PAYG road usage

[Michael748]

There is a common belief that motorists are hard done by. As someone who pays ~£800 per annum on VED sometimes I feel like that too.

But, that’s not the case.

VED and fuel duty and VAT bring in about £32bn.

But the cost of sweeping up crashes alone comes to the same amount.

Add to that all the other externalities, then the actual cost of road-building roughly £10bn in these 2010 figures (it is £17bn today):

And you see that motoring costs the nation many times more than VED and fuel duty provide.

This is a 2010 report, I’m sure the gap is even worse today as people switch to lower VED, and zero VED, vehicles.

war-on-motoring-myth_Aug2012_9542.pdf

[The_Sleeper]

@Michael748

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.

I was not going to reply to the other michael but as this seems to be becoming a thing. I think this is all being looked at from one side of the fence. Ignore my case for a second, what about the people who are born here, that was not their choice should they be penalised for it?

Second, we moved here not for the location but for what we could afford, we had a budget and works back from there (like most people looking to buy). I would have loved to have stayed where I was but I was priced out of the market.

Any one with any commence sense would have seen this kind of scenario coming with the invent of fully electric vehicles, i’ve been saying for years how are the government going to cover their loss in revenue.

I’m not against the idea at all, as ultimately I decide if i want to drive to the seaside at the weekend or not…

This is just my side, not looking for an argument and not disagreeing with your comments totally, i’m just saying if they bring something like this in it needs to be considered.

Either way, we’ll all be screwed over in someway shape or form.

[Serrisan]

Much of this is the issue with giving an incentive to try to get people to adopt a technology. Electric cars benefited for 0 or low VED for years but of course now the government will lose all VED when all cars are electric (still a way off).

I still don’t get why, if new non electric cars are banned from 2030, they don’t just make the call that all cars now will have to pay VED? No need for infrastructure like black boxes, complex infrastructure projects that stall like smart meters etc…

Yes it will be a tax hike, and yes it will probably need to raise all VED so that electric car still has a benefit to it, but seems like the cleanest solution.

Apparently though, not all electric vehicles are totally VED Exempt:
“However, if the purchase/list price of your electric car is over £40,000 and it was registered after 31 March 2017, then you will be required pay a tax of £320 per year from years 2 – 6.”
Source: https://www.osv.ltd.uk/where-does-vehicle-tax-go/

So it seems much simpler to start bringing VED up overall, for all electric and petrol vehicles and start including hybrids in.

No doubt bikers will be affected worse as electric bikes are quite a way behind the progress and penetration of hybrid / electric cars.

[Michael748]

@Serrisan

So it seems much simpler to start bringing VED up overall, for all electric and petrol vehicles and start including hybrids in.

I think they will probably do this eventually but feel they need the carrot of zero VED to encourage EV sales.

Personally I’d like to see weight and enclosed volume in the calculation. In these days of algorithms it’s not difficult to imagine a formula within the VED calculation that adds for both. This would go some of the way towards encouraging people to buy a Yaris for the school run instead of a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Cars have got significantly fatter in the last two decades and you see the problem in all our Victorian and Edwardian streets. At the moment there is no incentive to chose a Yaris over an Outlander, especially with the way PCPs are.

[Michael748]

@The_Sleeper

what about the people who are born here, that was not their choice should they be penalised for it?

Not long ago everyone lived and died on the land. My parents-in-law both come from families who were farm labourers and their ancestors never moved more than a few miles in their whole lives.

The industrial revolution caused people to move to towns and cities.

Car mobility has caused people to move out again but they don’t live in the tight-knit farming communities my in-laws ancestors would recognise. They live in scattered bungalows, cottages and rural small housing estates. The more wealthy live in detached houses on plots of land and remoteness commensurate with their wealth.

It has taken roughly a century to get to where we are; with massive acceleration after the '70s when car ownership became affordable to most people.

Obviously it can’t change overnight - but it will have to change.

[Arfa]

@nivag

@National_Treasure

Why not add it to the price of fuel at the pumps

How does that work for EV vehicles?

