I got sent this via a viral e-mail this morning but i checked it out, went through the entire process and it looks legit.
Hold the paranoia. It will never happen. Hiking road tax by what amounts to a factor of ten would kill the economy, not to mention get the current government voted out of office faster than you can say "road tax sux".
Hopefully it will never happen, but pay-as-you-go car insurance is coming and that might involve a tracker as well ... Once trackers are in place, this wont be a problem to implement.
I'm not so sure Nexxo. The thing I've always felt about most UK governments is that they're very stuck in their little world. Even though all the MP's have their own constituancies, a large number of them don't seem to know the sky from the road outside of westminster, even beyond that they're very london-centric. Living in a rural area my family already puts up with increases in road-tax/petrol tax designed to stop people in cities driving, it wouldn't be a surprise for the government to introduce something like this and add another few quid onto the price of getting to the nearest city. If only we were in France this sort of crap wouldn't be happening
I've already signed the petition, but if anyone thinks 750,000 signatures will stop them in their tracks is an absolute fool. 750K signatures would convince even the most ignorant government that the move would be widely unpopular, but that won't stop them. I fully anticipate that there will be a good 10 year softening up period where 'trials' are run, until we gradually lose our collective will. This is too much of a money spinner to let go (no, it won't really be revenue-neutral) that I fear successive governments of either party will pursue it. Cynic? Not at all...
They are stuck in their little world, but they are acutely in touch with big business interests since that is where most of their money and perks come from (Tony Blair owns five properties with a combined outstanding mortgage of 2 million --25 times his PM salary. Do you really think he has no other sources of income?). If they introduce these measures, transport of goods and services will become so expensive that it will bring the economy to its knees. Tesco's ain't going to like it... and they will make sure that their government representatives won't either. And then there are the logistics involved: there are 31.207.000 cars in the UK. That's right, 31 million. And all of these need to be equipped with a tracking device; a wireless network infrastructure needs to be set up to monitor the going's about of these 31 million devices, store that data, turn it into road tax charges and get those delivered to the registered owner of the car. Every year. For comparison: Current DVLA car ownership and road tax data are only 40% accurate. Given that the government has an interesting track record of not being able to set up any reasonably accurate and functional computer data base to save their lives (Child Support Agency, NHS electronic records, Sex Offender police records, and lately, Home Office records on offences committed abroad and immigrant offenders), I won't be getting ulcers worrying about this quite yet.
Tbh Nexxo, he needs no other sources of income. Once he's done PM he can easily make a few million per year.
I thought they were already actively trialling this PAYG stuff? I'm fairly sure a friend of a friend has a box in his car right now as he agreed to participate in a trial. I'll find out just in case i misunderstood the conversation. I'm fairly convinced it'll happen though. The reality is that oil aint gonna be around forever so if they can slowly decrease demand and wear us down, maybe it won't be so bad in the years to come. The sad part is that they go about it completely the wrong way - there are plenty of other areas that we should be cutting down fossil fuel consumption in before we attempt to change what the vast majority of us depend on the very most?
I think there have indeed been trials taking place. I also think it probably will happen if the government have their minds set on it, which they seem to. As for big business, who would be surprised if there was a business rate for road use and it was significantly lower than a personal rate?
The How will come some time after the executive order to proceed. Who cares if it's impractical... The ID card scheme is an absolute fiasco. High financial costs, an impact on civil liberties, with limited benefit (if any), and a logistical nightmare to to design, build and run... Yet it's still full steam ahead. NHS IT program - the IT industry, hospital administrators and GPs all highlighted there concerns - full speed ahead. In my region, the cost estimate was £1 billion. AFAIK it's beyond that now, and still there isn't anything near a working system. Problems were highlighted with the CSA system when it was being designed in the early '90s. System went ahead but wasn't good enough. So perpetual tweaking made it worse, and now they are scrapping it so they can design another one. etc... One theme, as Nexxo pointed out, is that the goverment can't deliver large-scale IT projects. The other them is that they all proceed anyway.
haven't you people heard of turnpikes? all this seems to be is a fancier and more intrusive version of a turnpike system... which I thought was fairly common at one point in England's history?
Hmmm, good point. To translate for those that don't live on the east coast of the US, there are lots of toll highways, called turnpikes, out there. Most people have a RFID transponder that is read when they drive through the toll booths and they get the tolls billed to their credit card. Hate to say it guys, but this just moved from the paranoid to the feasible.
The RFID tag thing already exists for toll roads and river crossings in the UK, such the M6 toll, Dartford tunnel & Severn crossing. This is different in that it constantly tracks with GPS what roads you drive along, what time you do it and how far you travel along each road - and then charges you accordingly. Think of it as a variable toll for every road in the UK. Or, to put it in US terms, every highway becomes a turnpike...
You have to pay £200 for a tracker then pay the tax as well? F**k you !gorden fat a*S brown talk about legal thieft. Thank god im moving to the ROI away from the thieving grubby hand of total pri*ks
Yes, but another theme is that they are never completed, and if they are, they simply don't work. If a tax payer contests that he actually drove to X destination at Y speed on Z day, how is a court of law going to prove that he did? A system that is full of glitches has no legal credibility.
I hear what you're saying, but the cynic in me maintains that just because a system lacks credibility doesn't mean it will remain in place long enough to do the damage. I also hope you are completely wrong for financial reasons; even if the system doesn't get off the ground, the government and the Whitehall mandarins will quite happily piss billions up the wall to rescue their brainchild. Who knows... maybe logic will prevail.
Or maybe they'll get there act together for once and make a system which works. Boxes fitted to all new cars and cheap (<£100) box for all old cars at next MOT. Tracked everywhere but the data is only stored for say 3 months (enough time to contest data) fully automated with no people having access to the data (accept when contested) Prices that work out in line with current road tax and which replace it. Most roads are free "off-peak", the system takes in to account the actual start and end of your journey so rat runs down small streets don't work out cheaper. Special business rates which minimize damage to the economy. Money spent on useful alternative transport ie cycle network from suburbs to centre, bus routes from outskirts of cities to centre for workers, trains and trams for urban areas, car pool incentives. Or maybe they'll make a hash of it as usual but i can dream
The whole idea is just retarted anyway, so they want to charge people more for 'peak' times, like we have a choice over what time we start & finish work?!?!, they want people to pay more the more they drive....hello fuel duty - does the job now doesn't it? Another thing, all this fuss from hippies over big engined cars needing to pay more road tax, pay more parking fees (in London I believe?) etc. etc. again, I present to you...fuel duty! The heavier a car is on fuel, the more taxes the rapists government get. It's all fair & square at the moment right? Why the hell do they want to spend most likely billions in changing it. /rant
My car does 35mpg, but because it has a 3l engine, I pay the top rate of road tax. As for putting a device in every car, as Nexxo said, there are 31 million cars on the roads in the UK. Even at £100 per device, that's £0.3billion before you've even considered the infrastructure costs to support the devices, send out the bills, collect payments etc. Add to that the fact that there are tens of thousands of roads (motorways and A roads alone) that all need to be monitored for traffic and priced accordingly. Who's going to pay for all that work? And what happens to those people who don't pay? It happens in London - there's millions of pounds of outstanding congestion charge payments. Basically, I don't think it'll ever happen, it's just too complicated and too expensive to sort out.