Pay As You Go Road/Fuel Tax?

[Craggles]

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4610755.stm

What are everyones thoughts on this?

I have a few initial thoughts:

The cost of public transport should also be reduced. Reliability should be increased. This would reduce congestion a fair bit I think.

Bikes cause less congestion, and therefore should pay less per mile than cars.

Lorries should be subsidised, as there are few real alternatives to using them. Even though I feel they contribute significantly to congestion on Motorways and A roads.

I would like to think these "black boxes" will be used for their stated purpose, not checking up on speeding and other motoring offences.

In principle, I agree with the plan. However I don't feel anyone should be asked to pay more than they would now for travelling a distance - It's far to expensive already.

However, if people have to change their mode of transport to save money - and possibly the environment etc - it has to be a good idea. That's why I say make public transport cheaper.

It costs me approx. £15 to go to Coventry by bike, and takes 2 hours. It costs £35 by train, takes longer and dosn't get me to exactly where I want to be. How do you think I travel?

Craig
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[mrchips]

To be honest I'd rather pay tax in petrol and road tax than have to pay for going out a blast, at least in petrol you don't mind as much.
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[instigator]

I say just keep it the way it is

Change is bad.

[TheShaggyDA]

The black box would have to get it's power from somewhere, meaning I can decide when it's going to be on or not. Love the idea!
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[i:6e3bfc7581]But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman...[/i:6e3bfc7581]

[Robby]

But I already pay a tax based on the distance travelled. Its called fuel tax.

Would this pay as you go scheme reduce of replace fuel tax? Would it make make me happier about have a less economical car.

We'll be taxed an awful lot whatever scheme ends up being used. With the current scheme (hefty fuel tax) you can control how much you spend on a journey by how efficient your vehicle and how heavy on the throttle you are.

[TheShaggyDA]

It would be scrapped :-

[Sparks!]

I'm not paying it

£1.34 a mile at peak congested times, FUCK THAT
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[G]

Is nobody worried about having a system for tracking everysingle vehicle in the UK, presumably showing speed and location.

Never mind that they wouldn't need Gatsos, if anyone got into the system there would be massive possibilities for expoloitation and and various nasty stuff.

[Ste]

So fitting satellite tracking to all vehicles to track your journeys? No thanks, I can see those being used to monitor speeding as well.

[Type_Mo]

Upto £1.30 per mile i heard

[carvell]

Just fit a tiny hidden switch enabling or disabling the thing.

It'll take people about 30mins from getting a car with it in to posting a guide on how to disable it on the internet.
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Yamaha TDM 850

[Bendy]

If they want to decrease congestion, why don't they give breaks to encourage companies to let people work from home?

Plenty people could work at home a few days a week, you'd have less people trying to get in and out of the city, smaller offices so you'd need less parking... and happier people cos they've just been given several hours more spare time each week.

[jay12329]

Yeah i'm sure JS could let me work from home.
I could be a younger version of scamblsby man.
J

[stinkwheel]

The principle is sound, it would save me a fortune as I currently have to tax four seperate vehicles. The problem is I bet you anything you like that if a vehicle did no-miles in a year, the charge wouldn't be zero.

I also bet they will also still issue an equivalent of a tax disc as a way of keeping tabs on MOT and insurance thus creating another tier of beaurocracy, reckon this will be free? Reckon they will cut fuel prices by 80%? Reckon that applying tax is the only use the government would put satelite tracking technology on vehicles to?

It will land up costing EVERYONE more in the long run, mark my words. The government of this country sees motorists as a cash-cow to be milked for all they are worth under the guise of protecting the environment and public safety.

The simplest way of taxing road users for both the mileage they do and the degree of pollution they produce would be to do away with road tax and car tax altogether and have a simple percentage tax added to fuel. That way those people doing high mileages and those with heavily polluting cars pay more.

I would suggest adding to this by having some sort of rebate system for those people living in remote areas with no option other than to use their car and who do not contribute greatly to conjestion in the first place. This could be easily achieved by issuing everyone with a certain postcode a discount card similar to the 'nectar' type loyalty cards. It would take a hell of a lot less administration than keeping track of where every car in the country drives and would be a lot less open to abuse.

If they introduced trackers to cars, I wonder how long it would be before you could take it down to Glasgow Barrowlands market to get your tracker 'chipped' or 'decoded' in a similar way to knocked-off car stereos and playstations?
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[Zoffo]

Just playing devils advocate here.....

But what's wrong with puting road tax on the price of fuel. Then those that use lots and lots of the countries roads pay more and those (like me) who just do a 3 mile round trip to work once a day (plus the odd blast on the bike) pay less.

