London's clean-air zone expansion hit by camera vandalism
London's clean-air zone expansion hit by camera vandalism
www.reuters.com
London's clean-air zone expansion hit by camera vandalism
8 comments
-
-
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Aug. 29 expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has been championed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan as essential to bring down deaths linked to air pollution and combat climate change.
But critics say its 12.50 pound ($16) daily charge for drivers of the most polluting vehicles is unfair on thousands of motorists during a cost-of-living crisis and will cause economic damage.
London's Metropolitan Police said it had recorded hundreds of crimes relating to ULEZ cameras, with 164 being stolen and 185 reports of cables being damaged as of Aug. 1.
"We are working closely with Transport for London and alongside our investigation into offences already committed we are supporting them to identify new ways to prevent further cameras from being damaged or stolen," police commander Owain Richards said in a statement.
ULEZ was blamed for a narrow by-election defeat in outer London last month for the opposition Labour Party, which otherwise leads the governing Conservatives in opinion polls ahead of a national election expected next year.
In a bid to calm the outcry, Labour Mayor Khan this month announced 50 million pounds in additional funding to extend a ULEZ car scrappage scheme to all drivers.
The original article contains 297 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 33%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
8 comments
Love the intent, but this is just a really silly implementation. Make registering older vehicles with higher polution levels more expensive, and provide a tax credit or incentive for getting rid of them. There's tons of ways to do this with less overhead and without a surprise punative fine for people too poor to buy a new vehicle.
Not to mention, everyone's already fed up with the constant level of surveillance. Always being on camera in some way is something we need to put more thought into before we add to the problem.
I agree with you, but in absence of a perfect policy I prefer this outcome to nothing. There isn't just one party being affected here: the effects of air pollution on life expectancy and early chronic illnesses is well known, in fact I am personally affected by a chronic illness that's known to be associated with air pollution. I'd rather we keep going forward and push for giving poorer drivers the things they need to adjust, e.g. grants for electric vehicles, public transportation links, or bike networks, depending on needs - rather than pushing for reverting this policy, because it's not flawed in and of itself, it's the lack of welfare that is flawed here.
Statements like this really don't help your cause. You know that right? Change happens gradually. We took too long to get there but to call the vast majority of some countries citizens murders is just....
People who use devices with rare earth metals should be declared murderers.
People who use electricity should be declared murderers.
Will you look at that Aux, you are a murderer!