higthomas
Member
- Joined
- 27 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 1,133
I personally fully support the idea of road pricing. It seems to me to be the only way to truly reflect priorities in how we tax vehicles.
It means that those driving in SUVs London can be heavily discouraged, whilst those driving electric cars in rural Scotland (where public/active transport is sadly never likely to be an alternative) can drive with minimum penalty.
How to enforce it is going to be a harder method. I'd support an intermediate period where drivers of new vehicles pay road pricing (set at a price whereby it doesn't discourage uptake of new cars), but older vehicles pay VED as their tax. Then set a date (e.g. 2030) by which all road users have to have their vehicles retrofitted with a black box to support this.
I really hope it happens, but the politics is going to be interesting. Strange that it seems to be the treasury pushing for this rather than being climate change/congestion busting related.
It means that those driving in SUVs London can be heavily discouraged, whilst those driving electric cars in rural Scotland (where public/active transport is sadly never likely to be an alternative) can drive with minimum penalty.
How to enforce it is going to be a harder method. I'd support an intermediate period where drivers of new vehicles pay road pricing (set at a price whereby it doesn't discourage uptake of new cars), but older vehicles pay VED as their tax. Then set a date (e.g. 2030) by which all road users have to have their vehicles retrofitted with a black box to support this.
I really hope it happens, but the politics is going to be interesting. Strange that it seems to be the treasury pushing for this rather than being climate change/congestion busting related.