Avoiding the London Congestion Charge
When Ken introduced the London Congestion Charge, it was not immediately popular with many people. A delve into the rules and regulations exposes some ways of avoiding having to pay his £8 daily road tax. The list below ranges from the practical to the ridiculous and is by no means exhaustive, but its a good start. Just bear in mind, the CC will cost you approx £2000 per year, so if you’re spending more than that on your London Congestion Charge avoidance strategy, then you could be missing the point. So,..
Get a bike
This could work, but not for me. Maggie the dog also goes to work every day and no matter how hard we try, she just can’t get to grips with the saddle. Also, if like many people you have to drop children off at nursery / child minders then this is a lot of baggage to carry with you. Whilst it is possible to do this by bike, its not really the safest way to move a group like this round London.
Use public transport
This has the same issues as above and whilst Maggie is allowed on the tube and buses, i’m not convinced that she really enjoys it. This should be a great solution for many people however, the people i know who drive to work in London do so because they really can’t face the invasion of personal space that accompanies a tube journey during the London rush hour.
Disable yourself
Blue badge holders get a 100% discount. Now, it might seem a bit extreme to cut off a limb just to avoid the £8 a day tax but i just want to cover all bases.
Get a recovery Vehicle
Recovery vehicles are another way of avoiding the congestion charge. This again is possibly a rather extreme option but one of the more novel approaches, especially if you’re not a mechanic, or have anything to do with the recovery of cars. A quick ebay search for recovery vehicles may find you something cheap if you’re very lucky.
Have more than 9 seats in your car
Clearly, this is aimed at people who drive mini-busses or community vehicles, but there’s possibilities here. I saw a Ford Transit minibus for sale at the roadside today for only £1000. You’d save that in six months of driving in every day. There’s another thought here, what if you were to replace the back row of seats in your car with a 7 mini seats? Or secure four small IKEA children’s chairs to your boot?
NB – be sure to check the small print, i’m likely missing some detail in here, especially regarding minibuses, surely it can’t be that easy..?