BBC News : Congestion charges face legal challenge

[Ian Jackson]

Roland Perry writes ("Re: BBC News : Congestion charges face legal challenge"):
> I wonder how clear it will be that you've entered the central
> area. I know that the boundary road passes my office in London, and
> a few yards >from that office there's an anonymous looking Y
> junction on a one-way system where if you happen to turn left rather
> than right you'll be due to pay. Big signs? Orange tarmac?
> Paintballs?

Here in Cambridge we have a number of roads with rising bollards,
which are only open to authorised vehicles.  These roads have perhaps
a dozen enormous bright orange warning signs, flashing lights, no
entry signs, etc. etc. on the approach.

Still, drivers drive down them and sit in front of the bollards
looking confused.  Others pass half a dozen of the big bright
orange-bordered signs, including some with flashing lights, before
seeing the actual bollard street furniture forest from close up and
deciding to turn round and go back.  A small number even try to follow
the previous - authorised - vehicle through, and get a bollard in the
sump (and complain bitterly afterwards, often).

I don't doubt that scheme along the lines of the London road pricing
will lead to some people driving into the restricted area unawares and
getting fined.  The question perhaps is whether people with so little
situational awareness should be operating half a tonne of lethal
machinery in a public place.


To bring the discussion back on topic: the question of the database
structure is very interesting.  I would like to know, for example,
whether the licence numbers the system sees which belong to authorised
vehicles are stored along with the time and location (despite not
being needed for anything to do with the charging), or if the system
can easily be amended to store this data (or pipe it elsewhere).  I
strongly suspect the answer is `yes' but that we won't be able to
confirm or convincingly deny it.


Ian.