Compulsory Insurance and VED

[KneesUp]

The problem with moving the tax to fuel is that it hits rural areas hard. Rural areas would need proper services if they are to survive, before duty is moved to fuel.

It doesn't sound insurmountable. To a certain extent it's 'fair' - you live in a nice place that's miles from where you work, you pay for the pollution you create getting to work, or move if you don't want to. Or cycle - whatever. It incentivises the desired outcome.

I also see that it may make it more expensive for businesses to get stock in remote locations, but it will be a level field - it would - presumably - also be more expensive to get stuff delivered to you personally, removing the disadvantage to the local business - and it would also be more expensive to go to the town and buy it yourself, again, levelling the field.

The current system is not equitable either - it penalises those who own multiple vehicles and / or don't use their vehicles much, and one might argue that by making it a flat fee it encourages car use - if you've paid the VED you might as well drive. It is also regressive - if you're poor, chances are you have an old car, and chances are you're paying a lot of VED even if you can't afford to drive it much.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

The problem with moving the tax to fuel is that it hits rural areas hard. Rural areas would need proper services if they are to survive, before duty is moved to fuel.

I wrote to my MP a couple of years ago, he wrote to the Treasury (I think) that was one of their reasons why they wouldn't do it, I've just wrote to him again asking for an update, at some point it will be over the tipping point.

 

[Milkfloat]

It doesn't sound insurmountable. To a certain extent it's 'fair' - you live in a nice place that's miles from where you work, you pay for the pollution you create getting to work, or move if you don't want to. Or cycle - whatever. It incentivises the desired outcome.

I also see that it may make it more expensive for businesses to get stock in remote locations, but it will be a level field - it would - presumably - also be more expensive to get stuff delivered to you personally, removing the disadvantage to the local business - and it would also be more expensive to go to the town and buy it yourself, again, levelling the field.

The current system is not equitable either - it penalises those who own multiple vehicles and / or don't use their vehicles much, and one might argue that by making it a flat fee it encourages car use - if you've paid the VED you might as well drive. It is also regressive - if you're poor, chances are you have an old car, and chances are you're paying a lot of VED even if you can't afford to drive it much.

The governments own figures state that car use would fall by 8% in a single year from taking use rather than the vehicle itself, which is great .Don't get me wrong, I am a very low mileage car driver, paying a fortune in VED, so would benefit from this, but also I understand rural pressures.

There is already extreme poverty in some rural areas, it is not all 2.4 children a Range Rover and a Labrador. I think the last thing we want to be doing is urbanizing further.

Those local business themselves will have higher costs, plus they won't be able to hire people if people cannot travel to them. By all means disincentive car use, but do it with a carrot approach, like decent rural public transport for a start.

 

[KneesUp]

By all means disincentive car use, but do it with a carrot approach, like decent rural public transport for a start.

Decent public transport in cities would be a start.

 

[Andy in Germany]

The problem with moving the tax to fuel is that it hits rural areas hard. Rural areas would need proper services if they are to survive, before duty is moved to fuel.

This is why a lot of people suggest road pricing rather than fuel. That way a kilometre is 'priced' depending on the demand, so several kilometres on a rural road would be cheaper than one kilometre driven in Westminster.

The system could also take into account the type of vehicle, fuel consumption, et c. A 4x4 being used in a city would attract a higher toll than one registered to a rural business.

The problem with this, of course is that it potentially invades your privacy because you'd have to know where you drive. Also I suspect it wouldn't be long before some rural farm has 34 registered 4X4's which mysteriously spend a lot of time at city addresses, but in principle it would be fairer than a simple fuel duty...

 

[classic33]

This is why a lot of people suggest road pricing rather than fuel. That way a kilometre is 'priced' depending on the demand, so several kilometres on a rural road would be cheaper than one kilometre driven in Westminster.

The system could also take into account the type of vehicle, fuel consumption, et c. A 4x4 being used in a city would attract a higher toll than one registered to a rural business.

The problem with this, of course is that it potentially invades your privacy because you'd have to know where you drive. Also I suspect it wouldn't be long before some rural farm has 34 registered 4X4's which mysteriously spend a lot of time at city addresses, but in principle it would be fairer than a simple fuel duty...

If you start pricing for distance travelled, where would cyclist come in any scheme? Would off-road facilities be fewer.

Regardless of the means of transportation, the rider/driver has to eat. For the cyclist that'd be the only fuel used, in most cases.

Will insurance companies now remove cycling from extreme sport and put it the same catargory as motor insurance.

 

[KneesUp]

This is why a lot of people suggest road pricing rather than fuel. That way a kilometre is 'priced' depending on the demand, so several kilometres on a rural road would be cheaper than one kilometre driven in Westminster.

The system could also take into account the type of vehicle, fuel consumption, et c. A 4x4 being used in a city would attract a higher toll than one registered to a rural business.

The problem with this, of course is that it potentially invades your privacy because you'd have to know where you drive. Also I suspect it wouldn't be long before some rural farm has 34 registered 4X4's which mysteriously spend a lot of time at city addresses, but in principle it would be fairer than a simple fuel duty...

The system as described wouldn't mean it would be beneficial to register your vehicle at a rural address - it's where and when you drive it that counts. It'd be an IT nightmare though - how could you tell if people had disabled the tracker without matching CCTV footage of cars with GPS logs? Just the GPS logs would be a privacy nightmare, but matching it to CCTV would require a lot of processing, and be even more of a nightmare!

I guess what would encourage false addresses would be a system where the amount extra per litre paid in lieu of VED was based on your postcode - but I can't see that ever coming in.

