Re: Road Rage

On 8 Jan, 23:05, "Pob" <p...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Matt B" <matt.bou...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:5uhng4F1i3qtgU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Except - that's what fuel duty is, and if the motor vehicle road tax
applies, it applies whether the vehicle produces any "fossil fuel carbon
emissions", or not (e.g. if it is parked and never moves).

In Edinburgh, they have decided that if you park your car on the street
outside your house, the annual permit will increase with your Vehicle Excise
Duty rank - i.e. you are definitely being charged for your level of
non-emissions - it is now the case that if I were to drive to work,
increasing congestion and emissions, I'd not need to pay the charge, and it
would cost me less per annum - but metered parking in town, where people
will have driven, isn't varying similarly (for fairly obvious reasons, but
still, it's a bit topsy-turvy)

It is the way the world is going, it's a bit of a nuisance, but there's not
a lot one can do.

The fault with VED, and any parking tax you can avoid by driving to
work, is they are a tax on ownership rather than use. Such taxes add
to the overheads of running a car and encourage use of it irrespective
of the amount or type of fuel it burns. In fact, by levying a higher
charge on more polluting vehicles, the owners of such vehicles are
given a stronger incentive to use them rather than public transport!

Four years ago I was obliged to get a car or give up tandemming with
my wife - except for local rides - when the local train company got
"improved" rolling stock. Now I have the car, it costs me several
hundred pounds a year regardless of how much I use it. In the past I
often travelled by train or bus, but with fares at their current
inflated levels, even with fuel over £1 a litre, I would be a fool not
to drive instead. So I do.

To make it cost-effective for people to keep their cars as pets and
use them only for journeys they cannot make by other means, government
would need to abolish all of the fixed overhead costs it is within
their power to eliminate, i.e. VED, the MOT test fee and 3rd party
insurance, whilst increasing fuel tax sufficiently to gather all the
necessary revenue (simultaneously solving the problem of untaxed,
uninsured verhicles).

Instead they are tinkering with VED in connivance with the motor trade
a pathetic attempt to encourage the purchase of new cars that might
perhaps produce a bit less CO2. More expensive fuel seems much more
likely to draw attention to the consumption figures at new car
purchase time, but if they want to send a direct signal it would
surely be much more sensible to vary the rate of car purchase tax.

Whatever, you're right about the way the world is going. :-(
.

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