Raise the age of driving to 18

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

I would tend to agree. This is one of the main reasons why I think there should be a uniform national age for everything — and better rural public transport too, of course.

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How do you intend to pay for this improved rural public transport? Additional taxes and fees?

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Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

How do you intend to pay for this improved rural public transport? Additional taxes and fees?

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Increased professionalism on the part of existing operators would be a good start. There also needs to be the realisation that rural transport is a necessary service even though it may not be commercially viable all the time. Not everyone in rural areas can be expected to have access to a car, and those under the driving age or who choose not to drive need some form of regular, affordable transport.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

What, taking the age to 18 or setting a uniform age? If you mean the latter, I'm not sure it would be too difficult. As Dave pointed out earlier, some of the discrepancies are rather ridiculous.

The difficult thing is the argument that 'if 16, why not 15'. Well, I understand that totally, but I think there does have to be some sort of age limit, and 16 seems sensible. However, when I was 16, I don't remember being irritated that I couldn't vote or so various other things, so it's a difficult conundrum.

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I meant about the buses :) For example from the town I live near, to get the bus to Plymouth takes 45 minutes and costs something like £4.50 return, the train 15 minutes and about £2 return and the car is about 10 minutes and parking is pretty much £1 = 1 hour.

In rural areas, buses are going to have to make more stops to make it viable and use low quality roads to do so = more expensive and longer. People would still use the car :)

At 16 you are given certain responsibilities, such as you can fight for the country, leave school, get a job and pay taxes to a government that you have no decision in. If the school leaving age is raised, then 18 will become a fair age to raise it all to - even if I don't really agree with it. With regards to voting, that's all subjective.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Increased professionalism on the part of existing operators would be a good start. There also needs to be the realisation that rural transport is a necessary service even though it may not be commercially viable all the time. Not everyone in rural areas can be expected to have access to a car, and those under the driving age or who choose not to drive need some form of regular, affordable transport.

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You didn't answer the question. How is it going to be paid for and by whom? Those that could drive but merely choose not to drive should feel to make other arrangements on their own.

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Originally Posted by Drew

At 16 you are given certain responsibilities, such as you can fight for the country, leave school, get a job and pay taxes to a government that you have no decision in. If the school leaving age is raised, then 18 will become a fair age to raise it all to - even if I don't really agree with it. With regards to voting, that's all subjective.

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Were you equally adverse to accepting the government tax money that paid for your schooling and medical needs for 16 years, while you contributed little or nothing in the way of taxes? How often are you allowed to directly vote on taxes or fees anyway? Do they come out and have a public vote about raising VAT taxes, or income taxes, or road use fees?

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Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

Were you equally adverse to accepting the government tax money that paid for your schooling and medical needs for 16 years, while you contributed little or nothing in the way of taxes? How often are you allowed to directly vote on taxes or fees anyway? Do they come out and have a public vote about raising VAT taxes, or income taxes, or road use fees?

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I had no choice in the matter. We could go onto other things that waste tax money, but that'd just go around in circles.

Rarely do the public get to vote on individual matters anyway, tax or not.

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Originally Posted by Drew

I had no choice in the matter. We could go onto other things that waste tax money, but that'd just go around in circles.

Rarely do the public get to vote on individual matters anyway, tax or not.

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You're right. I wonder why we aren't allowed to vote on individual tax matters? Could it be that taxes would be far lower and a far higher level of accountibility would be expected for those taxes that were collected?

How many of us have seen politicians of one party or another shouting loudly to the world while pushing for a new program that will do all sorts of wonderful tricks and best of all, it won't cost us a penny in new or additional taxes or fees only to come, hat in hand later on, mumbling about overly optimistic projections and errors in the base calculations, etc, oh, and by the way, we are going to have to raise taxes to pay for this mess? My feeling on that is that any politician that was dumb enough to vote for the project in the first place should be billed, along with his other "yea" voting buddies, his share of the deficit, to be paid out of his personal wealth. Now that would be a major step forward in political accountability.

No it wouldn't. It would be grossly unfair. Unlike you, I do not think that taxation is automatically a bad thing. I tend not to worry about it, because I believe I pay a fair amount of tax.

What's your solution to funding improved local public transport, then?

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Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

You didn't answer the question. How is it going to be paid for and by whom? Those that could drive but merely choose not to drive should feel to make other arrangements on their own.

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And not have transport provided for them? No, I can't agree with that at all. What other arrangements do you think would be practical? Personal helicopters? Jet packs? Expensive taxis? Public transport links are vital for many local communities from which, for one reason or another, people have difficulty travelling to elsewhere.

As for my answer not having been clear, I think it was good enough. Some of the improvements would not require extra funding. Local authorities could also use existing transport subsidies more effectively. I don't think it would take a massive injection of extra funding.

Now that I can drive I wouldn't even consider using public transport, because it is FAR too expensive, inconvenient, slow, dirty and less pleasurable than driving. My house to work is a 8 minute journey in a car, on a bus it is a 20 minute one and costs over £3 or a single :mad: Also, because it is only an hourly service I would either be 10 minutes late or 50 minutes early.