Manchester is considered a front-runner, with local authorities in the Midlands and London also pressing to be considered for a £2.5bn central fund to introduce the change.
Most of the necessary technology already exists. Lorries will be tracked by satellite and charged accordingly from 2007. The main obstacle to constructing a scheme to track Britain's 24 million private vehicles is public opinion, and Mr Darling is determined to start making the case now.
Back to horses and traps -- sh#te everywhere ....
We'll be walking and in China they'll be vehicled wall to wall ... There is a global conspiracy afoot .. we have to slide down a snake and miss a few decades !! ...... A voratious, revenue hungry HMG ... remember the Tory picture of TB with red eyes ?
http://www.rmd.dft.gov.uk/project.asp?intProjectID=7963
...the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds is currently in the middle of a six-year project to evaluate an intelligent speed adaptation system that keep cars to a prescribed speed limit....
http://www.tft.lth.se/research/ISA.htm
Not totally sold but 97.5% .... Tis better than fines, losing licences and feeling branded a crim .. If speed is responsible for so many deaths and serious injuries, then surely it is criminal not to introduce such equipment ?George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 27th July 2004 said:....A MORI poll in 2002 suggested that 51% of drivers would welcome compulsory speed limiters in all new cars.(13) And so they should. As soon as it becomes impossible to break the speed limit, the entire culture of driving changes. The other fool might remain a fool, but there isn't much he can do about it. He cannot tailgate you, he cannot overtake you on a blind bend (the satellite system could produce a different speed limit for every metre of road), he cannot play Jenson Button after closing time. The fact that the high-performance car becomes redundant in these circumstances may help to explain why the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders isn't too keen on the idea.
Unlike the road charging scheme, there are no implications for civil liberties: the car receives signals from the satellite, but does not transmit. The only freedom the system restricts is the freedom to endanger other people's lives. If cars are going to be fitted with communications boxes anyway, the cost of incorporating speed controls will be minimal. The savings, the Leeds study suggests, run into tens of billions of pounds.
So we don't have to call for very much. Just the tweaking of a scheme the government plans to introduce anyway. And the prevention of only a couple of thousand deaths a year.