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Should road tax be pay-as-you-go?
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As kempie alluded to above, we already have a pay-as-you-go tax system for road travel anyway. Most of what you pay in the price of a gallon of petrol is tax. This is in addition to the fixed cost road tax.
Basically they're just after more money as usual. Fine, let's tax all the poor people off the road and leave more room for jaguars. While we're at it let's cut hospital waiting lists by making everyone pay the full cost of the operation in addition to national insurance.
Bad Idea.
I live in the middle of nowhere in a back water of a welsh village and because of the drop in agricultural employment and the small businesses being out priced by the big boys, I have to travel a 36 mile round trip to work every day. On top of that I have to pay for child care which I get no help for. So it would basically be cheaper for me to stay at home and claim off the country!
Please no-one say move! I couldnt afford to buy a house in the place I live let alone near a big town/city where the prices are way out of my league.
the idea is to possibly reduce fuel tax considerabley (i.e very cheap petrol) and also abolish car tax. however, there are many problems associated with the new style they suggest.
1) What if the equipment is malfunctioning, how would we know and who is liable for not paying the fee? what about if the satellite doesnt track u due to a malfunction, again, do we get free mileage or expected to pay. and how would we know what were are paying for exactly, is it itemised like a phone bill?
2) Does this effect bus companies as well, or are they exempt as if they are not then it would possibly mean that bus companies such as National Express would increase prices and cancel some services. this on top of increases by the local bus companies too. so we could be paying significantly more to use a bus than we were doing the old way!
3)Will people who realise how expensive using a motorway start to hit the cheaper rural roads thus increasing traffic through villages and congesting rural roads which often have higher death rates due to frustration of slow drivers (often seen a lot on the rural roads of lincolnshire at present)
4) How would motorbikes and scooters work, do they have to have the gps fitted as well or are we going to be encouraging more use of motorbikes (Good in the hands of the safe, lethal in the hands of the unsafe!)
5) Will it increase polution as more and more people buy bigger more powerful cars such as 4x4's and sportscars and luxury company cars instead of efficient economical cheap to tax cars?
6) How will Truck companies cope with all the mileage they do, will it more costly to run them thus increasing the costs of supply and thus transferring the costs to the customers? Also will truck companies encourage there drivers to take cheaper short cuts such as leaving a motorway to take a smaller A road through quiet villages to save a couple of pound.
doesnt give anything really, just causes more confusion and i believe sets back the road safety and public transport back 20 years.
how about we increase road tax we have significantly to make owning a car a bit more of a luxury rather than something everyone has. such as a �400 a year road tax and offshoot this by reducing petrol tax dramiticaly, so those that who have to fork out the tax cost because they need the vehicle but find it cheaper to run once they have it.
The extra money, and a substantial percentage of speed camera profits could then be pumped into great public transport for everyone. I would rather travel the country by cheap and reliable public transport if it is available than to drive all the time but at the moment the public transport services is just nowhere near acceptable alternative.
We should have the best transport network in the world to encourage people to try easier and cheaper forms of travel than to punish those who already drive cars.
Anyone see how easy it is to lead a donkey with a carrot on a stick than it is to lead a slave happily by beating it harshly? Offer Better and they will follow, force them to do different and they will stick there heels in the ground!
If it is �1.35 for motorways and you travel at the legal 70 mph then it will cost you �94.50 per hour. That means a trip from Newcastle to London one way will cost �472.50, about the same as the fuel duty I normally pay in a YEAR!
This is clearly ludicrous. The person in the Government who did the sums for this one needs to go back to school! What a surprise that the Labour Party did not mention a word of this during the Election Campaign!
What will happen is that the scheme will be introduced, but the price reduced so that we think they are doing us a favour. Then, when it is running they will impose the fixed charges again, "road" tax and fuel duty will return and we will end up with double and crippling taxation for moving around.
Did you vote for this? I certainly didn't!
Many people have to use their cars as there is no real alternative form of transport. To price people out of the market without offering an affordable alternative is just creating a wider have and have not distinction than exists at present.
If certain roads were priced highly and others not then I might well plan a journey just involving the cheaper roads. I think twiglet4frog makes some very good points and can envisage small roads becoming highly congested.
I currently get the bus to work. I used to work just 14 miles from home. It was a quick journey - less than 20 mins down the motorway as I both live nearish to a junction and work was right by a junction. To use public transport I would have needed a bus ride into my town. At the time I would have had to have left to get there on time there would only have been 1 bus per hour. Then a train journey to take me to the city where I worked. 2 trains per hour. Not coordinated with the bus so I'd have a 25 min wait after the bus to the station before even getting on the train. Then a second bus to the city centre. Followed by a third out to where I worked. The whole thing in reverse to come home.
It would also have been substantially more costly than driving as well as the vast inconvenience. In total I would end up spending 3 hours travelling 28 miles each day. As opposed to 40 mins by car.
Had there been a realistic alternative to driving I would happily have used it. I don't mind driving being made a less attractive option as long as there is a genuine alternative available.
But how can there be a viable alternative without aboloshing the road toll for buses and offering reduced fuel tax for them, without that the bus companies are going to be charged greatly and will have to cut the already sparse services that are on offer and charge more for what they do have.
With the fuel tax already high as it is our local bus service has already cut a every 15min service down to a every 30 mins service that is now more crowded than ever and totaly done away with another service to 850 home villiage because of the distance/cost was not beneficial to there profits.
On top of this the Lincoln to Perth National Express my mother-in-law used to catch has been permantly cancelled 12 months ago and upon writing to ask why i was informed "The service was cancelled as there were not enough passengers, they needed the coach to be 75% full for 80% of the journey to allow them to break even over the high fuel duty and as a business they have to put profits first" How will they get over this if the governement expects them to pay another �400 a trip one way to there service?
Call me cynical but are they about to announce an increase in petrol duty? It wouldn't surprise me if they'd come up with such a breathtakingly ludicrous proposal simply in order to stave off complaints about the amount of tax on a gallon of fuel. If the alternative is �1.34 a mile, the price of petrol doesn't look so bad does it?
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