A massive rise in tolls for the Dartford crossing has been bitterly attacked by the AA – which is predicting chaos as drivers tried to avoid paying the fees.
The fees for going through the two tunnels or over the bridge in a car went up yesterday from the current £1 to £1.50 this weekend.
Users of the Dart Tag scheme will pay £1, and the crossing will be completely free from 10pm to 6am.
The crossing currently rakes in around £140,000 a day from motorists.
The tolls were originally in place to pay for the construction of the tunnels and bridge, but the bills were paid for in 2003 – the fees were not scrapped.
Paul Watters, the head of roads policy at the AA was dismayed at the price rises that came in on Saturday, November 15.
He said: "This is pure irony. They have artificially put up the price to introduce cut prices for those that use Tag, which scans a card on the screen of a vehicle automatically and opens the barrier.
"And the introduction of free crossings could lead to some very dangerous driving patterns.
"We could see miles of cars and lorries all dramatically slowing down on the M25 approaches to the crossing so they don't arrived before 10pm. Parking on the hard shoulder can't be ruled out either, it could be chaos.
"And it will be the same in the morning, with motorists rushing at high speeds to be at the toll booths before 6am so they don't have to pay. It just seems crazy."
He was also critical of the tolls even being in force.
Mr Watters said: "The tolls were brought in to help pay for the large cost of all the building work. But that was all paid for back in 2003, including the cost of the bridge.
"Now there is over £50 million a year going to the Treasury, but we really don't know what that money is being spent on.
"This is effectively road pricing already in place – it is simply a tax on drivers and businesses that rely on road haulage."
Drivers from the Dartford and Thurrock council areas are entitled to 50 free crossings per year and are then charged of 20p for each subsequent crossing subject to proof of residence and car ownership.
Former transport minister, and Labour MP for South Thanet Dr Steve Ladyman, said: "The crossing charge is a congestion charge and is needed to spread the traffic load over the whole day.
"The crossing is not congested at night so it is just illogical to charge during the night time hours and by making it free at those hours we'll encourage lorries in particular to change their schedules to cross at night and relieve the crossing in the day time.
"The new charges have been consulted on twice now, at great length and very publicly, and the proposed charging regime is the best that anyone can come up with to meet the views of local people and the needs of traffic management.
"As for the money raised by the Treasury - this money is in effect part of the money available for the Department for Transport to spend and it is spent on transport projects including road works.
“There has been a massive recent investment in the access roads off the A2/M2 onto the M25 for the Crossing and the whole of the M25 is being widened to 4 lanes.
“The Crossing itself may have been paid for but the roads that serve it and the massive investment being made on them has not been paid for yet by a long way."
Gordon Telling of the Tunbridge Wells based Freight Transport Association said: "There is no road safety aspect to these charges, or even for the booths to be there at all.
"We are told they are needed to stop traffic entering the tunnels if there is a problem, but gantries with red crosses on them will do that.
"And coming off the bridge, speed is an issue, but there are plenty of camera systems around today to deal with that.
"This is just about money for the Treasury, and nothing else. We will see problems develop around the time of the free crossings too. The whole thing is badly thought out."
POSTED: 16/11/2008 14:00:00
Bookmark with:
Email to a friend: