Road Tax Scrapped, Petrol Prices Cut But Pay Per Mile?

[Greengecko]

Hadn't seen anyway post this yet, but what are your thoughts?

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/347695/Road-ta...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2207374/Ro...

Personally, if it did somehow go through, cheaper fuel and no road tax - who would want a low emission car eh? Guess they could change rate per mile depending on emissions?

[Fox-]

Provided its done properly I would support a plan of charging per mile funded by a significant reduction in fuel duty and the abolition of vehicle excise duty.

[Nigel Worc's]

As "they" want to raise more money, it can't be good news for "us".

[GTO Scott]

Will the black boxes only record distance? Or would they be used to monitor speed?

[danjama]

Dont like this one bit.

Which probably means it will happen.

[kiteless]

Monitored by a Govt "approved" black box fitted to track one's every movement whilst driving?

[davepoth]

GTO Scott said:

Will the black boxes only record distance? Or would they be used to monitor speed?

Speed as well. However, they would be defeatable with such high tech jamming equipment as tinfoil.

[otolith]

But surely the only reason the motorist is so heavily taxed is because his carbon emissions are ruining the climate, and once he has transitioned to low carbon transport there will be no justification in continuing to tax him?

/sarcasm

[dxg]

So long as we can download the data from the boxes ourselves, then it could actually be quite useful.

Somehow, though, I doubt this will happen and we'll just have yet another direct debit churning its way through our funds...

It is enviable, however. This was their civilian justification for the Galileo satellites, after all.

[Rostfritt]

75 Years too late on abolishing road tax. If they want to get rid of VED they should collect it through insurance, the insurers already know what car you have so can tell your tax class, they already collect insurance tax (6%). It wouldn't be difficult for them to issue an insurance disc, while checking your MOT is up to date. Before people start bleating about how we are ripped off, taxing anything over 2l costs over EUR1000 in quite a few countries in Europe and their economies have not ground to a halt. I doubt they would put black boxes in all cars, it cost £11bn for a failed NHS computer project, if they tried to fit a black box in every car and collect all the data, the country would be bankrupt!

[carinaman]

They could scrap road tax now and just put the money lost on fuel duty, that way those that do the most miles or drive the most juicy cars pay for their fuel use and pollution. They wouldn't have the cost of DVLA men stood besides roads with cameras on Tripods. Think how much pollution would be saved by not having DVLA people driving cameras around in an attempt to catch road tax evaders.

I really don't like big brother surveillance by the state, and I seem to be remember Cameron and Clegg both going on about it before the election, but stuff like this does unfortunately mean they help secure convictions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-18298011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10441763

Cameron and Clegg were also against DNA retention of those that were found not guilty or NOT suspected in violent or sexual crime. It seems some forces are dragging their feet despite the change in the law about DNA retention since the coalition got in.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dna-bungle-se...

It'll cost forces money to delete the DNA they hold on innocents but I guess they have to weigh that up against possible damages for wrongful imprisonment?


Automatic prosecution by Speed Camera hasn't helped lead to a culture, as perhaps TV shows like CSI that we're guilty until proven otherwise?

Computer says guilty......


So we went to Iraq and Afghanistan so our every journey can be tracked and retained by the state? The BBC regularly feature items on the former East Germany and the Stasi and a recent book of the the week was about Romanians hiding typewriters in their garden as all typewriters had to licenced under Ceausescu and subject to random inspections.

Edited by carinaman on Tuesday 25th September 00:39

[martin84]

Didn't more than a million of us sign a petition against this when Blair had this idea?

When Government 'reforms' something, they're looking to either give us less money or take more of our money for themselves. Ergo, no reform is ever going to be a good thing for us.

To set this system up and maintain it would cost billions anyway so they couldn't afford to do it if they wanted to.

[Defcon5]

Nigel Worc's said:

As "they" want to raise more money, it can't be good news for "us".

This

In principle I would go for it, but I can't help thinking it would end up costing more

[Guybrush]

There really is no viable 'excuse' for a black box for any reason other than more sinister monitoring to be introduced later, once we all have one. Road tax cut and put on fuel gives the ultimate 'charge per mile' system, the infrastructure of which is already in place and running smoothly.

[anonymous-user]

He's quite right that as we move away from petrol powered cars to new technologies such as fuel cells, electric cars and more advanced hybrids then the system will have to change to a road pricing model.

So say you don't have a "black box" in the car for road charging, how would you do it? Toll booths? Enormous road tax payments? Put it on income tax so everyone pays? The money currently taken in from fuel duty will have to be replaced somehow, unless there are massive cuts in state spending (which is another debate )

[1point7bar]

I like the pay per poo idea.

Not because I think my bill won't be huge, but because I like the idea of flushing for England.

[4key]

Buy a gps blocker and drive for free.. Im in

[PanzerCommander]

Guybrush said:

There really is no viable 'excuse' for a black box for any reason other than more sinister monitoring to be introduced later, once we all have one. Road tax cut and put on fuel gives the ultimate 'charge per mile' system, the infrastructure of which is already in place and running smoothly.

This would be the most sensible solution I have punched the numbers into a calculator and given my mileage and the pre 2000 plg band my car falls into i'd about break even on the same mileage (circa 10k pa). There would have to be a system in place to claim back the rfl part if you are using it on a race car/go kart or anything else vehicle wise that isn't road legal.

[otolith]

charltjr said:

So say you don't have a "black box" in the car for road charging, how would you do it? Toll booths? Enormous road tax payments? Put it on income tax so everyone pays? The money currently taken in from fuel duty will have to be replaced somehow, unless there are massive cuts in state spending (which is another debate )

Radical, out-of-the-box idea - perhaps a person's means of transport is not a good basis upon which to determine what would be a fair amount of tax for him to pay?

[Chicane-UK]

[i]"He explained that the drift towards electric and cleaner cars would force the Treasury to look at replacing the billions of pounds it is likely to lose through traditional carbon tax revenues."
[/i]

So the government penalise you for driving thirsty / unclean cars.. and then when you make the switch, they find another way to fk you over. It really makes me sick sometimes. Isn't this basically what they did with diesel too? Encourage everyone to use it then whacked the duty up on it?