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You ought to realise that your comments about "small Japanese women" are blatantly racist and deeply offensive - even to those who are not "trying to manoeuvre" big cars. You usually like to point at racist behaviours in your column... Please do have a good look at yourself.

- Dominic, London, 04/02/2009 10:28
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Why not link taxation of vehicles to number of miles per year multiplied by CO2 emissions?

That way owners of smaller cars who damage the environment can be penalised too.

And why not ensure trucks are charged the full cost of the damage they cause to the road aswell as the environment? Car drivers subsidise this industry at the expense of rail freight.

- Grahame, Teddington, London, 09/01/2009 19:31
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Class....class you say? What class is there in these rediculous vehicles. As for the need for such large beasties to ferry the "smalls" and their parifinalia about I believe people used to manage perfectly well before these vehicles arrived as the "keep up with the neighbours" necessity. Plus I've found that those with "old" money and true class usually drive delapidated old vehicles and it's vulgar to talk about wealth!

- Kelly S, HH, UK, 09/01/2009 18:22
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Why do you single-out Japanese women? Don't you realise such comments put you in the same class as Jade Goody? Look beyond your own petty prejudice and you will see that British mothers are far and away the main culprits, ferrying their coddled offspring to and from schools all over London in their 2-ton 4x4s. If you were to go to Japan you would find that most children walk or take the bus to school and most Japanese people drive very modest cars.

- Jeremy Sloane, London, 09/01/2009 17:12
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Very easy to say jump on a bus or what did we do before 4x4's arrived. Not easy to jump on a bus with triplets (9 months old) and not easy to squeeze in an estate car with all the necessary car seats. I'm afraid three car seats will not fit in the back of the vast majority of ordinary cars and even if they do you still need room for buggies/prams. So all those who decry larger vehicles - have a little thought for other peoples'circumstances and perhaps be a little less 'holier than thou' as it gets very boring.

- M, London, 09/01/2009 14:28
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I think we can safely file this rant in the "Class Envy" file.

- Ian White, London, 09/01/2009 14:00
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Why anybody would need a car (any car) in London is beyond me - this city has a wonderful public transport system. Having several kids is no excuse either - my grandparents had 4 kids and still managed beautifully without a car. So do people in other countries. Stop whining and get organised.

- Paulina Smid, London, UK, 09/01/2009 13:25
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"Go to a car park and these vehicles shamelessly take up two spaces."

Strange, I've lived there for 30 years and have never seen this once.

- Mikethecyclist, Richmond, 09/01/2009 13:09
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For me it has nothing at all to do with class war nor gas guzzling. I am offended by the sheer SIZE of these vehicles on narrow London streets.

- Sam, London, UK, 09/01/2009 12:17
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I agree with Yasmin. Gas guzzlers should be taxed off the road! They're a menace to pedestrians and cyclists - and a
insult to the thousands of Londoner's trying to reduce their carbon footprint.

- Nick Davies, London, 09/01/2009 10:10
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I lived near Richmond in the 1970s. Basically nothing has changed. In those days the Range Rover was the equivalent of the modern gas guzzler. If families couldn't get one of those they would collect cars instead. One family I knew had four cars, another three etc etc. They would laugh at me for using the bus. Meanwhile in relatively poverty stricken Hampstead my family cycled or used the bus and tube.

- Markwright, Milan, Italy, 09/01/2009 09:40
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This debate sums up modern Britain. Jealousy of the wealthy and the stupidity of those who believe there is a link between the climate and mans insignificant CO2 output.
Give it 50 years and historians will concur.

- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, 08/01/2009 21:40
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I agree 100% - and what is more, there should be a whoping - and I mean whopping - rax levied on all those mothers who insist on driving their kids to school, parking over people's drives and riding up onto the pavement. Not to mention the 4x4 drivers who can't actually drive them, and who mostly 'drive' with one hand, with the other on the mobile. Aaaaargh! Make 4x4 owners pay £10 an hour to park, and make any who drive to school (unless disabled) £5000 a year to do so.

- Liz, London,UK, 08/01/2009 16:51
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The way in which the engine drives 2 or 4 wheels has no bearing at all on CO2 or size of the car. My Golf is 4x4!

How a car is driven ( not parked ) determines the CO2 level. A 4 litre BMW X5 doing 5000 miles a year emits less CO2 than a 2 litre Vectra doing 10000 miles a year.

What we need to see is less politicians jumping on this green bandwagon by using CO2 as a way of justifying taxes.

If you were to look at the true environmental cost of cars, i.e from production to disposal then you would find that a true 4x4 the Jeep Wrangler is the greenest car in the world. The hybrids are some of the worst due to the production and disposal of their batteries.

Anyway, is the same Labour government extending Heathrow ? What about that environmental impact?

