Today Sees The End To The Paper Tax Disc, Good Idea Or Not?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11131843/Tax-discs-scrapped-penalty-fears-for-innocent-drivers.html

[dustypuss]

The current system has worked for years so why change it . If you go down to the post office to pay your Tax will you get a receipt ? . Just like a tax disc then !!!!!!!!!!

[bhg481]

Dustypuss - The current system has worked for years so why change it .

Sending little boys up chimneys used to be the best method. Are you suggesting we go back to that? Without change there is no improvement although, I must admit, not always.

[mccfluff]

i don't have to send out lots of tax discs every month, the receptionist don't have to try to read my handwriting every month, the company saves money on recorded delivery postage, *** marvelous as far as i'm concerned.

my own car is zero rated anyway so seemed utterly pointless having a disc

[bazwillrun]

@Graham

but I'd bet if the police really wanted to they could find a reason to "do" you for dispalying a Guinness disc, its a distraction or some other puny excuse.

[dustypuss]

Send little boys up chimneys BHG .No way . I say drop the little bug*rs in from the top;-)

[vulcan42]

I'm going to have this instead of a disc
http://www.newstruth.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/TRAFFIC-WARDEN.jpg

[bhg481]

That would have been quicker, Dustypuss - I wonder why they didn't think of it.

[mushroom25]

not sure how the ANPR system can guarantee catching everyone - round here, the police have publicly acknowledged that chasing after those who alter their plates to personalize them is a waste of time and they will no longer be doing so.

[hc4361]

Personalised number plates are in a different category to no road tax.
The DVLA chases up reports of no road fund licence and they are determined to do so

[mushroom25]

HC, how can ANPR read correctly plates where "5" has been rounded to an "S", where dots are added, where the figure 3 is reversed to make an "E", etc. it's illegal, but the police have given up prosecuting such infringements.

[FrogNog]

I've just whipped mine out. It felt quite liberating.

[hc4361]

mushroom, the ANPR computer 'knows' number plate configurations and can read personalised plates.
Don't forget many ANPR systems takes photos of plates that flag up a potential problem which are reviewed by real people.

[ToraToraTora]

very simple programming can sort that out mushroom. it knows the format so a "letter" or "number" in the wrong place is converted to what it should be. OCR is very advanced you only have to look at the barely readable captcha styles they are using on website these days.

[anotheoldgit]

Has no body considered the redundancies that will take place in the companies that make the Tax Disc Holders, or are they all made in China?

[Peter Pedant]

good reason to keep them
unemployment of disc holder makers

ANPR now is making 4% mistakes which seems to be a level to scrap the paper system.

Previously 20% of entries on DVLA were inaccurate

and of course there is an on-cost of keeping a dynamic system up to date but they probably decided to do that anyway

[vulcan42]

Driving yesterday afternoon, my tax disc suddenly fell off the windscreen, it must have known, RIP.