A graduate transport planner has won the annual Wolfson Economics prize by coming up with a radical way for motorists to pay for all forms of motoring taxation. The universal “pay as you drive” model combines car insurance, road tax, congestion and pollution levies, as well as fuel duty.
The Wolfson Economics Prize, founded by Next fashion chain boss Lord Simon Wolfson, invites people to submit ideas for addressing important economic issues, with a prize of £250,000 up for grabs.
This year, people were asked to submit ideas for making the UK’s roads better and safer, while benefitting the economy and the environment. This is something that all motorists would like to see happen soon. With 120 entries coming in from seven different countries, judges were impressed with the range of innovative ideas that were submitted. However, there could only be one winner.
Scrapping vehicle excise and fuel taxes
The winning idea came from 27-year-old graduate transport planner, Gergely Raccuja. Raccuja was born in Hungary but now lives in the UK after moving here to study. He suggested that both vehicle excise duty and fuel duty be scrapped and replaced with a pay-per-mile tax plan. He believes this would help to restore trust between politicians and motorists, something that has certainly been lacking.
Originally, vehicle tax was introduced to raise revenue to maintain and repair roads. It was later changed to become a general taxation. However, even when the funds were dedicated to the roads, there wasn’t enough to cover everything that needed fixing.
Fuel duty is paid on several fuels, which are used by most UK motorists (with the exception of local bus services and some farm and construction vehicles) and which adds significantly to the cost of fuel. An abolishment of this tax would see a significant drop in prices at the pumps. Not only would drivers welcome this, but it would also lead to significant economic stimulation, as the cost of running a vehicle would decrease.
Pay-per-mile driving tax plan
The proposed tax plan also has input from the RAC Foundation. It would see motorists being taxed per mile driven, with drivers of heavier, less eco-friendly vehicles paying more than those who’ve opted for lighter models that produce less pollution. The tax would be enforced by insurers based on mileage and car model, paid either monthly or as an annual charge.
Drivers won’t be asked to pay more overall and, as insurers already hold all of the required details, it will not affect people’s privacy. The proposed system will also mean that there won’t be any extra administration charges; drivers will simply pay their road bill alongside their insurance premium.
With the £27 billion being made from fuel duty each year under threaten from the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road, this new tax plan could redress the balance and ensure that drivers of these vehicles would still be contributing to the exchequer’s stream of revenue.
The plan also suggests that if 20% of the new tax funds were allocated to repairing roads, the UK’s potholes could all be gone within five years, making the roads far safer than they are currently by reducing the risk of punctures, bent wheels, and damaged suspensions.
Raccuja’s simple but inventive plan beat a number of other entries, including one proposing tradable road miles, and another which suggested rewarding drivers who changed their driving habits to help to ease congestion.
Is it a way to tax polluters by stealth?
A universal pay-per-mile tax plan would certainly make working out motoring costs a lot easier. It could also benefit the environment, while still bringing in money from eco-friendly cars. It seems to be the perfect plan for creating safer, better roads that everyone pays fairly to use.
However, cynics could argue that a universal pay-per-mile tax model would serve to enforce efforts to remove high polluting vehicles from the road. It could also impact negatively on low income groups who drive for a living.
Similar “pay as you drive” models have been suggested by previous governments . Motoring lobby groups have resisted attempts to charge on a per-mile basis, in the same way that identity cards were resisted as they were seen as too “big brother” and an invasion of civil liberties and privacy.
There are two ways for motoring taxation to function: either tax the products and services we need to drive, or tax the action of driving itself. Taxing the products and services means that there is a higher barrier to entry for people driving but that the costs level off once past that point. With pay as you drive, the barrier to entry is very low and more cost effective for occasional drivers. However, those who drive a lot will end up paying for those who drive less, which we’re not sure is a fair model.
What do you think of the “pay as you drive” idea that has won this economics prize? Would you be happy to embrace the idea if it meant no fuel duty? Is it a way to penalise polluters and low income groups who drive a lot for a living? Let us know in the comments below.
Of course that is the way it should be. The number of car trips made each day would soon reduce. For example taking kids to school when living a mile or so away would soon stop, kids would be a lot fitter.
During the day roads will not be cluttered up with people taking trips they could walk to. Leaving the roads
roads clear for commerce.
It sounds like a good plan except that there are many ways that it could be abused.
To stop the abuse would require enforcement but the police can’t manage to enforce the present driving/car laws!!
As I posted put it on the fuel, the tax would then be unavoidable. And would also reward fuel efficient vehicles whilst penalising the heavy footed polluters.
