new road tax plans...

[chrishill 0]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4075490.stm

 

Saw this on the news the other day, obviously we dont know all the facts yet but my first thoughts are that its a very bad idea. I cant really see how this is going to help congestion, if its going to cost you £1 a mile to use motorways people are going to take to B roads and driving through towns... empty motorways and massivly congested b roads dont sound too good to me.

 

They've spent millions if not billions creating the road networks and now they dont want us to use them? yeah... good idea Darling! The carrot on a stick in this is the reduced fuel tax and no road tax, but i'm guessing they're not going to take 'that' much off fuel really, and if the average road user does 12,000 miles a year being charged a 2p per mile minimum as suggested, they'll end up paying £240 a year! how much is your road tax now... £180? also if all cars are fitted with satalite tracking, how long will it be before they start using that to catch people speeding?

[JT 0]

put it this way i am so against this that if !!! it actually comes into effect i'm gonna move abroad, theres no way it's gonna work out for me, on there current plans just my run up the m25 is going to cost me just under a 100 quid, five days a week sometimes for 4 weeks or more you do the math, no chance, and chris exactly my thoughts how long will it take before they will be used for speeding.... my love for this country is becoming less and less day by day.

[Jim 1]

This has all kinds of worrying implications.. i'm not normally one of the 'tin foil hat' brigade, but really is GPS tracking of everyones cars even remotely acceptable?

 

The thing that bites the most is how much something like this would cost the government to implement.. how many millions of cars on the road? How much for a GPS reciever in each car? Spend the f*cking money on the NHS and the schools and the police you morons, and stop trying to find ways to take more off the motorist!!

 

As someone said on I think the BBC news 'discussion' section, this just punishes the drivers of clean cars even more. As it is now, drivers of huge great 5 litre cars pay more on their road tax, and they obviously need to buy loads more fuel so they pay the duty on that. So if this system comes in, and fuel duty and road tax is slashed, and Mr BMW X5 4.4i does say 6000 miles around local B roads, he is paying the exact same amount of money as someone who drives a petrol hybrid electic car in the same scenario. Yeah, very fair... :|

[chrishill 0]

its got massive knock on effects too, if businesses have to foot the bill for their lorries doing mega-miles those costs are going to get passed on to consumers, making everything more expensive... i just cant see what they're thinking other than 'cha ching!'

[Jim 1]

Though i've always felt they need to basically slash costs for rail frieght and get big lorries off the roads, and get that kinda haulage onto the railways....

[Kevin Bacon 5]

These and similar proposals from the government always amuse me!

 

Remember a few years ago when they thought up elaborate schemes of scrapping cars older than 10 years old, restricting car ownership to one per household etc etc? None of them ever made it through parliament.

 

And don't forget, the media loves to spin these highly emotive subjects because they know full well Brits hate paying stealth taxes and are sick to death of Blair introducing more of them (so why did you lot vote him back in? I voted conservative), so I wouldn't get too concerned about this scheme just yet.

 

What is worrying though is technology is now working against us. What was once a luxury item for route finding could now be used to spy on us.

There are very serious moral and human rights implications with this, which I'm sure will be raised by the relevant authorities.

 

Blair is looking at the solution rather than the problem. What is the problem? It's obvious..... car production has increased exponentially and prices have falled dramatically. Most cars are throw away items now they're so cheap. And how many new roads have been built to cope? Hardly any. The road network dates back to the 60s when traffic was significantly lower than it is now...... and the public transport infrastructure is completely sh1t.

 

So once again, the Brits are being used to bail out the Government's lack of forsight and years of neglect.

[g60_Pete 0]

does this sh*t happen in other countries? no! toll roads arent a bad idea, but congestion charges and this ridiculous new idea are well.. just plain ridiculous.

[dinkus 10]

It'll never work because it makes no sense...

 

You have a massive inital outlay to pay for GPS systems in every car

People will find a way to subvert it

As you say, people will stop using motorways and clog up towns

It will be less effective than just keeping fuel tax, which also takes into account how efficient your car is.

 

Muppets.

[chrishill 0]

kev's right, theres obviously going to be media spin on this, and they're not looking to introduce it for 10 years... buy which time I'm sure Mr Darling wont be in control anymore along with many other changes... I dont understand why they would announce this and get peoples blood boiling if theres a slim-to-none chance it'll actually happen... unless they're trying to distract us from something else thats happening *puts tin-foil hat on*

[dr_mat 0]

It's ridiculous. As someone pointed out this government seems to be obsessed with technology as the answer to everything.