- Paul Kimber, London, 08/01/2009 16:45
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'Gas guzzler' is a catchy phrase but what exactly does it mean ? Size of vehicle ? All-up weight ? Average fuel consumption figure ? Cost ? The fact of four wheel drive ? (A safety feature some would argue). Is an ordinary large twenty year old estate car with a three litre engine not a gaz guzzler when a new small efficient two litre diesel 4x4 is ? Wooly thinking indeed which indicates nothing more than old fashioned snobbery: the distaste of the poor (ancient or modern) for the nouveau riche.

- Peter Haldane, London, 08/01/2009 15:53
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Well said Yasmin. It's not jsut the parking.... Nearly all the spivy builders drive them around here. And how. I find them so very aggressive - they seem to come from nowhere and sit on my boot even though I'm driving at the speed limit. All in such a hurry. Quite frankly I wonder what it is exactly that they have to hurry to in a provincial town? I've noticed that they are getting worse in their behaviour - probably because they know that they are stuck with these monsters - because nobody wants to buy them now. So...they'll be less of them for us to suffer in the future and they'll only be found in rural parts soon. Can't wait. But keep up the campaign Yasmin.

- Raymond, Poole, 08/01/2009 15:50
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people say penalising gaz guzlers in London will have a negligible effect. So do we just shrug our shoulders and say nothing can be done. The longest journey starts with the smallest step but I guess that's an alien concept if you love to drive.
We are so addicted to cars that we see driving as a human right and get very upset about pricing a polluter pays principle. But think about it pragmatically. If the scientific consensus is that mankind is setting up feedback loops by putting so much extra CO2 in the atmosphere, the outlook for the entire planet is very bleak. Surely we it would be better to swallow some change and inconvenience now rather than wait for the waters to rise? What will we tell our children? We drowned for our right to drive a big car? Or for certain people is this issue framed entirely by their belief that they will starve last?

- Nic Howell, London, UK, 08/01/2009 15:49
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To all those crying about "criminal damage", how many times have you blogged moaning about the hit and run drivers who don't "turn themselves in"? Reflect a little on your humanity and sense of proportion before reiterating the point. I am sick of this country's emphasis on the criminality of property damage, to the detriment of the seriousness of personal injury - this characterises the whole court system.

Someone suggested that cars are taxed too heavily - that is laughable, they are by far the cheapest mode of motorised transport (unless you want to count motorbikes). Trains are heavily taxed, yes - with the massive up-front fee demanded by the PM from TOCs before each contract starts, passed on tout suite to the passengers.

Cars are too heavily subsidised. All the moaners probably have parking permits - approximately £100 per year to store your car in the public thoroughfare of zones 1 and 2, market rate being £5,000. And probably on-street outside someone's house who doesn't own a car, blighting their streetscape as well as everyone else's. I'd be less offended if you took at dump outside my house than parked one of your vehicles there, you Landrover Freeloaders.

- Reg, London, 08/01/2009 15:39
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It is no longer possible to drive continuously down most streets in my area without having to dodge into an empty kerbside space to let these 4x4's pass.

Apart from the additional use of fuel through constant stopping and starting and running in low gear to avoid these trucks and the detritus of broken wing mirrors they produce by only seemingly being able to navigate these behemoths by straddling the centre white line - it is the sheer agressive arrogance of the drivers ferrying the lone 5 year old on the school run in the back that infuriates.

- Stephen, Bromley, Kent, 08/01/2009 15:37
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I thought that parking charges were charges for parking. When parked, a 40 foot articulated vehicle (let alone a 4x4)emits exactly the same amount of polluting gases as a pedal cycle, zero. Incidentally Ms. Alibhai-Brown, are you now going to turn yourself in for causing criminal damage?

- Seabee, London, UK, 08/01/2009 15:12
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Being taxed by LBRUT council or by Yasmin, we still pay tax - I don't necessarily have a problem (or seemingly a choice) on that, though I really object to being 'tamed', but where does the money go? There seems to be no linkage (hypothecation) - is anyone seriously suggesting that LBRUT is spending my money on helping the environment - I don't think so.

- Dave, Beautiful, Countrified Richmond, 08/01/2009 14:55
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Pathetic description,If the councils don't make the roads bigger and wider to accomodate the traffic we will all lose out ont the Panorama!,Because the traffic is made of SMALL and LARGER cars, obviously were gonna all feel dominated by the Bigger ones! and feel suffocated too!
It's not the size of the Car that's a problem,it's Who Drives it! and their Road Education..
Milan is a big city,and we have our road problems too! but no one thinks so stupidly as to organise campaigns against car sizing!
Drive a Big Car Sir? pay a bigger BILL!
fairs fair! I think it's just jealousy on behalf of those who can't have a luxury vehicle.
Just one example Does a Hybrid SUV produce any problem for those nice people who worry about the enviroment?and the space we live in?
I drive a Landrover and I goto the Supermarket in it too!
But I also use it to travel back and forth to UK twice a year,with 2 kids and the wife!
Do you think I'm gonna buy a smaller car?and be able to do all that just the same?