I totally agree and have just made the very same suggestion!! 😉
Well I and the majority of drivers have been saying this for at least the last forty years, the government hasn’t listened so far, can I have £250,000 please. Much easier and acceptable rather than having insurance companies collect the tax, why not use the MOT system the computer system is there just means new cars will have to report to an MOT station yearly like the rest of us to have mileage recorded. Any vehicle “avoiding” the MOT that’s found gets crushed. Easy to do via car registration, the registered keeper is responsible, some of the DVLA staff that would be made redundant could act as investigators to trace owners. Like parking fines if the new keeper isn’t recorded the old one is fined, putting the onus on the seller to declare who now owns the car.
Forgot to mention, I have what’s considered to be a high pollution generating car but I only do around 1,000 miles a year in it and have to pay £500+ whether I use it or not. The rest of the time we use the wife’s Fiesta. So I’m more than happy to accept this.
The only problem I see is it doesn’t take into account driving style, where as just putting the levy on the cost of fuel makes the “tax” unavoidable.
Scrapping fuel duty and introducing a pay-per-mile tax collected by insurance companies is the most idiotic idea that’s ever won any prize. The two groups it makes happy are insurance companies and fraudsters. There will soon be hackers around who will, for a small fee, clock your miles down before your annual milage check.
Pollution is more or less proportional to fuel consumption, so paying tax per litre of fuel makes sense. Paying a flat fee per mile, whether driven at 70mph on the motorway or in stationary city traffic, where it causes a lot more pollution, is plain stupid.
I don’t believe the Wolfson Prize would go to a silly project like this; more likely journalists (who usually don’t understand what they are writing about) have distorted it as usual.
I think it’s a great idea! But as a family we share one car it’s only £20 to tax a year but we only do 6000 miles a year at most. If fuel duty was scrapped and insurance was to be paid at the same time there would still have to be variations for age too for young drivers who are more likely to have accidents. I suppose it depends on how much it will cost per mile whether it would make a difference. I’m not sure it would make a difference and people would still use their car to pick up the kids when they only live a few streets away. I think it would be very complicated to switch it over to pay as you drive too
As has been said before, this idea has been around for decades, so it’s unclear to me why a prize is being given for it now. Didn’t the judges do even a quick Google search to see how many times it is talked about all over the internet?
The MOT mileage check is far too open to abuse, and, as mentioned already, it couldn’t be policed by our already overwhelmed police force.
By far the most leak-proof and fair way is to just pile it into the price of fuel.
Environmental Tax:
The bigger the vehicle, the more fuel it uses, the more it pollutes, the more of an environment tax it pays
The more miles a vehicle drives, the more fuel it uses, the more it pollutes, the more of an environment tax it pays.
Insurance Tax:
The bigger the vehicle, the more of a danger it represents. Because it uses more fuel, it pays a higher insurance tax.
The more miles a vehicle drives, the more it is likely to be involved in an accident. Because the further it drives, the more fuel it uses; so it pays a higher insurance tax.
(Note that the Insurance Tax is not for comprehensive cover. It is for third party cover only. If drivers want comprehensive cover, they need to take out their own policy. This should be cheaper than today, because the whole third party part of coverage will have been taken care of by the Insurance Tax portion of the Fuel Tax.
Road maintenance Tax:
The bigger the vehicle, the more wear and tear it has on the roads. The more fuel it uses, the more of a road maintenance tax it pays.
The more miles a vehicle drives, the more wear and tear it has on the roads. It takes more fuel to drive more miles, so the more of a road maintenance tax it pays.
How to decide what percentage of this new Fuel Tax goes to Environment Tax, Insurance Tax and Road maintenance Tax? Well we have all sorts of analysts who can come up with all sorts of models. It just takes a sensible government to pull it all together. I guess that’s the weakest part of this whole proposal.
What do we do about the increasing numbers of electric cars? Well they already pay all sorts of ‘taxes’ on the electricity they use to charge their batteries. We can’t add a Fuel Tax to their electricity because they use the same electricity as all of us use to turn our lights on, and why should a 90 year old granny be penalised for using her lights any more than she is already? I think we should just forget about the electric cars until they represent a significant volume, by which time they’ll all be so ‘smart’ that we could just use their GPS tracking information (which will be standard issue soon enough).
Sadly, none of this will happen in my lifetime. I drive a campervan on two or three holidays per year, but I pay the same road tax and insurance as I would if I used it all day every day. Unfair to say the least.
Roger Kennealy, you deserve the £250,000!
Rolling everything governmental into the cost of fuel is certainly the way to go. Only problem is that it does not address the problem of insurance companies!
The motorist has been the ‘soft’ target for tax increases for decades, but the future is marked by an increasing reliance on non-fossil fuels. As the proportion of hybrid and electric vehicles increases, the potential tax revenue diminishes. So how does the government replace this tax shortfall?
