Free Road Tax Ends

[libspero]

If you mean push bikes, I'm all for it! ??

Edit to say : my 535cc Virago's VED is currently £48, but my 1600 diesel car is currently £0! Where's the logic?

Indeed. My next car will be the least economical I've ever driven (with the possible exception of an old Land Rover) yet will attract the least tax I've ever paid by a country mile. Just because it has an option to plug it into a wall.

[Rave]

Yet another vote here for just doing away with VED and lumping all the tax on fuel. Engines have become a bit better since the turn of the century, but only by 10% at most, we had the basics of how to do it nailed in 2000, be it common rail diesel injection or variable valve timing on petrol motors etc.

In 2012 I scrapped my perfectly reliable and economical Mk1 diesel Mondeo in favour of a Mk3 3L V6 Petrol, for no better reason than that the old car was a depressingly slow heap of shit. Since then I've averaged 20mpg round town and 34+ on the long trips that make driving a big V6 petrol engined car a joy. I only do about 5000 miles a year, and because I live in London I don't drive the thirsty thing on a shopping trip unless I need to stick 50kg of cat litter in the back.

There's still loads of parking space round us and if silly insurance/tax regs were dropped I'd snap up an old Fiesta/106/Saxo diesel for my mum and I to run errands in. 70mpg on a cruise would make all sorts of ebay arbitrage businesses viable.

[MrPin]

VED is

1) A paperwork nightmare which need not exist.

2) Unfair! Same car? Different year, different tax.

3) Unfair! Same car? High mileage or low mileage, same fee.

4) It's bog-all to do with reducing emissions, as the Govt. have found to their dismay, as people have switched to smaller vehicles anyway, and now they don't so get much revenue. Bugger the emissions! They want the money.

I despair!

It's as mad as "window tax"

Like Mr Rave I drive a rather plump car, but I don't actually go far, and I am subsidising people that do.

[MattW]

Seriously though, why doesn't this revenue get collected on fuel duty? It's so easy and so fair that no Government will go for it.

More fuel more tax. Why could that be wrong?

Always been of that opinion. Seems a bit unfair that I as a low mileage car user should pay the same VED as another motorist who drives 2 or 3 times further than I do.

[LiveinHope]

Always been of that opinion. Seems a bit unfair that I as a low mileage car user should pay the same VED as another motorist who drives 2 or 3 times further than I do.

Despite making sense it may be seen as an unpopular move by poiticians, unfortunately.

With VED a politician is unpopular once a year. Put tax on fuel and you become unpopular every time someone fills up their tank.

Change VED and you get a few days bad publicity and then it dies a death. Fuel price is reported on regularly.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Have I been transported into a parallel universe where 2/3 of the cost of the fuel isn't tax already?

Tax take is directly related to petrol used. The last figures I can be bothered to search for show that fuel duty and VAT on fuel raises 5 times the amount of money as VED.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Insurance is the big ******ing con, not £140 a year tax.

[MrPin]

Despite making sense it may be seen as an unpopular move by poiticians, unfortunately.

With VED a politician is unpopular once a year. Put tax on fuel and you become unpopular every time someone fills up their tank.

Change VED and you get a few days bad publicity and then it dies a death. Fuel price is reported on regularly.

Yup, stupidity rules!

[LiveinHope]

Have I been transported into a parallel universe where 2/3 of the cost of the fuel isn't tax already?

Tax take is directly related to petrol used. The last figures I can be bothered to search for show that fuel duty and VAT on fuel raises 5 times the amount of money as VED.

No, I'm sure that in time a VED component of fuel tax would be 'forgotten' about. But for a parliament, it could be an unpopular move.

Or just keep it and call it "Car Ownership Tax"

[LiveinHope]

Yup, stupidity rules!

I find it all very worrying

[Guest eight]

Despite making sense it may be seen as an unpopular move by poiticians, unfortunately.

With VED a politician is unpopular once a year. Put tax on fuel and you become unpopular every time someone fills up their tank.

Change VED and you get a few days bad publicity and then it dies a death. Fuel price is reported on regularly.

I've never understood this hostility towards paying for petrol. It seems to be the one thing you buy where you're permitted to, if not expected to, balk at the cost.

I'd suggest that if it's having that much of an impact on your budget then you're driving too far. Out of my window I see the same vehicles driving around, all day every day, from first thing in the morning to late in the evening. And I live in a town where everything is in walking distance. What is wrong with these people?

[LiveinHope]

I've never understood this hostility towards paying for petrol. It seems to be the one thing you buy where you're permitted to, if not expected to, balk at the cost.

I'd suggest that if it's having that much of an impact on your budget then you're driving too far. Out of my window I see the same vehicles driving around, all day every day, from first thing in the morning to late in the evening. And I live in a town where everything is in walking distance. What is wrong with these people?

