EU rules that uninsured drivers must be compensated if they have accidents

A ruling by the EU means that uninsured motorists will have to be paid compensation if they are involved in a car accident.

The ruling is likely to push up insurance premiums for law abiding drivers who will now be paying to insure the vehicles of those who don't bother.

UKIP Transport spokesman, Jill Seymour MEP, said:

This scheme is using the money of honest premium-paying motorists to compensate those who are blatantly breaking the law – everything about it is totally wrong.

Tories steal UKIP "Britdisc" policy

The Tories have recycled yet another UKIP policy as their own - this time the Britdisc policy that would see foreign-registered lorries charged a licence fee to drive on our roads.

The idea behind the Britdisc was to combat road and fuel tax avoidance by large hauliers, to keep dangerous foreign-registered lorries off the road and to remove some of the unfair advantage foreign hauliers have over UK-based operators.

It seems the Tories have finally cottoned on to the obvious unfairness in the system and decided to adopt UKIP's solution to grab a positive headline.  The EU will rule it illegal of course but the Tories will have hopped onto another headline-grabbing bandwagon by then.

EU plans to ban cars from cities by 2050

The EU has drawn up a plan to ban cars from cities in EU member states from the year 2050 to combat global warming climate change global climate disruption.

The British government says it won't be banning cars from cities (probably another cast iron guarantee) but does agree that the EU should be setting punishing and economically devastating targets to reduce carbon emissions.  Norman Baker, one of the British government's Transport Ministers, said that they won't be banning cars from cities but didn't rule out the target of a 50% reduction in petrol and diesel cars in cities.

Other EU orders that the British government will be blindly following are a unified air traffic control system, a massive rail building programme to connect airports and various targets to cut the number of petrol and diesel cars on the roads and the number of road journeys for freight.  All of which will cost us dearly.

The high speed rail routes that the British government is planning are part of this "Single European EU Transport Area", as are the electric car subsidies which they are planning will take up the slack.  All of which is a lovely idea but firstly, how do you get the electricity into the car in the first place and secondly, how do you get round the fact that you can only drive 60-odd miles in your electric car before you need to stop for 4 hours to charge it back up?  Will the next couple of decades solves this problem?  No.  Electric cars are a great idea if you live in a big city and travel a few miles a day but most of us don't.  We will be reliant on the black stuff for a long time, no matter how many targets the environmentalists in the EU set.

Oh and one final point: isn't it a little presumptuous and just a bit improbable that the EU will still be here in 38 years time?

EU to pile more taxes on Trucks

Mike Nattrass UKIP MEP and UKIP's Transport Spokesman today attacked plans by the European Union to put more pressure on the beleaguered road transport sector.

"The new version of the Euro - vignette would be a catastrophe for the HGV sector and the British economy. To be putting extra costs onto transport at this time will just ramp up costs when the wheels are already coming off the economy", he said.

The plan, spearheaded by Belgian socialist MEP Saïd El Khadraoui is to specifically tax air and noise pollution from trucks.

"But", says Mr. Nattrass, "a CO2 tax is completely unnecessary as it is already factored into fuel duty. It is blatant double taxation.

Worse still they leave no option for the operators, they are completely boxed in by this. Why does the EU see it as its role to punish the few remaining businesses without giving any alternate solution. Don't even try and suggest canals, you try and dig them through the Alps"

John Cooke, proprietor of Tameside Transport, an HGV operator said,

"Another crazy idea from Europe. How can you apply a congestion charge to Trucks? If you succeed in forcing trucks off the road, you have empty shops or the haulier has to pass on the costs to their customers. So really it is a tax on industry in the middle of a recession!"

The report can be found here , It was voted on in the Transport Committee of the Parliament today.