Big Brother is watching

[LDB]

Or will be in a couple of years. Tracking your every driving move in the UK.

https://www.evo.co.uk/news/204559/uk...m_medium=email

[JockoT]

I watched the announcement on the news the other morning. I am all for it. I do minimum miles at quiet times. I don't see why I should pay the same road tax as someone driving to and from a city centre every rush hour.

[Draigflag]

I think the cost per mile model is a good idea, it's only fair, if you use the road more, you wear it out faster. This will also encourage people to drive less which is a good thing. I only did 4000 miles in my Q7 but my tax was still £600 regardless of mileage.

[LDB]

I don't trust a mileage based system to be fair. Big brother will want to charge too much and I will pay more in spite of minimal driving. I've had my car 177 days and driven 1402 miles, 7.92 miles per day.

Texas gasoline tax is 20c per gallon. Round numbers at 24mpg I use 1/3 gallon per day for 7 cents gas tax. If they went with mileage based I bet it would be a few cents per mile so my cost would go up by 2-3-4 times.

Given the greater and greater negative influence of the left they'll probably exempt illegal aliens from paying any mileage tax at all. Nope, leave it the current system for ICE.

[JockoT]

At 20c a gallon I can see the attraction but we are paying $9.33 a UK gallon (about $7.77 a US gallon). Whacking that in half and charging by the mile is a big incentive.

[Draigflag]

£35,000,000,000 is a big hole, that money pays for new roads, fixes old ones and builds new fueling and service stations. There's no free lunch, something has to pay for them, and electric cars are far cheaper to run anyway. They'll probably wait until there's a bigger market share when more people are on board before taxes are considered. One thing overlooked is that roads will wear at a quicker rate due to the excessive weight from EVs.

[JockoT]

EVs aren't that much heavier and when you consider the vans and lorries on the road they will make only a small contribution to the wear.
And road tax being ringfenced for roads was abolished in 1937. It now just goes into the general taxation pot.

[trollbait]

The difference in weight between a subcompact car and full size SUV means nothing to a road designed for commercial trucks. There might be more surface wear if average car weights increase, but that is also true if you get more rain. Personal car weights is a distraction in road funding discussions, and an excuse for politicians to tax one group more.

With plug ins becoming more popular, I'd like to see a per mile tax. But keep it simple, and skip the GPS. The states I've lived in have regular vehicle inspects where mileage can be recorded for such fees.

[Draigflag]

I'm sure you guys would rather a per mile tax than a $3.55 per gallon fuel tax jump, which is what we pay here...

Our annual inspections record mileage anyway, so the government knows exactly how many miles each individual car does anyway, it would be easy to implement a tax charge once a year during this test in my opinion.

[trollbait]

The GPS company is probably owned by someone's relative though. Even if not, it's revenue lost to a middle man.