- Mick Connoly, Milan Italy, 08/01/2009 14:43
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Yasmin your middle class prejudices are hilarious . You seem completely unaware of how ridiculous the image of you committing criminal damage by kicking a car is. Do you honestly believe your life is so morally superior because you drive a Nissan Micra!
4 x 4 s are "killing the place I love". Really? How? Would the world be such a better place if a few people in London drove slightly smaller cars? It certainly would have a barely measurable impact on global warming.
If you were in government you would impose a hefty tax as if one didn't exist. What about Road Tax, VAT on new cars, fuel duty, parking charges, Congestion Charge, speeding fines, bus lane fines, yellow box fines... shall I go on?
My plumber spends his working life installing energy efficient boilers producing permanent reductions in CO2 emissions, but has to spend a great deal of time money and admin paying the six taxes listed above simply to get a boiler in his van from A to B in London.We tax cars too much. We make life unnecessarily difficult for ourselves in doing so, and it achieves nothing except frustration and bureaucracy.
Surely its enough that 4 x 4 s are unfashionable? Do yo have to kick them as well? Perhaps we should get rid of them all and then you would have to find a new middle class hate figure- maybe people wearing football shirts, eating food you don't approve of or who go on holiday to Spain?

- Marcus Hardie, Holetown, Barbados, 08/01/2009 14:28
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Lets scrap all cars and revert back to "sandles" ! Would that please the "nimbies" ?

- Brian Hughes, North Wales, 08/01/2009 14:27
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Wait until the penny drops and Yasmin realises that this parking charge increase may affect people of colour or non-Christian religion and she'll be up in arms about the whole unfairness of this.

- Edgar Wright, Hull, England, 08/01/2009 14:22
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Will Yasmin Alibhai-Brown now be investigated for her admission of causing criminal damage? I live in the countryside and I own an old Land Rover. I also run a small business and have clients in Richmond, and other parts of London, who I visit regularly. I spend quite a lot of time on the road and have a Jaguar which I generally use for these longer trips. I own these things partly because I judge that I need them, but largely because I like them, have worked hard to be able to afford them and get great satisfaction from using them. The fact that they make socialists very angry is merely a fringe benefit. Ms Alibhai-Brown, your political instincts have no bearing whatsoever in what vehicles I choose to drive. Your climate claptrap justification is increasingly understood to be nothing more than a politically motivated lie. At a time when people are struggling to pay bills, retailers are closing and town centres dieing, all that this nonsense will achieve is boarded up windows in Richmond and a political sea change at the next local and national elections. Hopefully your incessant miserable thinly veiled envy-driven diatribes will guarantee that you are one of the first in the dole queue. You may drive a rubbish car, but I bet your "carbon footprint" would tell a tale of hypocrisy.

- Malcolm Cupis, Bridgeyate, South Gloucs, 08/01/2009 13:58
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If this is all about 'monster vehicles', why not increased parking charges based on the size of the car?

If it's about cars that are unsafe for pedestrians, why not increased parking charges for cars with low NCAP ratings?

Because it isn't about either of those things, it's about raising revenue based on a tenuous link to spurious science and plain old 'holier-than-thou' attitudes

a car in the higher band (like an enormous 'monster' VW Lupo GTI) driven twice a week, is not worse on any scale than a Nissan Micra driven twice a day, no matter what nationality is driving it

- Mark, London, 08/01/2009 13:50
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Richmond Council is being bold and courageous. Many local critics plead that they have a green life style and then drive 500 yards to the shops in their 4 x 4s or use 4 x 4s on the school run.

They are the same people who protested against Sainsbury's opening in Barnes - a store which is now open and which is meeting a real need locally for all those people young and old who dont use 4 x 4s to get their shopping but prefer to use old technology - their feet!

- David Lloyd, London UK, 08/01/2009 12:37
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'little Japanese women' - where did that come from? I hate these damn road hogs, but I'd refrain from making discriminatory comments about who's driving them

- Sean, London, 08/01/2009 12:23
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Yasmin, dear, it has nothing to do with liberty or rights. At the core of this is an unfair tax on those that are perceived to be wealthy, underpinned by extremely dodgy science. That is why those of us with larger engined cars get so heated by this topic.

- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland, 08/01/2009 12:00
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Yes Yasmin, and I'm sure the employees of Land Rover and Jaguar will thank you for yet another attack on their livelihoods

- Johnfaganwilliams, London, 08/01/2009 11:39
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4 x 4 drivers are the scourge of London, research shows they are more dangerous, driven erratically by ladies who lunch, often on a mobile. It's selfish and anti-social to use one in London, what do they need them for, to negotiate the Ribena slick outside Tescos?

- Stephen Gaines, Hammersmith, 08/01/2009 11:37
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