I'm surprised you need to ask.

I see people in work complaining they're 'hard up' but spending about £5-8 a day on lunch and snack bars in the canteen, when all it needs is a bit of organisation at home in the morning. But then again, the same people turn up at work late with wet hair.

Anyway, I think Mr Pin answered the question in post #59

[Guest eight]

I'm surprised you need to ask.

I see people in work complaining they're 'hard up' but spending about £5-8 a day on lunch and snack bars in the canteen, when all it needs is a bit of organisation at home in the morning. But then again, the same people turn up at work late with wet hair.

Some people just seem welded to their vehicles, or vehicles in general. I used to feel very opposed, for reasons I couldn't properly rationalise, to driverless cars. Then somebody on this forum described driving - very accurately, I feel - as an act of public masturbation. And I had what you might call a moment of clarity.

The blablacar advert makes me laugh - "tired of paying for petrol?". I bet nobody is in a rush to set up a similar service where some complete stranger offers you three quid for half that pizza that you so begrudged forking out hard cash for.

[MrPin]

Oddly enough, I find driving to be a "bit of a chore", and don't do it unless I have to.

[SNACR]

Some people just seem welded to their vehicles, or vehicles in general. I used to feel very opposed, for reasons I couldn't properly rationalise, to driverless cars. Then somebody on this forum described driving - very accurately, I feel - as an act of public masturbation. And I had what you might call a moment of clarity.

The blablacar advert makes me laugh - "tired of paying for petrol?". I bet nobody is in a rush to set up a similar service where some complete stranger offers you three quid for half that pizza that you so begrudged forking out hard cash for.

Was having a good look at a driverless car being tested the other week. 2020 apparently the target date for mass adoption.

This is a Merc test rig

The actuation gear is all ABB robotics and their products are the backbone of a lot of warehouse and production automation.

I've got a feeling in the transition period being a passenger in a driverless car will be a constant stream of emergency stops from traditionally controlled vehicles cutting it up.

[MrPin]

I don't hate driving. I just don't do it for no reason. I have two likes when it comes to cars.

1) A Gentleman's club sofa on wheels.

2) Something that sounds like a WW2 bomber.

I think I should be VED exempt.

[SNACR]

I don't hate driving. I just don't do it for no reason. I have two likes when it comes to cars.

1) A Gentleman's club sofa on wheels.

2) Something that sounds like a WW2 bomber.

I think I should be VED exempt.

A Pontiac Fiero would certainly satisfy number 2 with its propensity for crashing in a fireball

[MrPin]

A Pontiac Fiero would certainly satisfy number 2 with its propensity for crashing in a fireball

I've just checked, and it's not my sort of Pontiac. There's not enough engine in it.

[LiveinHope]

Oddly enough, I find driving to be a "bit of a chore", and don't do it unless I have to.

Hate driving in the UK, to the extent that I'll choose to sit in the garden than do battle on the summer roads - and I like 'exploring'

Love driving in places though where you won't see another car (or only a few) for hours, and the geology / scenery is spectacular.

With the caveat that the scenery needs to occasionally change, so driving where the horizons are flat such as in the Australian outback can get a little tedious for me.

Crazy places too can be fun, such as the central American Highway, or the road down the Baha Peninsula; the latter is very evocative of being in a Mad Max movie.

[MrPin]

Try a trip to the top of Scotland.

[LiveinHope]

Try a trip to the top of Scotland.

My landlord owns most of that.

Ahh.. The delights of the gold-plated, EU-funded roads of Harris - that suddenly run out of tarmac

[SNACR]

I've just checked, and it's not my sort of Pontiac. There's not enough engine in it.

It's problem was too much engine outside it. The con rod casting had flaws and it would fail and punch a hole in the block and spew oil over the hot exhaust manifold and catch fire.

[MrPin]

It's problem was too much engine outside it. The con rod casting had flaws and it would fail and punch a hole in the block and spew oil over the hot exhaust manifold and catch fire.

I'm not getting one of those then. I have learned something. Every country makes crap cars, but Britain and America have excelled at it.

[Bossybabe]

Was having a good look at a driverless car being tested the other week. 2020 apparently the target date for mass adoption.

This is a Merc test rig

driverless Merc.jpg

The actuation gear is all ABB robotics and their products are the backbone of a lot of warehouse and production automation.

I've got a feeling in the transition period being a passenger in a driverless car will be a constant stream of emergency stops from traditionally controlled vehicles cutting it up.

I'm expect that they'll make us all change over on the same day to avoid that. That'll be the day I emigrate to a pragmatic country like...Australia.

[Bossybabe]

Try a trip to the top of Scotland.

That worked for me last month. A whole week of freedom on drivable roads with snow posts. Not to mention the single track ones with no other traffic. Bliss!