Re: April the 1st has come early : Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:56 pm  

There is a case for charging the most against those who use the roads the most.

"Use" in this sense, would seem to me to be defined in two ways, a) wear/damage to the road and b) the congestion caused.

Keeping it simple, heavy vehicles cause the most wear and damage and also, by virtue of their size, congest the most.

Still keeping it simple, you can (roughly) relate the cost of upkeep of the roads to the amount of fuel used.
Hence, the simplest way of charging for road use is to slap an increase onto the existing tax on fuel, thereby eliminating the need for a tax disc at all (and saving the cost of all that pointless tax disc admin at the same time).

But no UK government (and least of all this one) has the cojones to do that.
No, they'd rather spend squillions on fancy gadgetry and move the congestion elsewhere ... utterly stupid.

Never thought I'd find myself in agreement with Standee but there you go.
But I don't agree with paying for third party insurance in the cost of fuel ... that premium needs to actuarially assessed.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:15 pm  

The idea of road tax being on fuel is the most obvious one, but will never be applied as they succession of governments have used the price of fuel as a cash cow, and to add a further amount - even if it's only a penny a gallon - would be roundly criticised as being a 'stealth tax'. To make things worse, there are classes of cars for who the road tax is so low that they would immediately be on a loser.

The only REAL losers I can see here are people like myself with surprisingly thirsty machines for what they are - one of my scooter engines does around 25 to the gallon if I hammer it hard, but road tax is only about £30 IIRC - but I think they'd be in such a minority that they could be safely ignored.


As for the idea of multi level road pricing, that's a real and guaranteed way to cause more havoc and accidents on back roads, isn't it?

Re: April the 1st has come early : Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:33 pm  

Scooter Nik wrote:

The idea of road tax being on fuel is the most obvious one, but will never be applied as they succession of governments have used the price of fuel as a cash cow, and to add a further amount - even if it's only a penny a gallon - would be roundly criticised as being a 'stealth tax'. To make things worse, there are classes of cars for who the road tax is so low that they would immediately be on a loser.

The only REAL losers I can see here are people like myself with surprisingly thirsty machines for what they are - one of my scooter engines does around 25 to the gallon if I hammer it hard, but road tax is only about £30 IIRC - but I think they'd be in such a minority that they could be safely ignored.


As for the idea of multi level road pricing, that's a real and guaranteed way to cause more havoc and accidents on back roads, isn't it?

bloody hell, that's even less efficient than my gas guzzling truck!

Re: April the 1st has come early : Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:35 pm  

Difficult to see how anyone could avoid major roads (unless they just potter around a small town). Seems just a way of increasing the overall tax take (which already more than covers road maintenance, etc) and pricing people out of working. Presumably, they'll need to increase the revenue stream so that private operators can pay a handsome return to their shareholders and pay for lots of "enforcement officers." Also, they'll need to cover the costs of giving the taxpayer funded network away to the prospective operators.

All in all seems another show of "fairness" in these austere times. It will certainly prptect the most vulnerable in our society - who need to attend / be escorted to regular hospital appointments, etc.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Mon Oct 29, 2012 11:33 pm  

This really is a joke! I commute from Wigan to work in Runcorn every day using M6/M56. I live two minutes from the M6. The alternative of using the already congested A49 through Warrington doesn't bear thinking about. Public transport during the morning rush hour is ridiculously expensive (best part of twenty quid/day on the odd occasion I have used it vs £35 /wk diesel). This will just line the pockets of big business while everyone else suffers. It will drive people off the motorways leading to further urban congestion and pollution and possibly force some to consider giving up work due to increased travel costs.

[DaveO]

Re: April the 1st has come early : Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:06 pm  

dr_feelgood wrote:

This really is a joke! I commute from Wigan to work in Runcorn every day using M6/M56. I live two minutes from the M6. The alternative of using the already congested A49 through Warrington doesn't bear thinking about. Public transport during the morning rush hour is ridiculously expensive (best part of twenty quid/day on the odd occasion I have used it vs £35 /wk diesel). This will just line the pockets of big business while everyone else suffers. It will drive people off the motorways leading to further urban congestion and pollution and possibly force some to consider giving up work due to increased travel costs.

Of course its a joke and by the way the idea was to include major trunk roads so your A49 route would not be allowed either. Know of any B road routes from Wigan to Runcorn?

The idea is simply a means to increase road tax for majority under the false pretense that there is a cheaper alternative when in fact there isn't.

As one of the articles linked to suggested the reason they need to do this is falling revenue from road tax due to people driving cleaner cars.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:26 pm  

DaveO wrote:

As one of the articles linked to suggested the reason they need to do this is falling revenue from road tax due to people driving cleaner cars.

It doesn't cost any less to maintain the roads though, so what do you suggest they should do? At least they are looking for ways to make it fairer, rather than just hiking up taxes for everyone.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:52 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

It doesn't cost any less to maintain the roads though, so what do you suggest they should do? At least they are looking for ways to make it fairer, rather than just hiking up taxes for everyone.

Then they have several options. They can raise car tax across the board. They can raise fuel duty. Or they can raise income tax and corporation tax.
I know which I'd prefer and believe is fairest. But all 3 of those options are fairer than introducing a 2-tier system that penalises certain people and restricts others.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:56 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

It doesn't cost any less to maintain the roads though.

Bless, you still think road tax goes to maintain the roads.

Taxing foreign lorry drivers would be a start.

Re: April the 1st has come early : Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:11 pm  

The amount the Treasury rakes in from motor vehicles is obscene. Tax on fuel is just one part of it and that is bad enough but people seem to overllok they also then charge 20% VAT on top including VAT on tax! Us taxpaying mugs of course already paying this extrotion out of what is laughably called our "taxed income". Add in road tax, add in the tax and NI that they take from the people employed to stock and sell the stuff, why they even have the cheek to charge tax on my insurance premium

If they ever got the huge companies that import and refine the stuff to pay some corporation gazillions that would go in the mix too though for all I know they are allowed to do a Starbucks.

I wouldn't mind so much if the rake was spent wisely, but instead most of it disappears in foreign adventurism and guaranteeing gold plated civil service pensions the liability for which is I think about half the national debt.