Capital punishment for diesel drivers?

Air pollution is a huge issue for the UK.

So massive a issue has it turn into that earlier this year the European Commission launched legal proceedings against the government for missing its air pollution targets.

In a bid to tackle the dilemma, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, is planning to make central London an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). That would imply that diesel drivers who venture into the capital could discover themselves having to stump up an added charge on leading of the congestion charge.

2020 vision

Although there are calls for the modifications to come into force sooner, the strategy is to implement the ULEZ by 2020. And exactly where London leads, other key towns and cities across the UK could nicely follow.

This would generate districts in which all but the cleanest of engines would be penalised. Diesel vehicles that didn’t meet the needed Euro 6 regular – which comes into impact from January 2015 – would have to pay the charge.

Undesirable news if you drive a diesel, and a actual kick in the particulates if you really bought a diesel on the back of it becoming portrayed as the far more eco-friendly option.

Though diesels do generate fewer CO2 emissions than petrol engines, the larger levels of particulates they spew out, specifically nitrogen oxide, make them a higher health threat.

This was some thing the Labour government failed to acknowledge when it overhauled car excise duty (VED) to supply cheaper road tax on diesels, which means individuals have been horribly misinformed and bought into the myth of the eco-friendly diesel engine.

Has Boris got your back?

It will be of tiny solace to diesel owners that Boris Johnson is sympathetic to their plight. The Mayor of London stated: “I really feel sorry for them [diesel drivers]. It is a enormous failure of government policy. Millions of people had been told that they had been performing a decent issue by buying a diesel vehicle.

“You have got to be affordable and fair to folks who are acquiring vehicles now. And they will be quite aggrieved if they are told they are going to face an further charge to go through the centre of London. And you also want to take account of where the industry is.”

Pain in the gas

Unsurprisingly, the announcement that diesel drivers will sooner or later have to pay to drive in certain locations has not gone down nicely with motorists.

A survey of a lot more than 2,000 people carried out by auto supermarket, Motorpoint, identified 3-quarters (75%) of motorists wouldn’t be ready to pay far more in taxes to aid neighborhood authorities meet European clean air targets.

Kevin Pratt, insurance specialist at MoneySuperMarket mentioned: “Motoring expenses are higher adequate as it is, so drivers will not welcome any further costs, especially if they have bought a diesel auto in the previous due to its supposed eco-friendliness.

“There are lots of ways to reduce the cost of motoring although, not least shopping around for your vehicle insurance coverage and adjusting your driving style to save on fuel, and the adjustments in legislation will not take effect for a number of years yet so there is plenty of time to consider altering your vehicle.”

What do you make of the London ULEZ proposals? A excellent thought for cleaner air or just yet another stealth tax? Let us know…

Capital punishment for diesel drivers?