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?

Get organised and protest in large numbers all over the country. They tried to bring in water charges in Ireland. People would not stand for it and despite meters installed and billing beginning over many many months the Irish government had to scrap it they could not get people onboard with it.

I think paying per mile is a good idea. I do around 20,000 miles a year, mainly in an electric car, at at the moment and pay almost nothing to do so.

I also think that higher charges in peak times and in urban locations / locations with decent public transport should be used to manage congestion. I especially think that in such areas there should be a minimum charge of £20 for any journey less than a mile and a half one way (exemptions for those whose vehicle is registered 'disabled') to encourage more people to walk!!

Longer journeys should obviously cost a lot less less. And yes, I know there's a problem with a cliff edge at a mile and a half But we have to do something to curb pollution, traffic, risks to pedestrians and noise in urban areas.

Very roughly, if the average RFL for a car is £200, and the average UK mileage is 7,000, then it only needs to average around 3p a mile. So a 300 mile journey costs less than a tenner. But if all you do is one mile journeys in 5 days a week (which you could walk) and a 100 mile journey at the weekend then my approach would cost you a fortune, and hopefully get some traffic off the roads :)

Not my experience - £80odd K of EV costs less to insure than the cheaper petrol Merc it replaced...and certainly nowhere near £1k a year!

The general idea is to levy this on EVs. Not "on top of" fuel and fuel duty for petrol cars.

See Iceland. Levied on EVs, hybrids and hydrogen vehicles (not that you get many of those, obviously).

They do not have special measures for rural yet, but this appears to be because at the moment you do not get enough EVs in Icelandic rural areas to justify this. Once chargers and EVs become widespread in rural areas, they will probably adjust the rules in various ways.

It would be helpful if people could try not to panic about things which have not happened anywhere where PPM has been introduced and are highly unlikely to happen either.

Road Pricing: Iceland and New Zealand: The first two countries to mandate road user charging for EVs

It would also mean elderly people who can’t walk a mile and a half become essentially housebound. Or make unnecessarily long journeys to beat the charge.

I am just taking a lead from our Government. Now that the WFH has been taken away, a bit of walking would warm them up ;)

On a more serious note, OK, add exemptions for the disabled and over 75s. On the excessive journeys - big brother is watching and if you don't take the optimum route you'll be charged as if you had anyway :)

It's the direction of travel (literally and metaphorically) - we are not one of the most watched nations on earth (CCTV cameras per capita) for nothing.

Sorry but this is fantasy land. If Tesco is two miles and Sainsbury’s is a mile I’m going to go to Tesco first then Sainsbury’s on the way home, aren’t I? How is big brother going to know whether I went somewhere for a reason or to get over your draconian limit?

No they wouldn't, this would be instead of fuel, rather than on top of.

Although I saw an article in the Times on Friday saying it costs more for electricity than it does for fuel at times.

Having to take the optimum route reminds me of an ex boss of mine who moaned about one of my expenses claims because I hadn't taken the same route as he would have done.

No they wouldn't, this would be instead of fuel, rather than on top of.

Although I saw an article in the Times on Friday saying it costs more for electricity than it does for fuel at times.

Having to take the optimum route reminds me of an ex boss of mine who moaned about one of my expenses claims because I hadn't taken the same route as he would have done.

Well yes, there will always be time rich people that’ll manipulate the system, but it’s naïve to think that pay per mile technology won’t be used to control where, when and how far we drive. Japan was operating a rudimentary version of this when we lived there in the last century.

The good news is we are probably 10 years away from that point in the U!, and when you add in the government / civil service’s inability to define, spec, tender and implement a system most of us are safe for a while after that . But I reckon those cities that already have a congestion charge system set up will be at the leading edge of that, and will deploy the sort of ‘surge’ pricing that uber use to increase cost in periods of high demand / traffic. And that could be sooner than 10 years.

Did you actually read the suggestion in the post I was responding to? It was that journeys under 1.5 miles be charged at a flat rate of £20.

To be fair, that was my ‘suggestion’ and isn’t really that different to the current congestion charge in London. It was only semi serious, but I think is the inevitable direction of travel

Luckily I’ll be dead before it happens.

In rural areas that's not really true. Lots of people on low incomes will prioritise owning a car after housing costs and food as they can't function otherwise. The cost of living in rural areas is much higher than urban mainly due to transport and energy costs (more likely to be off mains gas)

I wouldn’t go to those extremes!! It won’t be top of any governments list for a while, but I think the devolved mayors (and we are about to have more of them I think?) will jump at the opportunity to raise money,… sorry, I mean control traffic and pollution :)

Why can't the government just leave people alone? Why do they feel the need to meddle in everything?

Well, the thing is, the government has to pay for very expensive services that we use, including building and maintaining roads and tunnels.

Feel free to stop using roads and use your car only to plough your way across muddy fields if you dislike the idea of having a government that much.

We pay plenty of taxes so that the government can provide basic infrastructure such as roads and tunnels.

It’s their job to run the country. You’d be pissed off if they didn’t “meddle”.

People who are law-abiding, hard-working and tax-paying should be left alone by the government. At the moment they are just used as walking chequebooks to fund people who only do some or in some cases, none of those things.

This is another tax scare. Labour are not exploring this option at all.

However, a cheese tax is definitely on the cards, targeting pensioners. I heard about it another tax thread.

People who are law-abiding, hard-working and tax-paying should be left alone by the government.

Asking people to pay tax on their cars is literally the whole point of this discussion though. At the moment, EV owners are not paying any real tax on driving. Some of us are suggesting that maybe they should?

It has been mentioned but more for the future, for EV cars. Do you not think EV car drivers should also contribute to the upkeep of our roads or do you think only ICE drivers should. They should be exploring this option, EVs are mainly company cars, why should they avoid contributing towards the roads they are destroying as they are heavier.

Sorry I missed the £20 thing.

I am sure there would be exemptions for people with blue badges or the elderly.

I don't think the congestion charge for Central London is expensive enough, as there are still private cars there. London is the one place where public transport is really good, and accessible in most cases. Obviously if you/a family member have/has a disability you may need your car.

I think they will have to pay VED from next year. I have an exempt hybrid because it is quite old, but I don't know if I have to pay in future as I am not sure if it is retrospective or only new cars.