[originaltext]Man: Do you know the thing that’s always struck me as odd about o

Man: Do you know the thing that’s always struck me as odd about opinion polls?
Woman: What’s that?.
Man: The percentages. Like recently there was a survey about what people thought about traffic, and petrol prices and public car parks. In some car parks it now costs something like ￡5 to park a car for half an hour.
Woman: Yeah, but I don’t see what you are getting at?
Man: What I mean is the percentages m the result. So there might be 70% of people who complained about high petrol prices, and 60% who want to see the traffic reduced, and 65% who think car park charges are too high. Does that mean that there are 35% who actually think the charges are OK and would even be prepared to pay more, and another 30% who think petrol prices are OK? I mean that’s absurd. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think they’ re too high.
Woman: Well, actually I think we should pay more.
Man: Come on, you’re joking.
Woman: No, I’m serious. I think we should pay more fur petrol, even twice as much maybe, and certainly far more for inner city ear parks.
Man: But why?
Woman: More taxes should be charged on petrol, I think, to discourage people from using cars, and a kind of graded charging system for car parks depending on how far they are from the city center.
Man: What do you mean?
Woman: Well, If you park your car quite far from the city center then you pay a nominal amount as a kind of reward for not polluting the city canter. Well, the closer you get to the center, the more you are penalized. Prices in the center should be totally prohibitive. I mean with an efficient bus or tram service there’s no excuse for using cars.
Man: Yeah, but you can’t penalize people who don’t use their car to go into town. I mean if you doubled the price of petrol, it would cost people a fortune to go anywhere, even on short trips, and especially on holidays.
Woman: Don’t use your ear. Use a min.
Man: But what about lorries? I mean they use a lot of petrol to transport goods from one place to another.
Woman: So what’s to stop these goods being transported by train or even via canal?
Man: Well, anyway, I still can’t believe that 30% of those people who, said car park charges were OK. All think the same as you.
Woman: Well, maybe that’s where you were wrong. Just think about what I’ve said and you’ll realize that perhaps its not so stupid as it sounds.