Really worried about the possibility of “pay per mile”

[Yorkiepud2614]

I’ve been seeing more and more about this new proposal “pay per mile” that would replace car duty (I think). Which the average household bill somewhere around £450 - £600. Lots of reports that it may come in this October.
Living in the Highlands this would completely cripple us. Do people really think the new government will bring this change in?

And Dorset!

Tolls for motorways I could get on board with, although I'd feel very sorry for the small towns and villages which would be flooded with traffic avoiding the tolls.

Fine by me if the annual car tax is removed and fuel duty reduced at the same time.

I'm not sure it's possible yet.
Presumably different types of road would be differentially priced - rural roads maybe free. But it'd need to be pitched so that people didn't spurn motorways and trunk roads and switch to smaller (more dangerous) roads. Maybe at some point there could be smart charging so you could use your local roads for a lower price.

Lots of countries have a certain number of toll roads. Afaik the m6 toll works pretty well, but not sure how many roads that would work on.

Do you have an electric car?

Which MP? Can't find anything.

Everything I'm reading there is a shill account mentioning it in passing - mostly the same ones spreading hate, encouraging the riots and complaining about Labour.

Road pricing has been discussed for many years. It would be difficult politically and technically to bring it in. No way will this be announced in October.

This is nonsense. It would take years to get the infrastructure in place and be incredibly unpopular. It won't happen.

Everyone pays per mile now via fuel duty. There is some thinking needed on how to balance both

• take away fuel duty and do this instead? But little incentive to choose lower carbon emission vehicles
• have both side by side? But then those in fossil fuel cars get charged twice
• just charge EVs? But then what about hybrids, and doesn’t do enough to move towards emissions targets of fewer fossil fuel cars
• just pay for eg motorways like in France - but would that raise enough and be proportionate for all drivers, or would it make motorways v expensive pushing traffic to back routes?

but can’t see that we can keep the current model as more and more people buy EVs and hybrids

Fuel is vatable though so the amount the government brings in has gone up in line with fuel costs rising.

I cant see any announcements relating to this.
Just some 'articles' from GB News and Express and nonsense on FB.

We dont have the infrastructure for this. So I am concluding its rubbish.

its badly needed in cities, where public transport is expensive so people drive instead, so the roads are clogged, no space for bus lanes, everything is slow and polluted. It should always be twice as expensive to drive as to take the bus in cities, and that just isn’t the case at the moment. Upping costs for drivers needs to be directly linked to reducing the price of public transport, and - even more importantly - making it faster and more reliable.

outside cities it’s much trickier. I am sure that a base cost will come at some point - it’s that, or MASSIVE increases in unit costs for electricity, which would be even more wrong. It might be that you get a bill w your MOT depending on how far you’ve driven that year. It would be deeply unhelpful to disincentivise motorway driving by just charging for that and not other roads - what a way to increase congestion and accidents!

Your mileage is recorded every time you have an MOT. It wouldn't take much to calculate the change in mileage year to year, with the mileage at the point the car is sold being added to the V5 slip that's sent to DVLA.

That just leaves the mileage in the first 3 years to consider.

I'd imagine it would be easily charged based on an estimate using the prior year and corrected annually based on actual mileage at the date of the MOT

Alicia Kearns.
We are rural so there’s a lot of concern here.

But I’m also a long time EV owner so recognise there will need to be some change.

Its up there with 15min cities as the latest right wing conspiracy theory. Fuel duty is basically pay per mile anyway .

This would probably be enough to get Scotland voting for independence.

Its such a London-centric idea.

However I don't believe its part of Labour's plans. Google says its Daily Express.

Why wouldn’t they just have it read off the car’s odometer when it gets MOTd or whenever. No need for any infrastructure.

Not that I support the policy.

I hope it doesn’t come in, it’s a shitty idea and unfairly taxes the working class who usually use their car for working; think community nurses, working parents who need to be in 5 places at once, people with caring responsibilities etc etc

Awful idea - would potentially have the same impact as slashing UC

Alicia Kearns - right wing nut job

Did anyone really believe they were going to give up all the lovely tax money from petrol and diesel when electric cars came in?!

Pay per mile is coming, but I would imagine it won't be a flat rate, driving in the Highlands off peak will be considerably cheaper than driving on the M1 at rush hour.

The technology is already there.

It will be dressed up as for out own good,for the environment and drip fed at first with incentives to access it.

Once a tipping point has been reached, it will become compulsory.

It’s incredibly easy (and cheap) to have your car mileage corrected.

The technology is already there

Is it? Where?

It’s not just rural infrastructure that won’t cope. I live in a decent sized town, with a lot of tourists; and the bus services are disappearing because the providers say nobody uses them. The only reliable one we still have is one to the town next door, which takes an hour (instead of a 20 minute drive), and the park and ride, which is randomly located up a dual carriageway from town.

That said, I do think it’s being seriously looked at.

So it will probably end up cheaper to fly than drive.