PAYG road usage

They could easily do a mileage check only MoT test for vehicles under three years old. Still umpteen times cheaper to deploy than developing a whole new circus.

I was understanding this as a new system needed because electric cars mean that less fuel duty is being collected overall (and as Bluelagos said, fuel duty is essentially the same as pay per mile)
If you were riding off road or on the track using the current system, you would pay duty on the fuel so what’s the difference paying for the miles? The cost would be tiny/nothing for almost everyone anyway.

I guess they charge per mile using fuel for petrol/diesel cars until they gradually phase out and you charge per mile based on odo readings for electric cars (which presumably are more difficult to replace clocks on etc) then all you need to do is make a fair balance between fuel duty and the cost per mile.

What’s with all the MOT fantasy stuff?

The payment model & technology for doing this already exists, the insurance companies have been using it for the last few years for pay as you go insurance policies.

So you’ll have the choice, pay a basic VED & have a black box installed, or if you don’t want a box, you’ll just pay a much higher annual VED charge.

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Yeah the tech exists but no doubt the government will find a way to reinvent the system in a way that doesn’t work, only to fall back to the insurer model.

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If they do go the black box route, then they should bundle insurance in with it and that’ll get rid of all vehicle insurance companies to one that’s state owned :+1:t2:

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I would be in favour of that. The NHS, despite the government’s best efforts to privatise it (and boy they are working hard at that), still shows that a state owned provider can provide universal cover much cheaper than any insurance based model in any other country.

If motor insurance was rolled into VED, or registration tax, or whatever it might be called, prices would come down.

Of course cost saving is not the point of this discussion. The point is to find a way to replace the petrol duty tax.

Also this government hates the idea of anything state owned. It’ll never happen.

Here’s a possible solution is - just charge accordingly for use of trunk roads. Put cameras up to record number plates on/off all junctions, and bill people at the end of the month.

Local driving would be tax free - and if people really want to drive to Scotland via B roads / towns that is their call.

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Can I throw a big one in on the MoT. what if I sell my car? who is it then calculated?

I do raise again, easy for people living in and around London to say yer bill per mile when most journeys will be small. My nearest supermarket is now a 30 mile round trip where as most in London would be 2-5miles.

Should I have to pay more just because I have no choice?

When you sell your car there is an option to include the mileage.

As for having to travel distances, do you think the government will care? Their solution will be to tell you to earn more money.

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You already pay more than a Londoner driving 2 miles to their local Tesco because you use more fuel and therefore pay more fuel duty.

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I’m going to start charging the government consultancy fees…

Another option is having a box unique to you that plugs into the ODBII port and that tracks your mileage - cars/bikes won’t work without that attached as their ECU’s will be looking for this. Box will also have GPS to switch off when not in the UK (and secretly track your speed for fines in the future once you’re tried into the system :wink: )
Any car/bike not having a compatible ECU will pay a flat rate, for a say 10K miles per year and that can be adjusted at each MOT and sale of said car/bike for rebates or top up. You can pre-pay for higher mileage at a cheaper cost if you think your annual mileage will be higher.

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Why not add it to the price of fuel at the pumps. You would then pay Fuel Tax, VAT and Vehicle Tax all in one transaction. The more fuel your vehicle guzzles and the more miles you do the more duty you pay. Its a catch all including Johnny Foreigner.

why not just forget about it, let the government come up with their wacky system, let it flop. Then accept whatever shite they decide after, not like any of us can change their minds anyway. I dont remember the last time drivers managed to protest and revert something, so what ever happens, happens. shit all we can do

How does that work for EV vehicles?

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You do realise the transport minister is actively pitching these ideas as you post them, right?

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Well if it is Failing Grayling we’ll be ok as he’ll grant a £10’000 cash back for every litre of petrol purchased for a motorcycle, as long as you have an electric cars that runs on petrol, with a diesel hybrid.

He’s planning on us all driving around in ferries.

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Lol

It was your choice to live where you do, should you pay less because of it? If you do not want to be car (or bike) dependent and have urban benefits like supermarkets rather than village shops then move to a city. There are trade-offs that need to be made wherever you live, you have to accept the disadvantages as well as the benefits.

Not that anyone is saying you should have to pay more. With fuel duty everyone is already effectively paying a per mile charge. But as electric vehicles increasingly take over that tax income will be lost.

So either you accept no more road maintenance, police, hospitals etc. or the government will need to find a way to replace the lost funding. Some form of mileage charge would be the most equivalent to what we have now, and the fairest. People in London should not be expected to subsidize your supermarket trips any more than you would want to pay to lower tube fares.

The most logical system would have been to include technology in vehicle batteries, so that when you charge them they communicate back their purpose. That way they will not charge without an appropriate supply where the additional tax could be added.

Smart meters already communicate with suppliers so it would not be difficult to do this domestically, and charging points can just include it in their costs anyway. But it feels they have left it too late to implement such a solution.

However it is not a problem unique to the U.K. so ultimately needs an international solution, not least because of the likely need to work with manufacturers.

Although having taken back control™, the government’s policy is to maintain alignment with the E.U. in such areas, we can do nothing and just be told what to do instead of needing to have ideas and help make decisions like we used to.

Also, Grayling is not the transport minister, but the person hand selected by the Prime Minister to head the independent-of-government Intelligence and Security Committee. And shortly after losing the election unlawfully rigged in his favour he resigned in what was reported as a “sulk”.

This needs to be said. In just my generation I’ve witnessed a massive shift to not just suburban living but also out further to the countryside. This has been enabled by the car.

Someone gives up their city flat and moves to a house in the Home Counties so they can have more space but they do so knowing they will need at least one car, most often two, maybe three when the kids reach driving age. Those three cars then need road improvements and they demand the council increase the car parking in their local town. And on and on that circle goes.

Bad as that is, there is a bigger time bomb that we are just beginning to see the affects of. Friends who made such moves with their families a few decades ago are now finding their ageing parents are no longer able to drive for medical reasons and suddenly are isolated miles from everywhere with NHS support services overstretched trying to make home visits.

Car dependancy comes with obvious dis-benefits but there are plenty of other non-obvious social costs we are only becoming aware of.

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