The newspapers, radio and the net are all covering the road pricing bullshite. And still, there’s loads of focus on prices, and how it will work out as cheaper for 50% of road users (nobody seems to be noticing that that means that 50% will be paying more).
People are noticing the whole “Big Brother” aspect. The beeb’s Have Your Say section is full of people points about government snooping. Callers to radio stations are pointing it out. But the journalists, editors and talking heads are all brushing it away. “Well, there are privacy concerns, but they’ll be sorted out before trials are carried out”.
Bull. The government is proposing a system that will track all of the cars in the UK, and there is no trade off that can negate the horrific invasion of privacy that this represents. Even if they offered to do this for free, and reduced the pricing toa pittance, and got rid of fuel tax and road tax, it would still be a bad trade.
A talking head on 5live t’other day brushed aside a caller’s concern about the invasion of privacy with this little gem… Paraphrased, of course, since I was driving at the time and couldn’t exactly whip out a pen and copy it verbatim.
People have entirely the wrong idea. They think that the satellites will be tracking their cars and keeping a record. They won’t. A box on your car will ‘know’ where and when it is, and record it for pricing purposes. The satellite won’t record anything. So their concerns are entirely misplaced.
WHAT THE BESPECTACLED FUCK!?!? He deflected the question by saying “No, you won’t be tracked by satellite, you’ll be tracked by ground based devices. What are you, dumb?” As if it makes a difference if the record is kept in orbit or on the ground, the fact that it’s being kept at all is the fucking problem. But the presenter let the daft twat off with that answer.
So what’s disgusting me is not so much that the government is proposing this idea, because that’s what this government seems to be all about, and you can’t expect the leopard to go changing it’s spot. What really disgusts me is that the people are asking the questions and the media aren’t. They’re happy to spew forth what the government is feeding them, but are ignoring the concerns of the public. In other words, they’re not doing their job. Especially the BBC. “Public service” my arse.