Another angle that hasn't been discussed that much is the question of how people drive. Even if the taxation is bracketed according to emisions (for example), that means no matter how hard you drive (9 mpg is easily possible in a VR6 :twisted: ) you get taxed the same. Craigowl will be annoyed.. ;)

But as usual, we know what will happen - the government won't be in charge when it finally comes round to it, and the then (Conservative no doubt) government will scrap it all as too expensive, and do something equally rubbish instead.

 

If you really want your tax to be spent on hospitals and schools I'm afraid you have to convince the rest of the population to vote Lib Dem. It just won't happen while the mob rules (via the labour/tories).

 

Or move to Scandinavia.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Yeah it's all poo pants. The Goverments are just looking for ways to avoid spending our hard earned where it's needed the most.... new roads and better public transport. Unfortunately (for us) it's FAR cheaper to put 20 quid GPS transceivers in people's cars than it is to lay new terra firma.

[Funkster 0]

Another vote here for if-it-happens-I'm-emigrating.

 

Mind you, GPS is spectacularly easy to jam and if anyone forced some government-stamped box of tricks onto one of my cars (yeah, right!) there would be another, suspiciously heath-robinson, box of tricks sitting next to it that would cut my road tax bill substantially!

 

Bunch of crooks. Group move to argentina anyone?

--

Olly

[Jim 1]

For the record, I certainly didn't vote Labour! I'd already had enough! Unfortunately Coventry as a whole is Labour and has been for years..

[Bally 0]

it just wont work.. some prat has come out with anotther shit idea!!

 

fack it! this countries going down hill!!

[g60_Pete 0]

im going to start driving around with no exahust on at all if this comes into play, gonna kill as many tree's as i can.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Mind you, GPS is spectacularly easy to jam and if anyone forced some government-stamped box of tricks onto one of my cars (yeah, right!) there would be another, suspiciously heath-robinson, box of tricks sitting next to it that would cut my road tax bill substantially!

 

Bunch of crooks. Group move to argentina anyone?

 

I was going to say if this thing was enforced, it wouldn't be long before counter measures appear on the black market :twisted:

 

A group move to Canada would be nice.....if you can get in!

[Jim 1]

fack it! this countries going down hill!!

 

Going?? Its down the hill, out the gate, and off through the village already mate! :)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

It was on a Ferry leaving Dover last I heard!

[Andi 2,147,483,647]

corrado-forum.net Group Immigration ? ;)

 

I wonder if Canada will give us a discount...

 

And I drove 200 miles yesterday with go/from work then to/from No Rice - how much would that cost me?!? :roll:

[crazymarcel 0]

I'm sure the "travelers" at my local camp would love GPS tracking fitted to there vans. :?

[dazzyvr6 0]

it would work if they knocked at least £2 of a gallon of fuel..but do you think they would do that..more like 20p

[dr_mat 0]

You are joking right?

At 30 mpg a car costs around 12.5p / mile in fuel. If you halve that it's still peanuts compared to the speculated 50p+ per mile on so-called busy roads.

It wouldn't "work" for anyone except the people who do 10 miles a year across the road to tesco. And even then they'd only save the cost of the road tax. And then they'd have to pay the £300 the "officially ratified" GPS tracker box would cost to have fitted, so overall even those people would lose out...

(If you think they're going to give you a standard £60 hand-held GPS data logger you are mistaken!)

[Yandards 0]

This topic really grips my sh1t.

 

For starters the fecking transport secretary (Darling) can't even drive!! :bad-words:

 

If they wanted a fair way to tax road users then abolish road tax and stick all the duty on fuel - then you pay for your road use.

 

I don't know exactly what the figures are but I think that motorists paid around £28 billion in road tax and fuel tax (Not including VAT on fuel) and the government spent around £7 billion of that on the road network. I think those figures are about 3 years old and petrol has skyrocketed since then which will inflate the VAT revenue as it goes.

 

As for investing in public transport its a joke if you live outside of a major city, I used to work 21 miles from home 30 mins in the car or 2 hours and a change by bus and that was only during the day no good for shift workers!

 

If they want to reduce road usage tax the school run - I always walked to school when I was younger but how many kids do you see walking now??

 

As for the GPS tracking they would use it to enforce speed limits as this would pull in more revenue for the thieving gets under the dubious 'safety banner'

 

*Gets off box and puts down megaphone*

[Kevin Bacon 5]

This topic really grips my sh1t.

 

:lol: Better pinch it off then before you get a pile....

 

If they wanted a fair way to tax road users then abolish road tax and stick all the duty on fuel - then you pay for your road use.

 

hear hear....

[vr6stormer 0]

I thought "Big Brother" was on the telly!!