“Road Tax” – Pay As You Go

Biggus-Dickkus wrote:

Biggus-Dickkus wrote:

Battery cars: I wonder where the materials to make all these batteries are going to come from in the first place, and that is apart from replacements that will be needed in the future. Batteries only have a limited number of charging cycles. Personally I think we need to look at a different way to get propulsion in vehicles because batteries are not the long term answer…

 

Pre-pubescent boys in Sierra Leone are going to get the raw materials from unsafe mines, someone in the far East is going to turn them into batteries and a dirty factory and then we’ll chuck em underground when they’re knackered.

Battery cars: I wonder where

Battery cars: I wonder where the materials to make all these batteries are going to come from in the first place, and that is apart from replacements that will be needed in the future. Batteries only have a limited number of charging cycles. Personally I think we need to look at a different way to get propulsion in vehicles because batteries are not the long term answer…

I find it sad that VED is as

I find it sad that VED is as cheap as it is and only paid for by small amount of people. Charge properly and charge everyone, we need a way of charging everyone based on miles ( ie foreign drivers etc ) and doing it fairly, outside of tolls I cannot see how this can be done due to things like electric cars.

Heck if we had some proper infrastructure I would happily pay to use my bike, sadly all we get is shit piled on shit. 

I guess this is a really

I guess this is a really tricky subject for many and of course many reasons for the heavy traffic congestion has been raised here. Clearly we have to look back at the time when Buses were common place everywhere, people worked closer to home, many in Industry and communities were tighter knit and more social. Over the years since the 1980’s we have had deregulation of bus services, privatisation of trains and other services. During the 80/90’s Industry was badly affected and many companies went to the wall, this led to the “get on your bike and look for work” mantra from the government of the time as so people did. As we now know much of this work is in a different area to the home and the Bike looking for work became the car as default transport and the attitude of the car being a symbol of your status. Over the subsequent 3 decades it has become “normal” and default to use a car for any journey.

Clearly we are now at the point that Holland was in the mid 1970’s when they decided to adopt cycling and public transport and reduce car use, these days they have plenty of cars and like other EU cities and towns the car gets used out of town and not so much inside as those journeys are done by bikes. Obviously the attitude of the local, national and policitians as well as the public has to be willing for this kind of approach. We also find that Obesity is worsening, diabetes is also on the rise but all of this is not just due to sitting in cars travelling however many miles to work and back everyday but to sit in the car for an hour a day, 8 hours sitting at work then another hour home as an example doesn’t help.

Locally we have the Facebook pages and all the time there are constant whinging over congestion and pollution but not one of the posters appear willing to take their hands off of their steering wheels and travel alternatively , but of course this can be limited in places like our Market town with poor public transport.

So….what is the answer….. Pay Per Mile may work to reduce some local trips and may also make some of the population consider their journeys more but I fear that like others have mentioned the less well off could be affected more than those who have better means.  When I go to fill up my vehicle I fill from a quarter tank to the brim, many I see at the pumps pop £5 in to get them by……  A Pay per mile system is the obvious simplistic “solution” for the future with electric vehicles and when the fuel duty tax take is reduced….one has to wonder when we will have the adult conversation as to How we got here, what needs to change, how to implement Pay per Mile, public transport provision, cycling and walking provision. 

It could happen but society and attitudes would need to dramatically change as to how we travel smartly

Yrcm wrote:

Yrcm wrote:

The technology to make this happen already exists, and even if it was pitched so that it cost the average driver about the same as at present it would still have a powerful effect on behaviour. 10p is nothing but plastic bag use has plummeted.

It would make people think more seriously about cycling and public transport, would make them more likely to combine multiple journeys into single ones where they could, and perhaps even not make unimportant journeys they might otherwise have made.

The other thing it has the potential to do is monitor vehicle speed, so drivers would (shock horror) have to stick to speed limits everywhere.

Certainly has the potential to make cycling safer and more normal / popular, but can imagine the road (and possibly the civil liberties) lobby would squeal like stuck pigs if it was put forward as a serious proposal.

All it would do is price poorer people of the roads.

I’ve worked in countries with higher taxes on cars and it doesn’t stop people driving unnecessarily. What does decrease numbers is not building office blocks in the middle of no-where.