London proposal suggests congestion charging for bikers

A policy document put forward in the London Assembly is raising the ire of the city’s motorcyclists, with one recommendation hitting motorcyclists with a congestion charge - ostensibly in the name of road safety.

Motorcycles and mopeds are currently exempt from London’s congestion charges, as well as fines in Ultra Low Emission Zones if the vehicles meet Euro 3 emissions standards, or higher (ie, most bikes made after 2007).

In a report titled Changing the narrative: Ending the acceptance of road death in London, Green Party Assembly Member Caroline Russell suggests “reviewing the timings of the Central Congestion Charging Zone (CCCZ) so that it operates in the evenings again; increasing the costs of using the CCCZ… and extending charging to motorcycles.”

Additional recommendations that affect motorcyclists include eliminating all free parking (not that there’s much of that to begin with), encouraging more citizen surveillance via dashcams, and reducing speed limits even further - down to 10 mph in some areas.

As you might expect, there’s some slightly fuzzy thinking in the document, arguments often being bolstered by irrelevant evidence.

For instance, in a section that essentially calls for the public shaming of people who own large vehicles, the document uses the Dodge Ram TRX pickup truck as an example. According to How Many Left, there are just 34 of these vehicles in the whole of the United Kingdom. I’m willing to bet most - if not all of them - are being driven somewhere other than London. There is no need for the London Assembly to spend money on “a public awareness campaign to alert Londoners to the harm they pose.”

Elsewhere, the document opines that “the link between traffic volumes and road danger was made abundantly clear during the pandemic… with less traffic on the country’s roads, the fewer casualties there were.”

Uhm, yes. But there were also just fewer people out and about - fewer people to hit. If you don’t allow a large segment of the population to leave their homes, it is true that they won’t be hit by cars, but that’s not really an argument for getting rid of cars.

It’s perhaps also worth noting that, in terms of road deaths, the UK is one of the safest countries in Europe.

The document’s not all nonsense - it notes, for example, that the world of e-scooters and e-bicycles is something of a Wild West at the moment and could use some structure/regulation. Similarly, it suggests taking a measured approach to self-driving cars. But there’s enough here to have raised the easily-raised hackles of the Motorcycle Action Group (MAG), who are now urging bikers to write to their MPs. Why you would write to a member of Parliament, and not a member of the London Assembly - you know, where this document has actually been put forward - I’m not sure.

You may detect a hint of snark in this article. Personally, I’d say this policy document is unlikely to go anywhere - at least in its present form. If not simply because it doesn’t appear to offer an exception for the fleets of scooter-riding delivery riders. 

Many Londoners will feel that measures that affect their ability to receive a vindaloo in a timely manner would be a step too far.

More practically, the London Assembly doesn’t appear to have any of the power needed to enact these recommendations. As best I can tell, all it can do is veto elements of the London Mayor’s budget - if it’s able to do so with a two-thirds majority.

Meanwhile, this is a document put forward by a Green Party Assembly member. The Green Party holds just three seats in London’s 28-seat Assembly. It seems unlikely that the city’s Labour mayor would put a lot of stock in their policy recommendations.

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