Make the bloody sales reps pay for all the bleedin miles they do to pester people
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[TheShaggyDA]

3 mile round trip? Walk, you lazy, polluting sod.

Just playing Devil's advocate
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[i:6e3bfc7581]But still I fear and still I dare not laugh at the madman...[/i:6e3bfc7581]

[mchaggis]

This also hits the poor much more than it hits the wealthy. Say a wealthy family living in the countryside travel in their gas guzzling SUV to Tesco travelling 10 miles, paying 5p a mile, 50p.

A poorer family living in the town centre travel to the same Tesco through 3 miles of congested streets in their small 'city car', paying 50p a mile? They pay £1 more for travelling less distance in a less polluting vehicle, simply because they cannot afford to live out in the countryside.

How about bikes and filtering? Travelling at 30mph through very congested streets and being expected to pay the full whack is a bit off, considering that by filtering you're not causing any congestion at all. The idea of being tracked for tax purposes is the first step to automatically imposed satellite tracked speeding fines.

It will not be cheaper, and willl not be aimed at where it's needed. I'm simply amazed at the apathy of the car companies in this country. They and their suppliers employ 10% of the working population in this country, yet they make absolutely no noise about the oppression of the motorist by the government. Yet the white middle classes in London can make noise about those nasty bikers and car drivers speeding and they get scameras put up everywhere. Or they make a little fuss about people hunting foxes and it gets banned.

I think it's fairly obvious that the Labour government is not a government for the people, no matter what we think. It is purely designed to satisfy the white pc liberals in the Southeast.
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[dransy]

to be honest i think that is absaloutly stupid , havin a box on ur car to put money in , chances r some 1 wud nick it?
and its expensive as fook 1.34 per mile thats well expensive
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[dibbster]

[Craggles]

Box does the same thing all the time, therefore same power consumption all the time. Therefore very easy to work out how much power is needed.

So box has an internal power supply. Whenever your vehicle goes in for MOT, power supply is replaced/recharged. Power supply designed to provide enough power between one MOT point and the next + a little surplus. If you don't declare SORN (or whatever equivilant) and stop transmitting, you're fined.

Craig
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[Kickstart]

Hi

Few issues.

I do not like the idea of being tracked, and although it would be nice to think it will only be used for road charging I think that is niave. Almost certainly it would be used for enforcement of speeding rules, and rapidly also used for rounding up suspects to any serious crime.

I suspect that although you might be able to disable them they will almost certainly be checked in the MOT test for any such tampering, or any excessive periods when they have not received power. Furthermore expect ANPR type systems floating round to be used to spot vehicles with no tracking signal and pull them up further down the road. Given the current government love of harsh penalties for irrelevant but easily caught offences, expect a very disproportionate penalty.

2p a mile with ~250b car miles a year is £5b minimum that would be taken. Overall such a scheme would cost us a fortune, as they might well claim it is revenue neutral, but it will not be cost neutral and the greatly increased costs will have to be met before the revenue comes in. 25m vehicles in the UK (roughly) and say £200 a unit to retrofit and that is £5B cost just to fit the units initially. Certainly this will not be met by central government. At the end of the day central government want the same or more £40b or so "profit" from us so any extra costs in collecting it will be met by us.

Fairly certain that any such scheme would still keep some form of road tax just for admin purposes, probably at the £15 level of a small motorcycle. I would also expect that this admin charge to rapidly rise again up towards the current level (and as it would be an admin charge there would be no reason to have a lower rate for motorcycles), as this happened in Ireland when they drastically reduced road tax and put it onto petrol.

If they do want to revise road tax / fuel duty then my personal feeling is that they need the simplest and cheapest system they can. Probably a tax on the fuel based on energy content (so about 10% higher for diesel, quite a bit lower than petrol for lpg). Scrap road tax, or at the most allow a nominal charge set to a fixed level (such as directly linked to one hours pay at the national minimum wage). However as we already have hideously expensive fuel I do not think they could justify raising it any further.

The real reason we have serious congestion is the lack of any serious road building program. Our road network is pathetic compared to the rest of Europe (eg, the Netherlands has about 2/3 the length of motorway of the UK, for a country of about 1/5 tha land area and under 1/3 the population). Nobody has done anything serious to help urban traffic. Where are the equivalents of the extensive network of tunnels used in Brussels? Nearest we have is the odd short one in Birmingham. All that has been attempted is to make driving in cities unpleasant by causing congestion deliberatly, through poor phasing of traffic lights and pointless bus lanes.

All the best

Keith
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[JonB]

Good idea in principle...do I trust the government? No.
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[TheShaggyDA]

[JonB]

hahahahaha! I never saw that! A money box.
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Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it?s worth.

[Kickstart]