Perhaps the duty should not be on fuel, but rather on other consumables associated with miles of use.
Duty on tyres? - Though could see many running round on bald pre-worn tyres. And a right pisser when you get puncture.
Duty on brake pads? - Though might see the tight fisted never braking…

[slow-ride]

All very well, but I would guess that the average motorist commuter earns less/has less disposible than the equivalent train user. Numbers may well be searchable that prove me wrong, but I can’t see why anyone would drive into London from where I live and take over 2 hours if they could afford to get the train. This was my problem with the ULEZ, if you looked at the older cars and bikes that were getting penalised, you’re basically doubling down on a tax on the poorer city worker. Last I checked the equivalent train fare from where I live is ~7k I think.

Consider pay as you go healthcare. We can all clearly see that is a bad idea - people with less money are those who use healthcare most. I would say that the same is likely true of driving.

I was tongue in cheek earlier with my £800 VED complaint. It’s my choice to own 4 vehicles (although I would argue I feel it necessary, it’s a tough one to justify even with my creative man-maths), so I’ve got no problem paying it even if of course I’d rather pay it on repairs.

One initiative I do quite like is tax based on vehicle’s value for cars <6 years old, this I think is a good solution (again biased because I drive old shitters I guess).

[Michael]

@The_Sleeper

what about the people who are born here, that was not their choice should they be penalised for it?

Then they should move too. It does not even have to be to a town or city, but to a village with a bus or train service.

You say your decision to move was based on what you could afford, I assume you mean in terms of comparable homes and not comparing a tiny flat with a reasonably spacious house. You made the choice on which compromise to make, which issue was more important to you. A bigger home against extra travel.

if you want a rural lifestyle with urban benefits you have to pay extra. Just like if you want an urban lifestyle with rural benefits (a big affordable home) then you have to pay extra for it. That is the same regardless of where people are born.

And quite frankly, there are many small towns and larger villages that have supermarkets where the house prices are less than more rural locations. Very few people have no choices where to live, and those that do tend to be stuck in urban areas.

And again, who is being penalized by being expected to continue doing what they are already doing, and where everyone else who is already doing it will also be continuing to do it? It is not a penalty if you will be no worse off.

[Serrisan]

Bit of a harsh way of viewing things. And sure, in a fairer and more equal society with better access to affordable housing, childcare, schooling, facilities, access to transport, concentration & quality of jobs your weighing up of options sounds great. Sadly that’s not the case here.

Also, bear in mind Sleeper made a decision to move at time X against certain parameters (the car being one of a myriad). Now those parameters are changing, something way beyond his control. It’s a bit unfair to say that he should now change based on a potential implementation of a system that has flaws, that frankly most of us wouldn’t have perceived.

And your arguments really present this as a very logical, factual, almost binary decision to make. Once you start considering that you have to support others, it becomes a very messy decision and impossible to weigh up - it’s not just a rural lifestyle with urban benefits vs an urban lifestyle with rural benefits. And it can cause a huge headache that would have been avoided if we kept the same system of Excise duty.

[Michael]

[quote=“Serrisan, post:49, topic:111906”]Now those parameters are changing, something way beyond his control. It’s a bit unfair to say that he should now change based on a potential implementation of a system that has flaws, that frankly most of us wouldn’t have perceived.
[/quote]

I am not saying he should change anything. I am saying the parameters are not changing so he is not being penalized and will be in the exact same situation as he was when he made the decision. What is harsh is demanding special treatment because of a choice to live somewhere far from urban benefits.

In choosing to live somewhere that is a 30-mile round trip from a supermarket you accept that you will have either to use village shops, use home delivery if available, or visit the supermarket paying fuel duty for the amount of fuel needed to make that trip, an amount which is determined by the distance travelled.

So how is the suggestion of a system of road pricing per mile — for the entirely foreseeable issue that a move to electric vehicles will require the lost fuel duty to need to be recovered some other way — a change from fuel duty who amount paid is based on distance travelled?

