It can be seen at any meaningful protest in Greek society. A small group of unknowns start to vandilise property and attack police. Some politicians call a spade a spade and say the police are the disguised troublemakers
And now, with the I Won’t Pay gaining momentum you have a story about how a protest turned violent. If anyone has witnessed these protests you will know that violence is not even considered an option by the real protestors.
This smacks of agent provocateur activity. Will the truth ever be known? Who knows all we can ask for it that there is a thorough investigation regarding the background of the “victim” and the “attackers”. I look forward to reading the results on the investigation.
To talk a bit more about the I Won’t Pay movement you have to understand how road tolls are implemented in Greece. Whereas in other countries who use tolls on their motorway networks, Italy, France, Germany for example, the amount the driver pays is directly proportional to the distance of motorway that the driver drives on.
In Greece you pay the same amount whether you drive 200meters of 200km. Which is why the toll system in Greece is completely unfair and possibly corrupt, I mean how did this system get authorised? What politician would agree to a road toll company billing a motorist 6Euros everyday to use a 1km stretch of motorway to get to and from work? How can this have been implemented without some wheels getting oiled?
Of course to run a proffessional motorway toll network it costs money. You need every junction in a tolled stretch to have toll booths on the entrance and exit of every junction and this is not cheap. So a Greek politician somewhere has decided bollocks, lets forget about having a fair system and let us just have an unfair system that is cheap.
But why doesn’t the Greek government just do the job properly? Well let us ignore the corruption issue for now. To put tolls at every entrance and exit in a tolled section of motorway as i have said would be expensive but the biggest issue is it probably wouldn’t be cost effective because the motorways in Greece on average are nowhere near as busy as those in Germany, France or Italy so it is possible the tolls could loose money if you include the costs of building the tolls.
Okay, so these motorways were not built to be profitable, they were built to help people in Greece get places easier. So where did the money come from to build them? Basically Europe and Greek taxpayers – Which begs the question, why are the tolls paid to pricate companies.
In addition to the corruption of private companies getting paid the returns from public investment the new motorways in Greece are being built on top of the old road network so the old roads in a lot of cases are no longer useable either because the new motorway is built directly on top or it cuts through the old road.
So not only do private companies benefit from the investment of taxpayers, they also destroy roads that the people had already built and they also take away people’s option of using an alternative route.
The whole system of road tolls in Greece, as it is run at the moment is completely and utterly corrupt and unfair. It is a program that rubs the faces of the Greek people in the dirt and tells them to enjoy it.
In summary, the issues with the road tolling system in Greece are as follows
1. Flat charge regardless of distance travelled. 200 metres or 200km you pay the same
2. Massively unfair if you are forced to use a toll road for part of your journey.
3. Private companies profit from the taxes of private people
4. Old roads are destroyed to make way for tolls roads reducing people’s travel options
5. Destroys olds roads owned by the public so private companies can benefit
How to make the tolling system in Greece fair.
1. Toll roads must leave original road intact
2. New roads have to be funded by private companies if tolls will be charged
3. New motorways must be free to use if they have been funded by taxpayers to ANY degree
4. Toll charges must be proportional to the distance travelled
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