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Roads petition tops 450,000

DT | 19.01.2007 15:12

The number of people signing a petition demanding the scrapping of the Government's proposals to introduce a pay-as-you drive road pricing scheme has topped 450,000.



With more than a month to go before the petition is finally taken off the Downing Street website, earlier estimates that around 750,000 would join the campaign could prove conservative.


The Prime Minister has said the Government wants to press ahead with road pricing trials within five years, but the Department for Transport has insisted that no final decision has been made.

Meanwhile, two petitions backing plans to track vehicles and introduce road pricing have accumulated 170 signatures between them.

The debate over the proposed introduction of satellite-based road charging took a further twist with a warning that it could trigger a black market in illegal jamming devices.

If the Government presses ahead with a comprehensive national scheme, it is likely to adopt technology already being used by several insurance companies as well as by the authorities in Abu Dhabi.

It entails fitting a black box in a car which enables a GPS satellite to track the vehicle's movements and calculate a "pay as you drive" bill. But the satellite could be thwarted by a device known as a GPS jammer, costing around £140.

The jammers are illegal throughout the European Union but are readily available in the Far East and could be imported from countries such as Taiwan.

"People could be really resentful with the sort of charges they could face," said David Broughton, the director of the Royal Institute of Navigation.

"They may well look for ways of getting around it and jammers could become very popular.

''A jammer could be as small as the size of a packet of cigarettes. It would most certainly do the job.

"Surfing the internet I have found places where they can be bought. I have even found sites which give simple diagrams about how to build your own."

Edmund King, the executive director of the RAC Foundation, said: "There is no doubt that in any kind of system, there will be a minority who will do what they can to overcome it.

"We found this when trying to prevent car crime. The determined criminal will always try to find a way to overcome it."

DT