John P

With the possibility of petrol going up again would people rather pay more for petrol and not pay a road tax. the arguement going round the office is that there are ****** driving around with no tax/mot/insurance but what everyone needs is the petrol to get about the place.

Spoon

It has it's merits John but I'm not sure the people who are currently exempt from paying road tax will be too chuffed.

Jasoon

why not have a card that you have to give in to get petrol ,to get the car you have to have valid road tax mot and insurance......

SirFozzalot

Not a bad idea I suppose but would this increase the amount of "drive-offs" from petrol stations or theft of petrol from other sources, like from cars in carparks etc? Just a thought.

Jasoon

could have to put the car in the pump befor you can get the petrol

WRX Wannabe

Yes i have though this for 3/4 years

Also should have some sort of disc in the window to show VALID MOT & INSURANCE

Sure people will say that they will then put the price of fuel up but if it were only by 1p then i for sure would pay that.
Knowing the someone who drives 100K miles a year will have to pay more towards the use of the road than my 10K miles(after paying the same tax duty B4)

Abdabz

Putting the tax on petrol is a superb idea - me and my mates have had this one out down the pub and its a definate winner as high mileage cars should absorb a good proportion of the cost, leaving old granny gonadles in her micra to pay less... (granny who??)...

Was parked next to a car at work y'day who's disc had run out in Jan - if they'd been paying the tax on the petrol then she'd never have got to work, would have been sacked, become depressed, started collecting crumbs, become insular suicidal and then regretted never having learnt to cycle.

As for the prats with no mot + ins well - I wonder what the percentages are for those who have mot and ins but DONT have a tax disc? If you spend a few hundred squids insuring the bugger whats another £180 to ensure it doesnt get clamped.

f1

yep agree here, put it on petrol. That way no-one will get away with paying it. Would we really notice 1p or so a litre, prob not.

henpecked

Sound idea but it wouldn't only be a penny or so after Mr Brown has his bit and the oil company have theirs and the retailer has theirs- get my drift- my thought clamp and crush all untaxed cars -no exuses. Lots of spotty little yobs will be walking home after a pull

StickyMicky

err are you fooken insane

they allready tax the crap out of petrol, and you want MORE tax??

WTF

they should abolish road tax and not put ANYTHING on petrol because there fleecing us enough allready, people like you make me angry as it seams you have accepted that the goverment is allowed to rape us everytime we fill up with petrol.

gahhh
sort yourself out mate

Chris L

Car tax is a big issue - however, the bigger issue is I think, uninsured drivers - that has a potential to affect everyone. I would like to see a 1 or 2 p on a gallon going into a central insurance fund that would effectively give every driver on the road third party liability. Then if you are hit by an uninsured driver, your claim is settled from the central fund rather than the insurance company (ultimately being funded by you and me).

It gives people the option to only drive with third party cover (risky but acceptable) and would certainly give younger drivers a start, as the cost of insuring even a basic car when you're young is staggeringly high.

If you also incorporated car tax into petrol, then a lot of people at the DVLA who were dealing with car tax could be transferred to adminster the third party liability scheme, therefore leading to fewer job losses and making it more politically acceptable.

Should I be changing jobs and running for parliament ?

Chris

IanA

I don't really like that idea, it would legitimise all the people who shouldn't be driving. Community cars, people who are banned.

I would prefer a system whereby every untaxed vehicle seen on the road is immediately confiscated and the driver and registered keeper are prosecuted, with a minimum jail term of 2 years. There's a minimum jail term of 5 years for firearms offences, and cars kill alot more people than guns.

Chris L

Who would pay for the removal of these cars? Where would they be stored? And there isn't enough space in the jails. Apart from that it might work

Chris

Jasoon

This is going to go on and on and on LOL

rb5 286

iTrader: (2)

errr no, they'll be breaking into ours and nicking em to drive home

rb5 286

iTrader: (2)

its a gr8 idea in theory but how would the government collect the "taxes" from the petrol companies

i'm all for stopping these ******* who think they can get away with not paying tax etc and for the high milage drivers to pay more tax as they use the roads more

maybe we should contact top gear/5th gear and try and get our voice heard publicly.

r32

Saw a guy at the side of the road filling up with red diesel, and I suppose there isno chance of him getting caught, do they ever check private cars?
STEVE...............

cheeseboy

ChrisL has a good idea here :

"It gives people the option to only drive with third party cover (risky but acceptable) and would certainly give younger drivers a start, as the cost of insuring even a basic car when you're young is staggeringly high."

