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 people who do shift work - how else can I get home from a shift that finishes at 1am or get to work for 4.30am without driving?

@Gothamcity 45 min walk is about 10 mins on a bike, on what sound like very very quiet roads - why not try it?

NB - the change won’t be happening!! Not nationwide, for sure. Hopefully in cities before too long tho: pricing people out of choosing to drive at busy times makes good sense.

If you think logically, this is not suddenly going to come in all over the country in October.

The gantries on the motorway are to monitor traffic flow you numpty! 😂😂

Yes for now; but no doubt they could affix some other ANPR device later to calculate the miles you have travelled on a motorway. To us charging for motorways is the obvious place to start for pay per mile. I assume they are cost more than the country lanes?

Things can have a dual purpose! After all, were smart phones originally designed to track the population, as in China?

While you’re researching it have a look at the amount of duty we pay on fuel, and also car tax. This is just another easy way of extracting money out of motorists that are already cash cows.

Tolls on motorways would be a good thing, but only if the revenue was used to maintain the motorways.

If they are found to be fiddling the figures they'd lose their ability to do the MOTs. You can't just decide you are doing MOTs and even if you have the qualification I cant see why they can't take the right to do them away. Garages are already tax collectors as part of the MOT fee is passed on to the government.

It really wouldn't be that big a change.

Well they know how many miles you’ve done at mot as it’s recorded then. So assume it will be based on that.

But what about people who have cars that never need an MOT.

Public transport in England is an absolute scandal.( outside of London)
punitively expensive and hopelessly unreliable.

I guess it will be like self assessment- you do an annual return where you say what your millimetre reads and pay what you owe and they’ll do spot checks or it’ll be some sort of service provided by yodel or similar where someone takes a photo and submits. If you’re caught lying it will be considered tax evasion which is a criminal offence. Some people will lie. Most won’t as they won’t want to risk it. It’s completely doable.

The country toads will all be congested with 40 year old cars all avoiding the motorways

I can't see how it can come in October it would take years to implement. On the whole I think it makes sense. It would be a direct connection between the road tax you pay and how much you use the roads. It would help sharpen peoples minds as to whether journeys are really needed.

Thats just for classic cars.

how many people drive round all year in a classic car………very few

Gosh, I hope not. We live in the countryside, both kids at rural schools. It's 6 miles to the first one and another 4 miles on to the second. So I do 40 miles a day just on the school run. How is that fair? There is zero public transport to either of these schools from where we live. Already costs me a fortune in fuel and time.

I am really worried that is a distinct possibility that they will introduce something like this. It is at best immoral and I am hoping will be proven to be illegal. I cannot see how you can introduce a blanket nationwide policy, which disadvantages such a large part of the population; we as a family, cannot even consider electric or hybrid, because towing livestock the electric simply aren’t up to the job.

it’s not the same though is it. It’s not a fixed amount. The inspector would be setting the amount you had to pay

And they’ve been consulting on reversing that decision

most classic policies ask you to have an mot now as standard.

Same for me. It’s my local catchment school. It’s also why an electric car isn’t suitable.

theres no evidence this will be introduced soon, or introduced for ICE cars. Or to run with the current excise duty

There’s nothing to indicate it’s happening or motorways will be on the list.

arguably motorways should be toll free to keep rural and towns clearer

That's because it won't happen, the cost alone the country can't afford. It would be political suicide to do and would take decades to bring in. It's a non starter. Just the DE being the DE. I'm sure the daily mail will run it at some point. These sort of 'stories' are designed to generate clicks.

I dont understand your point?

I’m glad I wasn’t the only the who was stumped on how that wasn’t ironic at all.

The place it may most likely happen but even then not as soon as October is London as it has already been mentioned a lot and they have all the cameras already

Unless you mean that, the don’t think the highlands is polluted yet everyone uses their cars. Whereas in the south east they think it is polluted but you walk everywhere?

Isn’t tax on ICE fuel already effectively a pay per mile tax??