It has lost virtually all the revenue from smokers, and the revenue from alcohol has been affected by our drinking habits.
So, back to the motorist. We pay some of the highest tax on fuels as it is and you cannot ask a decreasing number of individuals to pay an ever increasing tax burden. The economy still needs transport so that commerce can continue. I would agree with the principle of a tax in usage, but question the idea of an annual usage tax.
How does the government verify the mileage driven each year? Self regulation is an invitation to manipulate the system
How is a bill of several hundred (or thousand) pounds to be paid? Is it one annual amount, or weekly or monthly bill? What are the costs of collection and enforcement?
How is it collected? Look at the current problems with outstanding congestion charges, toll charges and fines.
The principle of a tax charge on usage is a sound economic principle and apportions the greater charges on those who travel the furthest, but the verification and collection processes need deeper scrutiny to ensure certainty of collection and minimisation of evasion.
Tha’ts sounds good in general but not all are equal as we know people that live in the country – Elderly – Disabled etc would be pay more & along side them any one that lives in small towns are also paying more saving people in Large city’s with Trams – Tube & better public transport will gain more. How would this be balanced to protect those that need to use a car all the time.
I read a lot of rubbish in my but this takes the biscuit.
From social and domestic drivers should not have the same road access as commerce to boo hop have to pay extra because I have more than one vehicle.
Environmental tax is unfair unless supported by the worlds population.
Tax is collected but mismanaged by politicians.
Police do not support public view as they drive over the same pot holes.
So what about those who drive on the continent in our own cars? So far about a third of the mileage I/we have driven in my car has been abroad. Am I to be taxed for driving in Europe? What about the myriad of foreign vehicles driving on our roads? It’s not just HGVs. I see a range of foreign vehicles in my local LIDL and ALDI car parks. How are they to be taxed in such a primitive system.
Practicality? Not nil – minus ten!
I have no problems about paying a fair tax for using my car, nor about this being increased if there is an excessive environmental issue with it (I drive a VW engined diesel car) but then I expect there to be active pressure on the motor industry to make effective retrofit systems to control that pollution and that fitting appropriate, effective systems to my car will taken into account in the tax I pay.
The problem is that I can see so many easy ways of “screwing” the system that it would be totally inequitable.
There are *NO* easy answers and the awarding of the Wolfson prize for such a half-witted suggestion shows how little contact “Economists” obviously have with the real world that we have to live and drive in. Also how little they have checked the many times similar crackpot ideas have been mooted before – for decades! In patent law it’s called “prior discovery”.
Scrapping VED will never happen . The government knows how many vehicles need to be compulsory taxed every year and therefore know how much revenue they will be squeezing out of the motorist. If VED is scrapped and it is levied on a pay as you go system all we need to do is to leave our vehicles at home for a day and they would lose millions in revenue. That’s why it has never happened although it seems fairer that those who use the roads the most pay the most. It was over 30 years ago or more that I had the idea , I assume the my share of the prize has gone missing down a pothole.
I can see how this would be beneficial to people who don’t use their car very often but, as the article has stated, this would be disastrous for self-employed drivers like myself.
Currently taxes, fuel and insurance account to about 1/3 the amount I make each month. With another 1/3 going towards vehicle maintenance and other expenses, that leaves me with about 1/3 to live off (which given the hours I work is not very much). As I can do 2000-3000 miles a week, that 1/3 would plummet on a pay-per-mile basis to the point where it would not be financially viable. There would have to be a cap; a maximum amount payable so that the scheme would benefit light users but not overly penalise heavy users.
There is no need for any such scheme; VED should be abolished entirely and, if is absolutely necessary to replace the revenue, a small amount added to petrol duty to compensate. A much larger amount (something of the order of ten times) ,would need to be added to diesel duty so that all vehicles paid indirect proportion to their toxic emissions. This has the effect of charging entirely fairly every driver; if one drives a high polluter, a huge mileage, like a clown, one is automatically penalised.
Absolutely. It would mean an end to uninsured drivers and thus there would be no problem settling insurance claims. If people use the road little or a lot, it equates if we pay per mile. It could encourage non polluting vehicles too. Great idea!
I think this is not the best idea. How are they going to monitor milage? What about driving abroad? For petrol/diesel cars most fair way of taxation would be to include all taxes in the price of fuel. Also possible to do it for roadside electric chargers, maybe not easiest for those charging at home but still possible. Regardless of car make/model/engine size/ you pay for how much you burn. It is the most fair system – it will encourage people to use more eco cars/ vans/hgv’s and be most fair of all. In current system road tax is very unfair, why I have to pay £500 road tax for my old car if I only do 1500 miles a year in it? I use my electric car for all my daily needs and only use gas guzzler for short weekend trip. Other people do 150000 miles a year and also pay £500 a year.