This exists here in Germany already... Every vehicle MUST have 3rd party insurance, otherwise you dont get any number plates! There are 2 disks (stickers) which are put onto the front and rear numberplate, which alert people to if your car has emmisions and tüv (like mot, but much strickter). If you have an accident though, and the other driver is not insured, or does a runner, then your 3rd party insurance covers it - it is also not counted as a claim, so doesnt affect your rating...

Neal

Chris L

Thanks Neal. I think they have a similar scheme in Australia aswell. It just amazes me that no one in the government is prepared to tackle this. It's a major issue, it could be quite easy to sort out and it would be a big vote winner (oops sorry, the government can't be seen to be pro-car - god forbid they may make life easier for its citizens)

Chris

IanA

Chris, the crappier ones could be crushed, the better ones sold and the proceeds given to some deserving cause. I'll admit I haven't got such a ready answer to the jail situation! It occurs to me also that a great many people who drive without the legal requirements are closer to crime generally than most of us so they are used to risking jail regularly anyway, might not be the deterrent to them that it would be to us.

r32, in theory private cars are tested but who knows how widespread this is!

Rewolf

I think that your calculations for the increase in tax are wrong...try this:

Average motorist does 10K/year, average car does 30mpg, tax = £160. To be "tax neutral" the same amount of tax has to be collected.

£160/10,000 = 1.6p/mile in tax. At 30mpg this means 48p/gallon or about 10p/litre.

So scrapping the tax disk means that petrol goes up 10p/litre, and that there will be no checks at all on insurance or Mot, which makes it easier to drive without either.

Now personnally I have to do a higher than average milage 18K, and my car probably will average 25mpg, so my contribution will not be £160, but instead will be 18,000/25 = 720 gallons, 720 * 48p = £346. I bet that for others here the cost will be much higher.

Average School Run driver does 4000 miles per year at probably 20 mpg because they drive in maximum congestion: 2000/20 = 100 gallons, 100 * 48 = £48.

So I drive a lot more, but I have flexible hours, and avoid peak traffic hours whenever possible - I even work from home when I can. But with this change I pay seven times as much as the school run person.

The reality is that as motorists in the UK we are massively over-taxed, and the logic is complete government b*** s**t - just like most of the Speed stuff.
The "reason" for high fuel taxes is polution, so why are all fuel users not taxed at the same rate? Airlines, heating of homes and business, they put out much more polution than the UK motorist does, and are taxed bugger all (relatively). Do you remember in the Fuel strikes when BLiar said that the "money was needed for schools and hospitals". This is the reality: Labour had an objective in 1997 of reducing the number of cars on the UK roads over a 10 year period, and they went for it big time, but on the quiet. Attack 1: tax em till they bleed, Attack 2: make live hell with "Speed Kills", Attack 3: cut all investment in roads until the whole network breaks down (unless it is required for Attack 2).
Well it hasn't worked yet, and they have apparently given up on the target as being unachievable, but the measures are still there, and if we vote them back in again, it will continue until we have a blanket 20 mph speed limit within 40 miles of any school, and everybody has an active tracking system that will either limit the car, or automatically send you a fine based on the GPS data.

Oh well rant over for now.

Rewolf

Dave,

I would agree with you, but I have seen some of the statistical magic that is used - try working out where the "30% of all accidents" comes from. A little publicised official report from the West Midlands finds 3.5% are actually directly caused by speeding, and a further 4% where it was a major secondary cause. This means 7.5% have "driving at excessive speed for the conditions" as a cause (note - not exceeding speed limit).

I would not be at all surprised to find Mr & Mrs averages data being used, however while the data is not immediately available, I do recall mention of about 5p/litre being proposed. While not as bad as 10p, it is a lot more than the 1 or 2p that others on this thread are expecting.

As for my personal opinion on this, I am not convinced one way or other...but I expect that whatever way happens, I will loose out because of my higher than average milage which I don't have any choice about.