So right now the British government is toying with the idea of putting tracking devices in all our cars so that they can charge us for the mile. The idea is that it will cut congestion and help the environment. It’s a bad idea in so many obvious and not so obvious ways, but that isn’t the point I want to make. Instead I’m interested in the response.

In November of last year, the government put into place a petition feature on their website. As of writing, the petition on the current issue has achieved 1,241,800 signatures.

According to the Daily Mail:

The protest means that 1 in 30 of the UK’s 30 million drivers have taken the trouble to register their protest on the web - an unprecedented feat in British political history.

The thing that got me to sign it was an email from a friend. It had a link in it, and so it was easy to sign. I’d been hearing about the petition on radio, but even though I care about this I didn’t head to my computer, search for the site and sign. The Internet helps people to engage.

It also raises fear on accuracy (among politicians!). This from the same Daily Mail article.

Transport minister Stephen Ladyman also denied claims that the electronic boxes which would be placed in cars would allow the Government to ’spy’ on motorists.

He said: “Once this petition has closed, what we are going to do is explain the real policies to the people.

“The viral emails sent round in support of this petition have got crazier and crazier. The information they have been sent is a mile away from what we are actually trying to do.”

What politicians don’t yet understand is that political marketing has changed in the Internet era. Who do you trust more: the government who are closed mouthed or your friend who sent you a viral email and may well be completely ignorant? In my case it was neither. I’d already made my mind up based on a wealth of political and real-world knowledge as well as the media. But I’m still open to having my mind changed. If the government wish to do that they can do too things. 1. Become trustworthy by proving that they can do a good job! hahaha 2. By engaging me in their debate using new-media.

But I must give kudos to the government for setting up this system.

If you are a British citizen, you can sign the petition here if you do so before 20th February 2007.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 23:26 UTC and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.