Rule needs to be simple – you drive you pay, you don’t drive you don’t pay. Also insurance needs to be reformed as current system is very unfair. It needs to be calculated separately for driver and for car.
driver insurance – should allow driver to drive any vehicle for which he has licence, REGARDLESS OF WHO OWNS THE CAR, and protect him from any claims against the driver. So if driver has accident of his fault this insurance covers damages against the driver but not cover damages to the drivers vehicle.
car insurance – protects the car, regardless of who is driving it. This insurance cover damage to drivers vehicle and is not mandatory.
electric cars will be let off scot free like cyclists unless every road vehicle is tagged and charged per mile the technology is available as most vehicles currently have internet connection disabling the vehicle remotely will be possible for non payers who can then have their vehicles impounded till paid a whole new industry will result
”With the £27 billion being made from fuel duty each year under threaten from the increasing number of electric vehicles on the road”
and there you have it , ” 27 billion ‘under threat” , that usually gets them thinking of other ways to relive you of your money, under the guise of ”it’s in your best interest”
yes I know things have to be paid for , but why go about in what I’d call an insidious way , this is why people get upset , as when the actual truth is revealed it bears no resemblance to what was said , in this case honesty is the best policy , there is no such thing as perfection
TFL apparently want me to pay £65 (late payment of fine) , and guess what their excuse is , it’s to go towards maintaining the roads , I don’t even live in London and I wasn’t driving my car
it’s called a congestion charge , which is meant to ease the flow of traffic not help pay for the up keep of London roads charge , and what do road works do if not hold up the flow of traffic , but TLF want me to contribute towards the up keep of London roads , you couldn’t make it up
there ya go I’ve had my little whinge and feel all the better for it
Hi Ken (Gill).
I do not think the number of cars on the road will decrease any noticeable difference. Ok a few may walk the mile instead of driving – but only on fine days, not when it is wet. Most vehicles on the road are people working and they will have no choice.
David
Hmmmmmm a good idea from a transport planner……………… must be a first !
Everyone who has posted so far has added some good comments and ideas.
Can I throw a few in ?
1) What about the 1,000,000 and more uninsured drivers on the UK’s roads? who don’t pay insurance, don’t tax their cars, no MOT in most cases, the only contribution they make is the bit paid on petrol.
2) What about the 100’s of thousands, possibly many more, of foreign vehicles using the UK’s roads, again the only contribution being a bit of fuel tax, a bit more is produced by the HGV levy though.
Although they cry crocodile tears that they don’t make money, I see that insurance companies want to jump on this bandwaggon, purely for the good of the world…………………….. not to make more money………..honest.
Basically if VED is scrapped and the equivalent added to fuel tax is the way forward, yes there will be winners and losers, as there are with the present system and always will be.
But, those who don’t pay VED would still be contributing by their fuel consumption, those who use the roads more would contribute more, foreign drivers would contribute more, high consumption heavy vehicles would contribute more.
With it being put on fuel it could kickstart vehicle manufacturers into producing even more efficient, which usually means less polluting vehicles.
One thing Gergely’s idea won’t do is ensure all vehicles on the UK are insured.
Though important, I’m not too fussed if a few don’t have an MOT, likewise VED.
However, to me insurance is more inportant, I’ve seen the havoc piled on other innocents by uninsured drivers, from something as simple as driving off after a mild RTA to driving off after killing someone.
Just keep it simple. All tax should be on the fuel only and remove the nonsense of separate road tax with its artificial thresholds etc. This is fair and quite rightly incentivises driving less. It monitors itself automatically.
With income tax the richest pay more tax per £ in percentage terms not just pro rata, so there is no way that the drivers who are rich enough to burn more fuel should complain about pro rata tax.
Some people who own a car MUST use it to travel EVERWHERE they do not even consider other means of transport not even walking a very short distance They own a car and MUST drive EVERYWHERE The will sit in traffic jams for a considerable time just because they own a car They spend hours driving around just find an expensive car parking space as near as possible to they want to be if they cannot find one then some just abandon their car with no thought of the inconvenience it causes the disabled and mothers with prams They do not care about anything but themselves Todays drivers???
There are lots of views and I’d hate to have to sort it all out and, at 72, I haven’t got the time. I drive a Ford Kuga because, at my age and being ‘creaky’ I want to get UP into a car, not fall into it and then have to roll out not the ground/pavement as I had to with my earlier Honda Civic. The Kuga is diesel and the idea of extra tax for diesel came out the week after I bought it BUT there seems to me that there is no pollution tax for trucks, busses and taxis iin filthy , stinking London. When I last went there (by train), a few weeks ago, most of the traffic was stationary most of the time – burning and turning. At least my car engine turns off automatically when I stop!
