4x4 tax / road tax and fuel!!

[Steve L]

With all the government's taxation of us motorist's what do we see in return.

How many journies do you go on where you encounter bone jaring pot holes or subsidance in the roads. on the A44 just out of Worcester heading west there's a dip in the road that's been there months now and one day soon it will cause a motorcyclist to loose control and come off, but do we see repair do we hell.

I'd like to see a policy of scrapping the road tax and adding a penny to fuel tax. Then spending all the cash on highway infrastructure improvements.

Then all of those who use the heavey trucks and gas guzzeling cars would pay their relevant share. Even me!!

I travel 15K per annum as a commuter in a small car and do 20K towing our large caravan behind a suitably large 2Ltr car. But with the 1p on fuel which would hardly be noticed on a daily basis and the considerable revinue obtained overall, we should see a marked improvement in roads if the goverment spent the cash there.

Also all those who dodge the tax disc now and thats not only the transit and churn brigade but the fly hauliers towing un taxed trailers etc, would have to pay their share.

I know eutopia doesn't exist, but a dream can.

Have fun chewing this one over.

Steve.

 

[Rayc1]

Steve, no matter how the tax is collected only a minimal amount of it will be spent on roads and associated transport systems. The motorist is the governments golden cow and the system is designed to extract the maximum amount of money from them. During the fuel protest a few years ago Tony Blair explained that the duty and VAT on fuel paid for hospitals and schools etc and that without it they would not be able to provide them. This is their dilema, they may preach conservation but they need you to use fuel otherwise they are bust.

 

[Rayc1]

Steve, no matter how the tax is collected only a minimal amount of it will be spent on roads and associated transport systems. The motorist is the governments golden cow and the system is designed to extract the maximum amount of money from them. During the fuel protest a few years ago Tony Blair explained that the duty and VAT on fuel paid for hospitals and schools etc and that without it they would not be able to provide them. This is their dilema, they may preach conservation but they need you to use fuel otherwise they are bust.

Just wondering why 4x4 was put in the title of your posting. 4x4 are a very small percentage of vehicles on the road so even a doubling of road tax on them would have minimal effect on income.

Of course the real answer is to tax caravanners heavily as there is nothing more energy inefficient than towing a big white box behind you.

 

[CliveV]

I think Steve is linking the concept of further taxes to any user group Ray. I read yesterday that the Government is looking at individual taxes on things like Tourist beds, Rubbish Collection etc.

Whilst this Tourist tax works in some EU countries and certainly the USA - it is my understanding that these countries do not ALSO apply the Business Rates that UK business has to endure.

Finally - to pick up on Rays point - when organising the Easter green lane day I spoke to several people and stated that the day was being organised by 4x4 users as an education into what some of us do a result of the "anti" sentiment of a few on this website.

The response from some was "caravanners being anti 4x4!!! - if I had my way caravans would be banned!" I am sure most 4x4 users would support a caravan tax!!!

One mans meat etc!!!

 

[CliveV]

On another point Steve raises - take pictures of road problems potholes etc. Insurance companies are looking for evidence of road disrepair in accidents as they can claim the money back from the Local Council.

What happens at the moment is after an accident the road is often repaired so that no evidence exists. If you have evidence of poor road conditions keep it on file as more people are coming forward with such evidence when seeing the Police signs asking for witnesses.

There is soon to be a website where you can log these pictures for everybody's use.

 

[cris_408518]

On another point Steve raises - take pictures of road problems potholes etc. Insurance companies are looking for evidence of road disrepair in accidents as they can claim the money back from the Local Council.

What happens at the moment is after an accident the road is often repaired so that no evidence exists. If you have evidence of poor road conditions keep it on file as more people are coming forward with such evidence when seeing the Police signs asking for witnesses.

There is soon to be a website where you can log these pictures for everybody's use.

My daughter was hit by a woman and pushed onto a roundabout, we took photo's of her tyre marks on the roundabout grass and of the cars damage. The woman who hit her admitted liability, Daughters car was taken away the same day and returned within a few days repaired.

Woman of the other car had sent in her accident report saying that my daighter had infact hit her with a fictional diagram of what had happened. My daughters insurers said they has no evidence as to exactly where the damage was to her car as it had been repaird! Side damage instead of frontal damage if the woman drivers diagram had been true.

The insurers said they did not accept photographic evidence and that the pictures of the car damage, roundabout, the tyre mark pattern and the cars tyres were not relevant. I was told that the insurers had no email facility so I could not send the photo's, after some arguement they found they did have email facility and agreed that even an expert could see that the woman had lied in her accident report. Result, knock for knock and loss of Daughters no claims and 18 months of wasted letters and phone calls and loss of tGHE "FIRST

 

[CliveV]

cris - forgive my for the Cut and Paste job Please! - but what you describe is a real issue at the moment that could affect many people:-

You wrote:-

My daughter was hit by a woman and pushed onto a roundabout, we took photo's of her tyre marks on the roundabout grass and of the cars damage. The woman who hit her admitted liability, Daughters car was taken away the same day and returned within a few days repaired.

Woman of the other car had sent in her accident report saying that my daughter had infect hit her with a fictional diagram of what had happened. My daughters insurers said they has no evidence as to exactly where the damage was to her car as it had been repaired! Side damage instead of frontal damage if the woman drivers diagram had been true.

The insurers said they did not accept photographic evidence and that the pictures of the car damage, roundabout, the tyre mark pattern and the cars tyres were not relevant. I was told that the insurers had no email facility so I could not send the photo's, after some argument they found they did have email facility and agreed that even an expert could see that the woman had lied in her accident report. Result, knock for knock and loss of Daughters no claims and 18 months of wasted letters and phone calls and loss of tGHE "FIRST

 

[Steve L]

Just wondering why 4x4 was put in the title of your posting. 4x4 are a very small percentage of vehicles on the road so even a doubling of road tax on them would have minimal effect on income.

Of course the real answer is to tax caravanners heavily as there is nothing more energy inefficient than towing a big white box behind you.

4X4's were mentioned realy because even in our rural location 75% of them are "chelsea tractors" and never see the green lanes.

I've owned a couple myself but did use them for their towing capability more than anything else.

I've done more "green lane " driving in a renault five than any other car. They seem to have the weight where needed and nice low torque band to give grunt.