I'm not normally a particularly active political creature, but the prospect of the national road charging scheme could change that. I spent this morning's thinking time in the shower to calculate the financial impact on my household, based on the projected figures being suggested. For my 50 mile daily round trip and the wife's 40 miles, neither of which has a realistic public transport alternative, I arrived at a round figure of £25,000 (no, that isn't a misprint!) of pre-tax income per year, just to get to work. That's based on my 30 miles of motorway and 20 miles of B-roads each day likely to cost £40/day.This fact will probably have one of two outcomes - either I'll be going to prison, or I'll be retiring 10 years early and spongeing off the state for the rest of my life. I certainly don't intend to be robbed by the government on this scale.

When you consider that we already have a perfectly good system (fuel duty) that ensures that those with the thirstiest vehicles, travelling at the most congested times, already pay more than those with economy cars travelling on deserted roads, road charging can have no justification other than to increase taxation on road users by a factor of 25. And who really wants the government to know where they are every second of the day? The only problem with George Orwell's 1984 is that he was 25 years out but lacked enough imagination to see how far it would go.

If you don't want to end up being a victim of the last straw, sign the petition this week, before it's too late.