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Congestion charge scam

Kits

ULTIMATE Member
I feel that is the correct title after last nights evening news.

Manchester Transport sent out thousends of leaflets explaining the reasons for the charge and supposedly put real people from the area's views on why its a good idea. Now it turns out the pictures are models from America and transport chiefs made all the stories up.

TRANSPORT chiefs have been accused of misleading motorists in a congestion charge leaflet sent to 2.5 million homes in Greater Manchester.

The leaflet - promoting the case for road pricing - includes four case studies to show how the scheme will affect real people who travel in the region. But the M.E.N. has learned that the four 'local people' were made up by transport officials and the pictures are of models who live in the U. S.

The leaflets feature `Terry', said to be a self-employed van driver from Rochdale. He is, in reality, a 22-year-old American model named Erich Dalke from Seattle, more than 4,600 miles from the congestion charge zone. Another example cites a woman named `Ann', described as a solicitor from Ashton under Lyne - but who is in fact a U.S. model called Kiki.

Their images, along with a mum-of-two named `Rachel' from Trafford and jobless `Neil' from Beswick, are all believed to have been bought from a U.S. internet modelling library.

PR chiefs admit no-one living or working in Greater Manchester was interviewed to produce the leaflet and the case studies were made up.

The GMPTA website - which originally claimed the four examples were based on `real people' - has been changed to say they are `fictional case studies based on accurate travel plans under current proposals'.

More http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1010/1010798_ccharge_locals_dont_exist.html

I think they should all resign their posts after this and drop all thoughts of ripping us off with these charges.
 
Congestion charges are important ! Since they take no account of ability to pay, they remove the poor from the roads so that the wealthy can get to work on time. :mad:
 
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I saw on the news that some guy in China got executed for having selling stuff like substandard toothpaste and babyfood that didnt have any nutrition in.

Granted, thats a fair bit different, but you know that in this country at worst they would get fired, and still retain whatever money they had made. While the company would go under, with the loss of many jobs for the innocent workers.

Just strikes me that the ones that knowingly do wrong, or do a fantastically bad job are always allowed to get away with it.
 
resign.... nope l think they should be fined and made to do community service or something even worse... if it was us in their places the book would have been thrown at us...
 
It would be funny if it wasn't so serious!

It does go to show that the GMPT has no qualms about lying to the people it's meant to serve - therefore any trust they may have enjoyed maust have evaporated now.
 
you mean to say you trusted them before this :p lol well maybe l may have done a little but l cant give a specific measurement but it was very very small LOL
 
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No, but occasionally the cynics (like myself) can be proved wrong.

Not this time though
 
The person who is to blame for all this is Red Ken Livingston:nod: for putting this idea in place? They want us out of our cars & use public transport but you want to use the trains it costs a arm & leg then there is the bad bus services long waits for them get wet & cold plus high fares. The local councils fail to understand as to why there is so much congestion? for one is wrongly phased sets of traffic lights set againest each other & not for getting the pedestrain crossing as you come off a roundabout?. Down here in Taunton we have them in the main town centre one set changes every 26 seconds another set changes every 29 seconds & the third set change every 34 seconds which causes mayhem then at 13.40 hours the traffic light phasing changes once again coming up to the rush hour? yet more delays. There are some 70+ sets of traffic lights in this little market town and yet more to come this is the Lib Dem county councils answer to the congestion problems and we have buse's that can change the lights whenever needed? :hrmph:
 
More of a scam

And to make matters even worse, it appears many councils would have to borrow heavily in order to introduce such schemes (or should that be scams!):
Starting in 2008 the government will make £200m available each year for the next seven years through Tif, to help councils who want to bring forward local road pricing schemes.

But the LGA highlights the inadequacy of the current investment on offer. Indeed, with Manchester predicting that it will cost £3bn to introduce a scheme, the £1.4bn for all schemes put forward through Tif is clearly not enough.
http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/55E918796979740A80257314003CECAA?OpenDocument
 
Thats ridiculous. How in the name of God, can they get away with doing that? So much for transparency in local and national governmental bodies/authorities
 
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Agreed shame that the people we are supposed to trust are conservative with the truth, manipulate the figures to their own gains. public enquiry now in GMPTE and referendem on congestion charges is what should happen.
 
If it is any consolation it is now legal to use duty free veggie oil as fuel.

So buy an old (pre 1973) diesel and run it on bottles of chip oil bought from Tesco, and you can avoid road tax and fuel duty :)
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6900444.stm

Well thats not anything we didnt know. However, this is bad news:

Bucking the trend, London is the only place to have seen a slow down in car usage since 2002 - the last year before the capital's congestion charge was introduced.

Sadly, this will mean that congestion charges are seen to work. And while arguably they might for London, its also one of the few places it wont have such a knockon effect.

For many people, they cant do without a car. I know for certain I cant rely on buses where I am.

Unfortunatly I think the govt. and other organisations (like the GMPTE) will put congestions charges first and improve the services second.
 
Community charge- Isps the connection

Hello,
so why ppl like mel and timeless making comments like this, what has that story got to do with the Internet or isps cos i see no connection whatsoever ,
OMG stuff you see on forums is untrue.
 
youll notice this forum is the General Discussion forum, while this is an ISP forum this section has been set aside for other conversations if our comments were in violation to the rules we would have been contacted by a member of staff since we havent been l dont see any problem with them.
 
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Hello,
so why ppl like mel and timeless making comments like this, what has that story got to do with the Internet or isps cos i see no connection whatsoever ,
OMG stuff you see on forums is untrue.



This is the general discussion where anything can be discussed regardless of if its internet related or not.
 
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