Is Road Pricing on its Way?
It seems it could be, according to the RAC Foundation here https://www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/no-viable-alternative-to-road-pricing-say-mps Apparently the Government faces a 35 billion black hole as we move to electric vehicles as currently they don't pay road tax. The House of Parliament Transport Committee have produced a report on finding alternatives to road tax, see here https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/8754/documents/88692/default/
Personally I don't have a problem with the idea of road pricing as it could be a lot fairer. Charges could be varied, I assume, according to how busy and how congested the particular roads are?
It will be a big decision for the Government to make, lets hope they get it right!!!
David
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We already have a tracker based insurance policy with our car at 2.8 pence per mile on top of the basic £145 per year ,it has with our annual mileage worked out much cheaper for us
Not yet available for PVC or motor caravans
The road pricing idea has to be the best way of recouping the loss of income from "Free" use of roads by some vehicles
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I would welcome road pricing just as long as the revenue is actually re-invested in maintaining the UK road network, which is in an appalling state currently and has been for some years.
The current model of zero RFL for some EVs is unsustainable in the long term - IMHO a charge per mile is much fairer.
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Currently VED is charged by how much the vehicle pollutes via their emissions. Technically EV's don't have emissions in the same sense of the word which would suggest there would have to be a flat rate if you continued with some sort of annual charge. The advantage of road pricing is that it can used for many purposes. It could be used to control congestion by charging more on congested roads, even if that was only a certain times of the day. Would there be a need for separate clean ait zones or could the charging for those be incorporated into road charging? Would road charging actually need to apply to all roads, or could it just apply to inner city and busy trunk routes. There are many options. I think the RAC suggested that a road charging scheme should have a neutral cost to road users rather than being used as an extra revenue raising opportunity. We will have to wait and see how that works out!!!
David
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I’m slightly nervous about technology based systems, there’s always some criminal element out there who will one step ahead and exploit it. I remember when the London congestion charge was introduced I regularly used to get a fine for a car bearing my reg plate, but had never visited London. Luckily they didn’t match my registration to the same model & colour of car! I realise tracker based systems are more sophisticated than that, but they can probably be hacked and cloned.
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What could they gain from it & how🤷🏻♂️🤔
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ICE vehicles already pay a 'pollution' penalty via fuel duty. The present RFL just needs tweaking. I'm not opposed to a 'pay by mile' though.
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It’s always been on the cards as a possibility since the move to EV’s started to gather momentum. It’s been a bit of a golden period for those who could afford an EV, and didn’t pay much to keep it on the road, and I don’t begrudge them a penny. But the fuel tax black hole has been looming for a while now as EV ownership grows. How this would be covered has been one of our concerns for a while, and that’s why we are hanging fire on EV ownership until things are clearer.
Agree with a lot of what’s been said up thread, particularly the need to ring fence the duty for investment in roads and road safety developments. Not something I would currently trust any Gov. to do at the moment (look how the imminent imposition of higher NI was supposed to be ring fenced to help the NHS😡)Agree with SB as well regarding the criminal element, huge scope there for fraud. Not sure how private car tracking will go down with the civil liberties groups either to be honest🤷♀️
It would be brilliant tough if technology could include limiting vehicles to certain speeds on certain road types. That would really kick the boy racers into touch nicely.Cant help thinking that EV sales are outpacing preparation for them becoming the norm on UK roads, you only have to consider the charging network infrastructure to realise this. Better than it was, but no where near where it ought to be. Home based and public provision.
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I think TDAs point about civil liberties is the deal breaker here. So far, it’s only been commercial drivers who’ve been systematically tracked - it goes with the job. A system that records the current and historical whereabouts of everybody driving a registered vehicle is an entirely different matter - it will create outrage.
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No-one would need to know your whereabouts with a tracker it could just record the distance travelled on a central data base. Eg using your reg number and clocking up mileage via a signal as you travel. The technology is there already.
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Privacy does not need to be compromised if the French model is adopted.
Your vehicle can be clocked by the ANPR camera when you join the network (motorways and trunk roads) and it is clocked off when you leave. Local roads could be toll-free but the upkeep covered by a standard RFL for all vehicles.
Many UK routes already have ANPR technology to track miscreants and tax dodgers, so not much change would be required.
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ANPR as a method isn’t perfect. Those wishing to avoid charges could simply clone another vehicle. There is obviously a risk involved, but some will go for it if the rewards are worth the risk.
Assuring people that the data is private won’t be trusted by many. In order to track vehicle movements a record of every journey will be created. It’s like permanently leaving your satnav on, it will record and store to within a few metres everywhere you visited at what times and on what dates.
Just about very Police force has cut back in recent times on traffic policing due to budget constraints. That doesn’t sit comfortably with Road Pricing enforcement.
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So how do they gain from it-how being the operative word🤷🏻♂️. It’s easy to say ‘they circumvent the payment system’ but how do they do that🙄🤔
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Outrage?, I doubt that. As JV points out from his personal experience it’s cheaper👍🏻. Outrage will soon be dropped to be replace by joy when the ‘ker-ching’ factor kicks in. The great British public are renown for their outrage until money sneaks into the equation😂😂
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A recipe for "rat run" activity to escalate.
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Just for interest there are according to a quick search over 700,000 cars on UK roads illegally without tax, or VED. Multiply that by the lowest band and you can see how much is 'lost' already.
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Cloning and using the identity of others. It’s the basis of most internet fraud and I don’t see why road pricing would be any different. If it’s lucrative, then clever fraudsters will target it. Banks spend £billions on trying to keep one step ahead every year. An account based system regularly receiving data from a network of tracking systems will get hacked and circumvented in ways we’re yet to see.
Unless they all fill up and drive off, at least the 700k avoiding VED probably pay for fuel so are paying some duty. It used to take me about 3 weeks to recover my ‘fines’ courtesy of some lowlife cloning my car reg.
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I wonder how they intend to tackle size of vehicle, as I assume there will be different charges due to the amount of surface damage caused by heavier vehicles. Would every vehicle require a specific fitted unit. Or would you just have the one, like with our Emovis tag and sensors along the roadside would establish vehicle type, as in class 1 or 2 in France and the unit would communicate its presence and entry into the charged sector. It also raises the issue as to wether caravans would be charged for. It always amazed me when we owned one, that it was free from any sort of road tax, as it significantly increased how much rubbish my XTrail was pumping out.
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So, Govt agencies will continue to allow this to happen without systems of integrity to stop it. Even with the VED we have now, why isn’t there an uproar about this🤷🏻♂️😤
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Such is life….
Banks make provision for £billion of losses as part of doing business on the web. Why should Govt agencies be any different? In reality it will be contracted out to some half-competent facilities management company. The only bit that really bothers me is how easy and quick it is to get my money refunded when I’m the victim? Internet fraudsters lurk in the shadows, at least VED dodgers have UK registered names & addresses!
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