Electric cars – brilliant – if you have A Tesla and live in Norway (free electricity) but here there are few charging points and the miles you can go on a charge is pitiful. I suppose there’s always the chance of going back to horse-drawn, like my Granddad!
As a motability car driver we pay automatically for insurance and road tax in our payment to Motability so how would putting the taxes onto fuel benefit us.
As for Diesel cars being gas guzzlers you get more mpg with diesel than you do with petrol
Why the prize? This has been an ongoing government programme for years hence smart motorways and variou tax changes. The delay is merely getting technology in place but note that DVL systems are up and running, relevant associated vehicle monitoring bodies are all in place and technology is just coming to the forefront.
A large number of drivers are already being affected by over zealous use of this technology, effectively raiseing “stealth taxes”.
The paper presented is merely a print out of pre-stated government policy?
Surely the duty on fuel is a pay by mile charge that also in effect takes into account now polluting your vehicle is and how much wear it has on the rood. The bigger the vehicle, the dirtier the engine, the more miles you drive, the more time you spend sitting in traffic means you pay more. Therefore someone living in a rural area where they need a car and use a small one to commute, socially etc,. allowing them to drive in a very economic/low impact way would pay a lot less than a large vehicle in the city. I thought of the idea 30+ years ago when road tax was relatively a lot higher that it should be got rid of and at the time calculated that, assuming 30mpg and 10,000 mile a year, would need a 3 pence increase in fuel duty.
The proposal just seems a very complicated way of trying raise the money in an alternative way. Surely currently the problem is how the income is spent not how it is generated.
As for electric vehicles all we hear is how environmentally friendly they are, no one ever mentions how the electricity is generated.
How would the tax per mile work for those, like me, who travel on to mainland Europe and indeed clock up approximately half of my annual mileage there?
My declared mileage to my insurance company is 12000.
Would I be paying a levy for ALL of this?
How could “home and away” be divided fairly?
To be taxed twice (after payment of fuel duty in other countries) would be iniquitous, if not illegal!
So with no fuel duty to speak of, drivers from across the channel get to take advantage of the cheapest fuel in Europe while the British public subsidise this through pay as you drive schemes. Where did you say this lad with the brightest idea came from?
Pay by mile is a sensible way to pay for duty, levying it on to fuel usage would be the best way to collect it not withstanding the losses caused by fuel bilkers (something I saw at a petrol station by a motorist using a pump on the same stand that I was filling up on!).
The problem with including insurance in such a scheme is that this charge is calculated on statistics based on a number of factors and therefor would not be a fair way to charge motorists as anyone who has worked in the industry would understand and explain.
As a diesi car owner of some 30 odd years originally as a driver driving on average some 40-50,000 miles a year mostly in London traffic, I do accept that I should pay a higher rate on fuel. However, this is also unfair in that there a now at least six levels(I beleive) of pollution dependant on the technology involved in the engine efficieny fitted to the vehicle. My current vehicle is regarded as reasonable clean at Euro 5 level.
On balance whilst the concept of pay by mile sounds good it does not work fairly to the majority of drivers since it cannot take into account all the variables involved.
P.s. The reason that National Insurance contributions do not act fairly is because of the same factor of being generous tosome and unfair to others having not thought outproperly at its inception_the same pitfall would happen to the pay by mile.
While on the surface it would seem to be a good idea and worth consideration,a Fair cost would need to be established, and it does not address those, who do not tax or insure their vehicles or those of the traveling community that have no permanent place of residence
I’m always interested in innovative ideas, but the practicality of this hits me in the face. How do you counter fraud? Are inspectors going around to check milometers? How do you prevent winding the clocks back, which I understand unscrupulous dealers can still do, in spite of electronic clocks.
The challenge of accounting for driving overseas, and drivers from overseas driving here are huge. Far more effective to put road tax onto the fuel surcharge.
Having read all the comments, the first two nearly said it all. However, in most cases, involving private companies (such as the insurance companies) in collecting tax leads to increased costs, unless it’s done like VAT, so surely the only fair way is to collect tax at the pump so that those who drive more, pay more. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t affect electric vehicles, which at present avoid car taxes, but that is what the government seems to want. Why should they – the electric car drivers – get a free ride? Electric vehicles cause pollution, but only at the source (the power stations) and separating electricity for the car from that for the home is impossible so the idea of pay-per-mile may have to be introduced in the future.
The whole idea of including insurance in the tax system is crazy – insurance may be imperfect, but at least it’s a competitive market and drivers are charged for their misbehaviour or rewarded for good behaviour and it is between them and their insurance companies.
