The congestion charge is one of the biggest scams — maybe the biggest scam — pulled on the public by the authorities in my lifetime. When I first heard about it, I assumed it was a joke. We already pay income tax, local rates, road tax, the MoT, tax on petrol and Vat on everything from engine oil to new tyres, just to be allowed to drive our cars on shitty, potholed and congested roads. None of us wants to drive into London anyway, and when you do have to do so there is nowhere to park. If and when you do find somewhere to park, it’s like a mugging.

So here was someone suggesting that on top of the tax and the rates and the road tax and the petrol tax and the car parking, we should pay £5 a day (initially) and now a momentous £8 for the privilege of enduring this nightmare. Who in their right minds would want to drive in London if they had a viable choice? That’s £8 a day — £40 for a five-day working week, £2,000 a year — just to be able to drive to work (where we will pay income tax) in London!

Having realised, eventually, the proposal was not intended as a joke, I still thought I could afford to find it amusing because I knew no one would vote for it. Who would volunteer to pay a tax to be able to do something they don’t want to do anyway? But that, if I may be allowed to say so, was uncharacteristically naive of me.

What I hadn’t instantly understood is that the people who would be voting would not be the people who would be paying. The people who would be voting would largely be the people who live inside the zone and therefore do not pay the full tax. These people were being asked to vote for whether someone else should pay a tax from which they would be largely exempt, and indeed would benefit. That’s a much easier one.

Collecting the tax also introduces a whole new way in which the rest of us are spied on, monitored and oppressed by the authorities, and shows no mercy. Cross the line one minute before 6pm without having paid the charge, and you’re going to pay a fine. It’s ruthless, it’s relentless, it’s anything else unpleasant beginning with r.

Grumpy Old Drivers by Stuart Prebble is published by Orion at £9.99. Copies can be ordered for £9.49 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585

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