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?

Or there could be a system where you go to a garage that can do MOTs and for a small fee they check and submit your mileage. I mean it is a two minute job and they obviously do the MOT records on line so easy to adapt it.

I'd be quite happy as I do very low mileage and it would be a great incentive to walk more.

I knew I'd read about a new annual tax for electric cars coming in;

From 2025, thousands of UK drivers will be required to pay an additional £335 annually due to new car tax rules. Electric vehicle owners will face a £190 charge from next April as Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) is imposed on zero-emission models for the first time.
HM Revenue and Customs has stated that the new scheme will affect individuals who own an electric car, van or motorcycle. However, some motorists will be hit harder than others, with higher costs for owners of light goods vehicles and vans

The changes mean that zero-emission vans will be subject to the same rate as petrol and diesel light goods vehicles. Currently, this stands at £335 per year, but it's expected that the annual fee may rise slightly before next spring.

It will come but based on GPS etc tracking technology not ANPR cameras although those might be used in some places, such as where there are already ULEZ s in place, as a back up.

First I've heard of it and the practicalities of calculating what people pay and charging them for it strikes me as so difficult it's unlikely to happen soon.

Personally, I wouldn't give it a second thought.

I think that's a bit silly. Garages obviously make money from MOTs so why risk losing that part of your business which must generate more business as if a car fails people tend to get the work done at the MOT garage. Secret shoppers to do random checks.

What a ridiculous statement.
Few of us ‘pay for what we use’ through taxation in many of areas of life, for example education, health and the welfare state. Why should driving be any different. Should we start charging parents the real costs of educating their children?
Car ownership has actually got increasingly expensive. The issue is not that vehicle tax is too low, but that public transport costs are often ridiculously high and not possible for a lot of people, particularly in rural areas. If there was an efficient, reasonably priced transport system, then I’m sure lots of people would use it. In most places outside of big cities, there is not.
Road charging would also be likely to be another policy that impacts unfairly on poorer families.

I generally agree with pay per mile, for climate and fossil fuel conservation. However how much you pay per mile should be based on the facilities in your area and the availability of other options. If they get this wrong the consequences for rural areas would be dire. I would hope the money raised would go to improving local public transport and services.

The Government already know how many miles you do a year, it is on your M.O.T certificate.

It's just not going to happen.

Political suicide for any government that tries to bring this in.

It will be fine once the synthetic fuel is a goer they can go back to hiking up the tax on fuel.

It's.not.happening.

The Labour council put the clean air zone charging in Manchester on indefinite ice for a reason.

That's after they spent a fortune on the infrastructure and planning for it. And it took time to install.

There's no sign of that changing anytime soon.

Until that is resolved they won't even consider other schemes elsewhere.

If you think that areas which have put such schemes on ice are going to roll over and support a national scheme starting in October, you are off your rocker.

There's no infrastructure and no political will for it.

Yorkie thats an express article. Do you have any other sources other than a newspaper who predicts the next ice age every winter 🤔😂

Or a news source that isn't RW leaning?

What nonsense. It’s not happening. @Yorkiepud2614 should get better sources. The Express, Daily Mail, Facebook and nonsense gossip are not reputable sources. I despair at the ability of some people to think critically. The level of education in this country is astonishingly low.

But it doesn’t work for those who change cars in between MOTs

@crumpet
It could be included on the V5 slip that is sent to DVLA and recorded that way. It would just need both parties to sign and agree

Sorry, they only taught us to distrust the daily mail at fortrose academy, they didn’t cover the other new sources. Consider me officially schooled on that front. Can you suggest there I can 100% trust for news coverage….?

it's probably possible on motorways and some large cities and towns but that is only a small part of the road network, people will just avoid motorways and where the cameras are and go on more minor roads where there will be no infrastructure for it. October is only a couple of months away.

In theory it's a good idea (as was poll tax), in that we should all pay for what we use and not have to subsidise those who use a lot more - same as a water meter, power usage etc. However it could never be possible, as to be fair then everyone would really need the same access to public transport. Otherwise then those in rural areas would be penalised when they have no option. It would also disadvantage those in many types of job, where the cost would just be passed on to the end customer and become unaffordable. It won't happen.

As a rule, if someone is quoting unnamed "motoring experts" - which later turns out to be some nobody from a little-known car financing company - and using the word "could" a lot but claiming that it is concrete government policy, what you're reading is grade A bollocks.

The mileage may be recorded at each MOT but what will they do? Wait a year and then charge it? Pro rata? No way the government would let anything like that be in arrears so you'd have to pay an amount upfront like the bastard tv licence.

The MOT at an annual (and of course the first three years without) simply couldn't be used to charge but could be used to verify if you have to declare monthly or similar.

Also, what if you share a car in the household / company / sell the car?

My car has an app and gives me a rundown of my driving each month (on the 1st for the previous month) and I can check per day what's been driven. Once all cars on the road have that ability, maybe.

They've been talking about this for at least a decade and it just seems to be a scare tactic with zero backing or viability.

It's such a poor thought out idea. For me, living rurally with little to no (and more often than not, extremely unreliable) public transport available I rely on my car to get to work each day, and covering fuel and general running costs of the car, it is a stretch at times. If this policy comes in I would likely have to give up driving my car to work and instead of a 10 min car journey, walk 45 mins there and back. When I finish work at 11pm or sometimes midnight, I'd have to walk down dark unlit country roads for the vast part of my journey, which would be unsafe, but my only real option. Failing that... Give up my job? That's another hospital with one less nurse. It's like they want to make it impossible for us to afford to live and be productive members of society. Taxing and charging us for absolutely everything, when we already pay tax on everything we own, earn and purchase.

I think it will start first on all the "Smart" motorways with all those gantries turning them into a kind of toll road. There must have been a hidden reason for the roadworks over the past 20 years, especially where the gantries have been put up without the hard shoulder being converted into a live lane such as around Manchester where we had years of disruption and no extra lanes, so congestion is as bad as ever.

Can't see charging being extended to remote/rural places for many years as firstly the cost of infrastructure wouldn't justify it and secondly it's grossly unfair in places where cars are the only viable transport option (i.e. it would cost the taxpayer more to subsidise regular/reliable bus services!).

Not scrapping mots but using the mot inspector to essentially be tax calculator. It’s open to too much abuse that it wasn’t something given consideration.

you just need to look at the emissions test scandals to see the potential for abuse in

There has probably been a sniff that it could happen on some motorways and London and the papers have run with it and made a lot bigger thing of it than it is as they usually do. They all do this not just RW papers.