Paraphrasing Churchill, the present system may be a poor one, but all alternatives are worse. Leave it alone – the current system is about as fair as one can get and can be tweaked as required.
I am amazed that this guy has been awarded £250k for this scheme. I have been informally advocating something very similar for years, so what the hell is brilliant about that? Is it that he has had access to ego-trip academics that have been willing and eager to push this scheme for the attached academic kudos? What’s more, one can readily envisage the costly bureaucratic machine that would inevitably accompany such a new scheme of tax collection. After all, we in the UK don’t even seem to have the capability to rationalise the vehicle excise duty (RFL to most of us) scheme, let alone a pay-as-you-go system. The mind has to boggle at the cost of administration!
It is my contention that contrary to setting up some new and inevitably highly bureaucratic ‘jobs for the academic boys’ charging collection system, a flat rate tax should be just added to fuel charges. The infrastructure for collection of motor vehicle fuel tax already exists and is (presumably) a fairly well oiled and working mechanism. Quite how vehicle insurance charges could be built into that, however, is a imponderable, given the variables of insurable risk factors and the need to avoid incurring even more burdensome and expensive establishment bureaucracy.
Furthermore, I cannot comprehend what is actually novel about the idea for which the £250k has been awarded. France scrapped its RFL tax vignette donkeys’ years ago by simply building it into their fuel taxes.
It all reads like a bit like another academia ego trip scam to me.
Good grief, who does Mr Zurowski know who does 150000 miles a year? Based on a 5 day week & NO holidays, that’s about 575 miles per day!! If they have 8 weeks holiday, that’s over 700 miles every working day.
Back to the point in question, if this came to pass, no doubt the government would fix how much we’d have to pay & we’d have to pay it, & they could then increase the tariff any time they like. As it stands, the thirstier the vehicle & the more miles you drive means that you’re paying more fuel duty & VAT than someone who drives less miles. It seems pretty fair to me.
Mr Zurowski makes the most sensible comment. You burn fuel you pay tax and the more noxious the fuel, i.e. Diesel, the more tax you should pay. There should be emissions charges in cities for combustion engine cars and should be graded based on the car’s fuel to incentivise natural gas cars or the adoption of Diesel engine optimisers for vans and hgv’s. All city taxis, buses etc should be nat gas or electric, it’s a disgrace London buses and taxis still burn what they do. The govt should have incentivised change long ago. Engine idling fines should be properly imposed and enforced.
This fine for cities where there is a bus every few minutes and metro services. There are many places where the bus runs occasionally, there are no metro services and it is miles to a train station for a train which goes where you do not want to go.
Why was the car I have ‘clean’ when I bought it and ‘dirty’ now? What has changed? Nothing – just the latest bandwagon. By all means clamp down on cars in cities, I will happily avoid cities, and I do. The traffic is dreadful, the bus services opaque and the metro is expensive. I have driven inside the M25 for the last time and used the Dartford Crossing for the last time (ANPR toll collection). Eduardo, let’s see you make some progress where people are able to change to public transport and to environmentally clean vehicles, let’s see you make progress on reducing private transport in cities, let us see progress on providing car parks on the edges of cities and clean public transport to the centre of cities, let us see the cities cleaned up, and private vehicles banned from many areas, and maybe cities will be worth visiting.
However there are a lot of us for whom a car enables us to visit the shop or supermarket and get our shopping home (have you tried carrying a week’s shopping 2 or 3 miles when you are retired?), get to the nearest bus stop or get our children/grandchildren to and from school without a 5 mile walk twice a day because the local buses and local shops disappeared long ago.
Your ideas are good, but they only work in cities – outside cities they will lead to massive deprivation.
Cities are not small towns. I would like to be able to give up driving, but for me and many like me, my home would become a prison if I did.
I really don’t care how the government dresses it up. I think the amount of tax the government extracts from road users is appalling. I think it is nothing more than legalised theft on a grand scale.
The naivety of a “plan” suggesting that a major source of tax revenue should be policed by nothing more complex than a guesstimate of annual mileage on a declaration to your car insurance company is worthy of Baldric. The fact that a supposedly esteemed economic authority would think this nonsense deserves a prize of £250,000 merely reinforces my belief that economists are a waste of space.
Many people have stated by far the fairest way to charge, and that is undoubtly by charging through fuel pricing. The more a driver / vehicle uses the more they pay. generally speaking the more ecconomical the engine the cleaner it is too.
