illustriouse mayor.

woody

[rossko]

errm, you do realise that Ken-who-introduced-CCharge is also Ken-who-withdrew-LPG-exemption ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7271462.stm
2008 - March. Boris assumed comtrol in May 2008.
He did overturn some of Ken's in-progress extensions of CC, but not the exemptions withdrawal.
Doesn't mean he isn't a twit of course, but it could be worse?

[Gilbertd]

However, it does seem that they don't bother to follow up on people who enter the C charge zone and don't pay. I work in London and sometimes have to enter the dreaded zone. In theory I am supposed to go onto the TFL website and pay the charge, a tenner if it's the same day or £12 if I leave it to the following day. By the time I get in from work I usually can't be bothered to switch on the works laptop and pay the charge. A few times I've paid it on the second day but you can't pay it any later than that. The first time I did it I figured I'd have to wait for the penalty notice to arrive and deal with it then. Nothing happened. Talking to others at work it seems this is common and nobody has ever received a penalty notice. I must have strayed into the zone at least 5 times now and forgotten all about paying and have still to receive a penalty notice!

[woody]

It was only cars that were losing exemption ...not commercial vehicles,they were still exempt .Even red Ken knew that tradesmen and couriers etc needed the financial assistance from the C charge.
You cant blame them ...whoever them is cos i still dont know, from removing cars from the register of exempt vehicles.The whole exemption thing was a sham,with companys like beacon technology raping the grant scheme,cars like 4.7 V8 jeeps being exempt FFS,the only reason they got exemption was because the figures were fudged and there is,nt a 4 wheel drive[was,nt at the time]emissions lab to test the figures, i did,nt mind cos we did hundreds of 4.7 cherryokees.

So before i go full tilt on the rant, in a nut shell, Ken was a good old boy and Boris is a cock...simples.


woody ex fleet converter to Fords etc. not that i,m bitter and twisted

[Rubens]

However, it does seem that they don't bother to follow up on people who enter the C charge zone and don't pay. I work in London and sometimes have to enter the dreaded zone. In theory I am supposed to go onto the TFL website and pay the charge, a tenner if it's the same day or £12 if I leave it to the following day. By the time I get in from work I usually can't be bothered to switch on the works laptop and pay the charge. A few times I've paid it on the second day but you can't pay it any later than that. The first time I did it I figured I'd have to wait for the penalty notice to arrive and deal with it then. Nothing happened. Talking to others at work it seems this is common and nobody has ever received a penalty notice. I must have strayed into the zone at least 5 times now and forgotten all about paying and have still to receive a penalty notice!

You've probably been lucky. In the early days before auto pay and next day paying I must have paid over a dozen fines!! Got a way with it a few times as the cameras don't cover some of the side streets and if you didn't venture in too far and missed one of the mobile units you got away with it.

Red Ken must foot the blame as the charge never existed before he came along. Had to laugh the first Christmas it was in as I followed a bus with an advert telling me as a gesture of goodwill for the seasonal period the charge was being suspended. Like we had forgotten that only a few months before Christmas, the charge didn't exist at all!! Politicians, don't you just luv em'