However, putting the tax on the fuel would sort-of give you per mile charging - if I drive through the city centre when there is no traffic I can manage almost 40mpg in my car even with the traffic lights. If I do it at 8:45 it gets below 30mpg -so if I was paying VED via fuel, the journey would cost me more at a busy time. On a longer run on country roads, driving at sensible speeds I can get almost 50mpg out of my 1.8 litre petrol car so it would be cheaper per mile if I lived in the country, for the country miles at least.

 

[lazybloke]

I'd rather not see VED abandoned for cars, as it's an annual check that they have valid insurance and MOT (with a few exceptions).

 

[KneesUp]

I'd rather not see VED abandoned for cars, as it's an annual check that they have valid insurance and MOT (with a few exceptions).

Technology can do that - if you have the pay per mile thing you would need a GPS track linked to a vehicle - if it's not taxed and insured, it gets flagged to be stopped by plod - whose cars would presumably also flag up any car that was either not where it's GPS said it should be, or was clearly moving but not providing a GPS fix.

 

[Smudge]

I'd rather not see VED abandoned for cars, as it's an annual check that they have valid insurance and MOT (with a few exceptions).

There is already a check for non insured cars. The DVLA will automatically spit out a fine for cars that aren't either insured or sorned.
And anyone that is determined to drive uninsured wont care about not having VED either. Plus the fact that VED discs aren't shown anymore so even easier to evade VED.

 

[lazybloke]

Technology can do that - if you have the pay per mile thing you would need a GPS track linked to a vehicle - if it's not taxed and insured, it gets flagged to be stopped by plod - whose cars would presumably also flag up any car that was either not where it's GPS said it should be, or was clearly moving but not providing a GPS fix.

Technology will be able to do that, once GPS tracking of cars is mandatory. It'll take a few years for the majority of cars to be trackable in this way.
More NPR cameras would provide an interim solution, and allow congestion charging.

 

[KneesUp]

Technology will be able to do that, once GPS tracking of cars is mandatory. It'll take a few years for the majority of cars to be trackable in this way.
More NPR cameras would provide an interim solution, and allow congestion charging.

It was a theoretical 'can' :-) I think making it mandatory will be difficult because it will be a vote loser - because governments have demonstrated that they neither have honest intentions nor can they be trusted with data.

 

[Andy in Germany]

The system as described wouldn't mean it would be beneficial to register your vehicle at a rural address - it's where and when you drive it that counts. It'd be an IT nightmare though - how could you tell if people had disabled the tracker without matching CCTV footage of cars with GPS logs? Just the GPS logs would be a privacy nightmare, but matching it to CCTV would require a lot of processing, and be even more of a nightmare!

I guess what would encourage false addresses would be a system where the amount extra per litre paid in lieu of VED was based on your postcode - but I can't see that ever coming in.

However, putting the tax on the fuel would sort-of give you per mile charging - if I drive through the city centre when there is no traffic I can manage almost 40mpg in my car even with the traffic lights. If I do it at 8:45 it gets below 30mpg -so if I was paying VED via fuel, the journey would cost me more at a busy time. On a longer run on country roads, driving at sensible speeds I can get almost 50mpg out of my 1.8 litre petrol car so it would be cheaper per mile if I lived in the country, for the country miles at least.

That's the problems with the system: it's effectively spying on people using motorised vehicles, and lets face it, governments don't have a great track record of keeping data like that secure.

Also the DM would then say everyone on a bicycle was obviously travelling for secretive and nefarious purposes, because otherwise they'd be driving, right?.

We have it here for trucks, and soon after the system was introduced there was a case where the police requested access to the logs and were denied it because it was unconstitutional. We can't have CCTV under the constitution here so that'd be near impossible as well.

The problem with taxing fuel though is as @Milkfloat describes: It penalises people in rural areas. At the same time, it is only fair that people driving cars on congested roads in cities at peak times should pay more.

There's a good discussion on the pros and cons of road pricing from a Canadian transport planner here.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Requiring these of all cyclists will kill off cycling in the young almost instantly as parents will not want to pay for little Jonny or Jenny's road insurance and the test will be only available to taken at a certain age, or do they expect 4 to 7 yr olds to be tested?

Four year olds being stopped to check their paperwork is in order? Or perhaps they'll start at twelve. I can just imagine a copper wanting to spend the morning checking insurance on pink bicycles.

I think the examples above are not valid, because young riders would not use the road, well, here anyway.
I'm all for cycle training and some sort of liability insurance if you ride on the roads.
By roads, I mean where also cars are allowed.
If one does not ride the roads, I think we can agree that insurance/training would be OTT, may as well impose it to pedestrians, joggers, hill walkers.
BUT: currently in the UK there isn't a network of segregated paths equal to roads for cars.
All the ones I know of are disjoined, one needs to ride roads with cars at some point to get anywhere.
Cyclist do not have the choice not to use roads, until this happens, it's a no from me to compulsive insurance/training, even though I ride insured, did my cycle training when I started commuting.

On the other hand, a mountain bike here is sold as 'sports equipment' so would they need a numberplate? and are the police going to be required to stop anyone on an MTB who rides on a road, which means anyone going to ride on an MTB track would be forced to trasmport the bike by car/train or by walking, or...

Quite often I see bikes transported on cars headed to the local MTB track.
The road to it is quite busy, steep, crashes have happened due to speeding cars.
It is normal to see parents unloading bikes from the car when taking the kids to local parks.
It is rare having a safe cycling route to your local park from a built up area.
Rides on segregated paths, run by local cycling hubs, often have participants driving there.
Sadly, bike transport because of safety issues is already happening without the compulsory insurance issue.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Will insurance companies now remove cycling from extreme sport and put it the same catargory as motor insurance.

Do they routinely consider cycling an extreme sport? That's a new one on me.

As I suggested earlier, I think compulsory insurance will never happen, not least because of the rarity of cyclists featuring in motoring claims (less than 0.1% according to the Association of British Insurers).