With regards to driving abroad, it’s up to those other countries to charge whatever they like and however they like for using their roads. I doubt many people will drive over from France (or any other European coutry) to the UK just to purchase their fuel every time they need to fill up. The ferry costs would make nonsense of that. Security at UK ferries is tight enough to spot any traveller who may have their car boot full of large containers filled with fuel, as I have found out on one occassion travelling to Ireland – either put the ‘extra’ fuel in your fuel tank, or have it confiscated.
Inner cities should continue with their congestion charges to compensate for excessive pollution and reduce traffic congestion which should assist traffic flow. Cleaner fuels and more reliable public transport systems need to be invested heavily in.
A fixed proportion of the fuel price levie MUST be used to develop / promote cleaner fuel vehicles and not frittered away on unnecessary policical transport ‘PR projects’ that do not serve any meaningful purpose – ie what’s the point of having a high speed rail network if it grinds to a halt due to some leaves on the line – rid the country of deciduous trees that are nearby to roads, railways and rivers, their roots are very shallow (unlike deep rooted evergreen trees) so they get blown down, crashing onto people, roads, railways, rivers, buildings, vehicles etc. Their shallow roots make it easy for soil to be eroded away causing landslides, their leaves block streams and rivers – cause flooding, which then causes untold damage to the road, river and rail networks, farming crops and bringing all manner of life in communities across the whole UK to a halt, costing the country more money through numerous ‘loss of production days’ each year. Ban the country of deciduous trees near roads, railways and rivers – leave us alone….. lol…
I’m with Stephen Mitcham who submitted his comment on 21st July, whereby the road tax duty should be paid within the fuel costs only. As he suggests, it’s a simple system, and it monitors itself automatically. I’ve been of this opinion for many years. That is, to apply the road tax duty to the petrol you pay for at the pumps. In that way, you pay for the mileage you make only, and the people who can afford to run the larger fuel guzzlers will be able to afford to pay for the extra wear and tear their vehicle would cause to the roads. Also, it would be a fairer system for someone who may have two vehicles (which I haven’t), in that you would pay for the use of the road for whichever vehicle you were driving at the time through the petrol you used. You can only drive one vehicle at any one time, but under the present system you have to pay road tax duty for both of the vehicles, one of which will be stationary at home. A good example of this is, if you were to own a car and a motor home (which I don’t), whereby you drive the car on a regular basis, but you may only drive the motor home two or three times a year yet, under the present system, you have to pay road tax duty for the remainder of the year the motor home is standing idle at home. Again, it’s a simple system, and easily implemented, without additional costs to do so. It’s also fairer in that you would pay for the exact mileage you do on the road within the petrol you’ve used to do so.
I agree totally, as long as this includes the cost of insurance as well. Most motorists are accident free and the Fuel costs would cover insurance for the majority who hardly ever make a claim. For the accident prone who are charged higher premiums then these need to be collected additionally. A surcharge on motoring fines for serious offences would also go into the pot. Fixed penalty for parking infringements, slightly overhanging a junction box, etc would not pay this extra penalty.
We would then know what it costs us per mile to run a car.
How about car parks on the edge of cities with clean public transport into the cities? Driving in the city will require ‘clean’ vehicles, be open to residents and their visitors who will need to get a permit (for a charge) in advance.
Any other ideas?
If the cost of insurance is on the fuel there is no incentive not to claim for any little thing and rubbish drivers are not penalised.
This so called “Plan” has so many holes in it. This proposed tax would not be transparent and therefore open to alsorts of exchequer abuse.
What about all the people who very often drive on the continent and which can clock up miles which have already been paid for through continental fuel duties? Or the people who drive there vehicle (commercial or private) for a living on the continent but return to a uk base address, officially they could be seen as clocking up UK miles when in practice they have been using other roads.
The fact that insurance companies have all the data needed would also raise a big question, they are suppose to be private companies and as such they are profit generating. I doubt they will do this work for free and you still need a government checker. Sounds like a tax destined to rise. Sorry I don’t believe it will work.
The French system of paying for the majority of their road system by a fuel tax seems to work and their fuel is still less than the UK, coupled with the fact that the roads are better.
The answer is still “stop using road taxes for other hidden things” if you want to make roads better
The person who gave this idea should be sacked because it is the most stupid idea i have ever heard is this man related to the winner.
At present you pay in advance of driving when you buy the fuel. This idea involves paying after you have driven. There are numerous faults that make this idea totally unsuitable. To charge someone after they have driven involves fitting a tracking device to the vehicle. Who is going to pay for this? As there are millions of vehicles on the road how could any device be fitted to each and every vehicle. Given that there are plenty of areas of the country where there are no or poor mobile phone coverage how can it work. Having a tracking device involves monitoring or spying on the driver and no doubt would be used for fining people if they broke the speed limit. If someone was sent a bill and they said they could not pay what would happen then. If a vehicle came from overseas then they would be traveling for a lot less than the UK based drivers as they would not have a tracking device. If the device broke or was tampered with then would anyone know about it and would it stop them driving. Rather than raising revenue this would actually cost the government as people would be paying in arrears if at all. To have an operating system in place would cost many millions to run each year and would involve all insurance companies passing on details so that each vehicle could be charged accordingly.