What is harsh to me is moving for cheaper housing and then expecting to also be exempt from taxes that everything else has to pay. Why should people with more expensive rent and mortgages have to subsidize people who live in the countryside just because we may be only two miles from a supermarket? That is what is harsh to me.

It is nothing to do with the world being fair or not, but simply that in every decision we make we have to weight up the benefits and disadvantages and chose where to make compromises. There is very rarely a perfect solution, and nor would there be in a perfect world either because different priorities will always compete and conflict. So when moving to somewhere where the nearest supermarket is 15 miles away you accept the need to drive there, at the cost of the fuel needed which includes the added duty, or you make alternatives.

@Serrisan

And it can cause a huge headache that would have been avoided if we kept the same system of Excise duty.

Vehicle excise duty is not a headache, it is a trivial non-issue.

When electric vehicles are more widely available, affordable, so no longer need to be incentivized then it will almost certainly be charged on them. Changing the system of rating vehicles happens all the time. It is a trivial issue to fix that will take about about a minute of a budget statement.

But look at the table posted by Michael748. £5.1bn was raised through V.E.D. in 2010 compared to £27.1bn from fuel duty. That is the problem, it is over five times more important than V.E.D. but is not something which can be fixed on paper.

Fuel duty is 57.95p per litre. That means I am already paying 3.51p per mile, on average, when I ride my bike. That is the money which is being lost which needs to be replaced. That is why road pricing is as near to a like-for-like replacement as you can get.

That is why no one is penalizing the Sleeper for where he lives. Because he is already paying something like 5.2p per mile (assuming an average of 50 mpg) when he goes shopping anyway. So a 5.2p per mile road charge would mean paying exactly the same as now in tax.

The problem is not the idea of charging but how to collect it.

[Serrisan]

@Michael

So how is the suggestion of a system of road pricing per mile — for the entirely foreseeable issue that a move to electric vehicles will require the lost fuel duty to need to be recovered some other way — a change from fuel duty who amount paid is based on distance travelled?

Maybe I missed the point but my understanding was that the payg would be applied in addition to the fuel tax duty. So if you don’t move to electric car you pay both? And this is the crux of the argument for me. That those that don’t shell out to electric, have to end up paying for both.

@Michael

Vehicle excise duty is not a headache, it is a trivial non-issue.

You missed my point, the headache is the number of bills to weigh up

I never argued that this system of taxation would be unfair, I did say it would be a bitch to collect.

What I said was harsh was your comment on someone else’s decision. A decision you have no idea what he’s had to weigh up to make, without understanding what pressures he’s facing.

Sometimes when you have a family it’s not a case of bigger home. If all you can afford in your area is a small 2 bed flat, no amount of compromise will move a 4 person family in there. So have a bit of empathy, is all I’m saying…

PS I have no idea if sleeper has a family in this case, my example above is just generic…

[Michael748]

@Serrisan

payg would be applied in addition to the fuel tax duty. So if you don’t move to electric car you pay both?

Knowing governments, this is what is likely to happen. Also, given the need to move away from internal combustion it is hard to see how, politically, they could remove the fuel duty; the outcry would be enormous.

What could be done is EVs could be on a cheaper rate in the PAYG régime. There are ways to balance it.

[T_cat]

VED (road tax to us older people) applies in addition to the tax you pay in fuel duty.
The move to EV may mean an adjustment to VED bands so nothing is exempt.
To recoup loss in fuel duty build into the system a way that batteries last ‘x’ miles then have to be replaced. New batteries (already expensive) then include a government tax.
Alternatively a system for universal batteries and a way for them to be swapped quickly at ‘fuel’ stations. Each time you swap the fee includes an amount for tax.

[HBG]

And anyway, all of this is a temporary measure as we will soon be back to the petrol stations to fill up and get taxed on the quantity of fuel we take except that we will be putting…hydrogen in our tanks.

[T_cat]

@HBG

we will be putting…hydrogen in our tanks

I don’t believe that it’s a load of hot air.

[Jay]