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London's Mayor Wants Volkswagen To Pay $3 Million In Lost Tolls (citiesofthefuture.eu)
dkatana writes: Since the U.K. government has done nothing to make Volkswagen pay for Dieselgate, Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, is asking VW to come up with 2.5 million pounds ($3 million) to compensate the city and its residents for the 80,000 diesel cars fitted with cheat devices. "I want to see a proper commitment from them [VW] to fully compensate the thousands of Londoners who bought Volkswagen cars in good faith, but whose diesel engines are now contributing to London's killer air."
The money will be used to fund a new air-quality program for London's schoolchildren, and Mayor Khan is also asking the government to create "a national diesel scrappage" program to help replace vehicles.
The money will be used to fund a new air-quality program for London's schoolchildren, and Mayor Khan is also asking the government to create "a national diesel scrappage" program to help replace vehicles.
The tolls were for entering London in a vehicle that pollutes a lot. They weren't paid because VW diesels "don't pollute a lot". Now it turns out that they do, so they're asking VW to pay, since the customers who would normally owe the tolls bought the cars in good faith thinking that they would be able to enter London without paying the toll.
I think in this case the government has a right to it. Volkswagen was very naughty and even worse, they got caught. A very stiff fine is perfectly reasonable here considering the blatant and stupid things that the company did.
Government official wants money he didn't earn. Says he has good reason why he should be allowed to spend it on his priorities.
More like "government official wants money owed to government because of Volkswagen's deceitful practices." When you're a city with a polluter-toll, and you have a car company lying about their emissions causing consumers to unwittingly increase pollution while not paying said-tolls, I think it's safe to say there are damages. I think the government can spend the money however they see fit. What, would you prefer them to send a bill to the drivers of the vehicles? To me, this is the most legitimate and reasonable money-grab I've seen throughout the VW debacle.
They would if they could get away with it.
And you know it.
Teh EVUL car dirvers msut be PNUISHED!
No it's not. The mayor is trying to work in the best interests of his citizens and punish a criminal company that lied.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
it should be paid by the executives who ordered the deceit. If it is paid by the company then future generations of execs will play similar tricks, they will know that it will not hurt them although it might hurt their company — and they can always get another job if the company folds. If their own house is at risk they will be scrupulously honest.
This is the only route to corporate good behaviour, be that: car manufacturers; banks; energy companies; ... NB: I am not talking about mistakes but deceit.
Your post doesn't have any actual argument in it excpt for the implicit one that this has come from the government therefore it must be bad. Government == bad is not actually a fact, though if you treat it as an axiom you can come to all sorts of odd conclusions.
London has a pollution/air quality problem. The local government tries to improv things by providing incentives and levying taxes. That is a pretty reasonable way of carrying on with things. Except that volkswagen gave themsalves a comptitive advantage by a massive amount of lying, and caused a lot of extra pollution.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Yes it is. 2.5 million euros is a drop in the bucket of London's budget and pollution levels STILL DROPPED while VW "cheated" http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/28205/20160906/success-londons-air-pollution-levels-drop-thanks-to-smart-policies.htm
It's a "look how cool I am looking out for you citizen" feel good ploy for re-election and political capital.
This is what is called a strawman argument. Yes, I agree it would be terrible if this official got to keep that $3 million dollars personally.
But the actual situation is pretty straightforward. You're allowed to drive your old, dirty car into the city as long as you pay a little bit extra per trip to offset the costs you're imposing on everyone else. In this case that means the people driving VWs into the city should have paid, but they only were in that situation because VW cheated them. Under the circumstances, asking VW to pony up $3 million to pay their customers fees isn't exactly draconian; after all VW had no difficulty in paying the outgoing CEO who oversaw this mess a $6.26 million dollar performance bonus after all the came out.
Now if it were up to me, dirty cars would be completely banned, and the officials and engineers of a company that cheats would go to jail.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wanting to tax people to support the infrastructure that allows them to earn money is, however, not bad.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Making a case for public infrastructure to a Randian is like making a case for evolution to a young-earth creationist. Can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Randians: always wanting to live in civilization, never wanting to pay for it.
Yeah, poor people can't afford VWs. It's a long time since they were the people's cars.
Well, I can see each individual's liability - they drove a car that pollutes into the centre of London and are therefore liable for a fee. VW's liability is there to each individual since their false advertising made them liable for the fee. London are just trying to cut out the middle man.
They don't work as expected (well, they work the way that a few people in VW expected - privately - but that's not the same thing). The expectation is what was advertised - low emissions. If they are sold as low emission cars and they are not low emission cars then they are clearly defective. You might not particularly care about the defect but that doesn't eliminate the defect.
Yay... now look up the definition of 'fraud'.
If you sell something promising certain attributes of the product which the product does not comply with - then that product is defective under the standard legal definition (throughout most of the world actually off) 'fitness for purpose'.
That there are actually laws that the car failed to comply with AGGRAVATES the defect - it does not limit it as you suggest. It makes the fraud on customers more severe since they were buying, in good faith, a car that they were told complied with the law when it didn't.
The fact that the car violated laws actually makes it even LESS fit for purpose.
And damn straight clients should not be held accountable for this. They had no reasonable way of learning about the deception until governments discovered it. The company that committed the fraud should be held accountable - and the CEO belongs in jail... if we start actually jailing the CEOs and executives of every company that commits large-scale fraud then large scale fraud would become a great deal less common - and things like the 2008 crash won't happen. Nobody would defraud millions of investors and even entire governments if they think they'll actually go to jail for it.
That's the one change in regulations the world really needs to keep capitalism mostly working. If a business commits a crime, the board and executive officers should face the same punishments that you or I would face if we did the same thing. They dump toxic waste in a river -they get the same punishment you would get for poisoning a town's well: death penalties for mass murder. They lie to customers or investors about what they are selling - they get the same punishment that con-artists get: ten to twenty in prison for fraud.
The problem is we only punish individuals when they don't have strong corporate shields. We put Madoff in jail - but the CEO of Goldman-Sachs walks free. So far no country has proposed criminal charges against the executives at VW for this massive fraud. Lots of fines - a few got fired, but no jail-time.
Considering the size of the fraud here, they should get consecutive ten year sentences for each offense... basically they should die of old age in prison.
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