I am with Roger Kenealy on this. Much the fairer way
People I talk to have all said that if we pay for road tax included in the petrol price it would be the most fair system.
I can’t understand how someone can win a prize like that for an idea which is so flawed.
If we pay on the petrol then those who drive the most, on our uk roads including the foreign drivers , those who hire cars will then equally contribute .
The suggestion of paying a lump sum for estimating mileage would make it hard for those less well off plus an extra on top of high car insurance too. It wouldn’t be exact either .
Can’t see any better way to get our roads properly sorted without a fair system for all.
Remember some people have a nil or £30 a year road tax. My old car was over £200 when I sold it this one is just under. So many people sh can afford a new car that is eco friendly get off lightly. Those who can’t afford a newer car pay the price.
Bring on tax on petrol fir a fair system for the UK.
Well this is a dumb idea and someone won a prize for it ! If its on milage too many people will get away without paying properly. Our insurers are going to deal with it and monitor our but it wont affect our privacy………. How stupid do they think we are. So are we going to have to tell them every month how many miles we have done and pay a lump sum, oh sure, how many people will not be able to pay their lump sum after the event. If its not us telling them they wil have to have remote monitoring but its not affecting our privacy…….. Non UK cars will get away with it totally and there will be ways found to stop cars recording mileage properly. People are already not paying properly now we dont have tax discs. If ALL the tax was on fuel no one could get away with it, if you dont have the money for fuel you cant go far and heavier fuel guzzeling cars pay more – simple.
Most correspondents seem to have cottoned on to the obvious flaws in this proposal. Paying all taxes in the price of petrol/diesel is almost the perfect system. The drawback is how to tax electric/hybrid vehicles. Also insurance has to be paid separately, except for the insurance tax element which would be included in the fuel price, as it is individually calculated. This leads to another of my pet theories – insurance should be calculated on the drivers details, not the vehicle details, allowing him to drive any vehicle for which he holds a license. I’m just as likely to cause an accident in a small engined car as a larger engined car. I also believe that drivers should own a number plate for life. When an offence is committed, what’s the point of tracing the car through its number plate, its the owner of the vehicle that needs to be traced. We would then just transfer the number plate to each car that we own – more than one car could carry the same number plate if they are owned by the same person.
Surely, the obvious way to do this is to tax the fuel but only the fuel and that way if someone chooses to drive a ‘gas guzzler’ and do loads of miles every year, they are going to pay more for it than someone who drives a very economical vehicle and only does a few miles a year. I have always said that VED should only be a nominal administration fee to cover the cost of registering the vehicle’s / owner’s details. As for getting revenue from electric vehicles: easy – tax the batteries. That way, electric vehicle manufacturers will have an incentive to come up with more and more efficient power cells.
No thought is also given to us drivers who live in rural areas (Suffolk) who do not have access to public transports. We HAVE to use our cars to do anything in this world.
I also have a larger car than I need because I have to take my elderly dementia and cancer suffering parents to hospital – they are unable to walk far, cannot use public transport and rely on me to do a 100mile return trip for their hospital appointments in Central London. We can’t use hospital transport as they don’t allow the 3 of us to travel together – I cannot leave one parent at home whilst the other goes to hospital. I therefore run a modern diesel car to make up for the lack of public transport.
I had an idea ages ago, zonal fuel pricing, cheapest areas won’t pay more than now unless covering 20k, most expensive, eg London, 4k a year? Not too hard to enforce, set dual pricing at cheaper areas and require a driving licence to be shown to get the “local rate”. Maybe open to abuse, but under the plan mentioned, some sort of tracking system would be needed, and to leave insurance companies in control of this? What could possibly go wrong! Blanket fuel charges would penalise those in rural areas. I’m usually in London or Dartford and would happily cut my mileage, or at least pay more to have less congested roads.
The vast majority of UK registered vehicles are company owned so their owners would have the biggest say.
Private Owner-drivers would have to go along with whatever suits them.
Also in the greater London area, I estimate that at least 20% of the vehicles are on foreign number plates so they are off the hook, and all those with hookey number plates or no number plates at all.
In my opinion, the most straightforward way would be a fuel tax. In the case of electric or gas powered a front end tax to cover the life of the vehicle.
Another way would be a tyre tax, all vehicles need these, however this still raises questions about foreign vehicles, but then tyres would be subject to smuggling by foreign vehicles.