Downside to cheaper petrol.

[cycleruk]

There is the hint that George Osborne is looking to increase the VED that he refrained from doing a couple or so years back.

[CREPELLO]

Still don't agree.

Some folk HAVE to drive to work. It's the only way to get there. There aren't many jobs locally, you have to travel. There are no busses, no trains, nothing that'll get you there.

Car share?
Maybe that's a good idea, but it depends if your workmates live near you and if they have the same shift patterns.

Ride a bike?
Not everyone is as fit as you and me, and some folk work 30miles or more from home. We have people near here who work in Exeter 50miles from here.

In Utopia, we would all live and work locally. We could walk or use public transport ..... or cycle or roller-skate to work. Private ownership of cars would be totally unnecessary.

Some few years ago, there was an article on Radio Cornwall where a reporter travelled with a chap from Launceston who had an appointment at Plymouth Derriford hospital. He took a total of 11hrs travel getting there and back by public transport for a journey of only 30miles each way.

Well judging by the amount of VED paid by the owner of a small/medium size car in Band F, the equivelent of the £145 VED in fual duty at 0.5795p would equal the purchase of 250 litres.

Make of that what you will. I think it suggests that drivers pay a significant amount in duty in the pcost of fuel per litre, compared to VED, so a recalibrating of duty, post VED, does not necessarily have to result in an increase in overall duty paid, if the new rate was set to be paid through an average amount of anual fuel purchased.

It would depend entirely on how the government set the new fuel duty rate; whether they sought to extract the tax from the purchase of a relatively small amount of fuel. Or with the application of a well weighted algorithm, the rate could be set lower.

The more fuel you purchase, or pollution you produce, the more tax should be paid. That is the only responsible position we should be seeking, given that vehicle pollution has been proved to be a much bigger problem than we considered a decade or two ago.

[Mick F]

Well judging by the amount of VED paid by the owner of a small/medium size car in Band F, the equivelent of the £145 VED in fual duty at 0.5795p would equal the purchase of 250 litres.

At that rate, it means the car owner pays his VED equivalent in less than seven full tanks of fuel ................ at 40ltrs per tank.

This means that at 40mpg and a 40mile commute (both ways) per day x5 = 5gals per week (minimum).
One tank at 40Ltrs = 8.7gals
............ so 250ltrs = 55gals = 11 weeks of commuting.

Is my arithmetic correct?

If so, a commuter (as I described) would pay his VED in 11weeks, and therefore his annual (equivalent) VED would quadruple.

[CREPELLO]

Well judging by the amount of VED paid by the owner of a small/medium size car in Band F, the equivelent of the £145 VED in fual duty at 0.5795p would equal the purchase of 250 litres.

At that rate, it means the car owner pays his VED equivalent in less than seven full tanks of fuel ................ at 40ltrs per tank.

This means that at 40mpg and a 40mile commute (both ways) per day x5 = 5gals per week (minimum).
One tank at 40Ltrs = 8.7gals
............ so 250ltrs = 55gals = 11 weeks of commuting.

Is my arithmetic correct?

If so, a commuter (as I described) would pay his VED in 11weeks, and therefore his annual (equivalent) VED would quadruple.

I'm not going to vet your arithmetic (math isn't me strongest point) But assuming it is correct, it doesn't mean a quadrupling of VED equivelent, which would also appear to mean a doubling in duty per litre, if you just add on the VED equivalent duty on top of the present fuel duty.

It shouldn't work like that. Rather than the duty resulting in a quadrupling paid, it should result in a 25% extra amount of duty being paid (for your example, based on my figures), or a substantially smaller % of the overall retail cost of a litre of fuel.

Now if the driver could reduce their fuel consumption by 25%, using the strategy of less driving, a smaller car and more fuel efficient driving style, which seems quite realistic, then the impact of tax take on rural drivers will be substantially reduced.

Feel free to vet my figures. They may be wrong, but my gut feeling is that as long as the overall tax take isn't increased, then the duty % increase won't be drastic - if you can consume fuel within a determined average. We are then back to strategies to reduce the all important consumption figure, if your consumption lies outside that average.

[al_yrpal]

If VED was scrapped the fair thing to do would be to add up what is paid at the moment then recalculate the 57p per litre tax to recover the same overall amount. This would probably result in a lower tax rate per litre.

Regardless of anything else I still believe that those that use the roads most and pollute the environment most should pay correspondingly more tax.

57p a litre fuel tax is disgusting. I calculate that 1/3 of our pensions goes in various taxes already. I dont do many miles and I fail to see why I should pay the same VED as someone who travels 5 times the distance I do.

Al

[Samuel D]

Regardless of anything else I still believe that those that use the roads most and pollute the environment most should pay correspondingly more tax.

57p a litre fuel tax is disgusting.

How are these two views consistent?

Taxing fuel is a good way to recoup some of the environmental, social, and infrastructure costs of motoring and encouraging people to drive more efficient vehicles, drive less, and drive more efficiently (chiefly slower).

I think we have to get away from the idea that anyone, rich or poor, has a ‘right’ to drive 50 miles to work every day. That is a huge waste of energy and over a period of years (allowing people to adjust their lifestyles) it should be made very expensive to choose to live like that.

[Mick F]

I think we have to get away from the idea that anyone, rich or poor, has a ‘right’ to drive 50 miles to work every day. That is a huge waste of energy and over a period of years (allowing people to adjust their lifestyles) it should be made very expensive to choose to live like that.

Some folk don't have the option.

Perhaps everyone who lives in a rural area should move to the city?
Other than that, why not have a decent bus service everywhere? At this moment, bus services are a joke.

Today, I'm driving the Community Bus. It gets used quite a bit, it's cheap to use and bus passes are accepted. Sometimes, it's so well used, we could do with two of them! If we can make a success of it, why can't it work nationally?

Ok, I'm a volunteer driver and get no pay for it, but if we nationalised the busses and took away the need for outright profit, we would all benefit because we'd get many of the cars off the roads.

[reohn2]

Now would be a good time to scrap Vehicle Excise Duty and whack the price of fuel up so tax is related to road use and move to the French system where you have an insurance disc and MOT disc on the windscreen.

Al

+1

[reohn2]

I'm always amazed at the manner 'professional' drivers drive in terms of fuel consumption.
Yesterday a taxi came by me doing well over 30 mph in a 20 zone only to have to slam on their brakes at an already red light. When it went green he accelerated off like he was on the grid in F1, there was just the driver no passenger. I caught him up around the corner as he had taken his place about 10th in line in the taxi rank where he was going to have to wait probably 15 minutes before his next fare. He must spend way more each week that he needs to on fuel if he drove more sensibly and might also reduce the risk of running someone over.
For large firms like bus companies the possible saving on fuel must be enormous if they did a few simple things like looking ahead and rolling to rather than accelerating toward red lights and junctions and pulling away smoothly.

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fu ... smart.html

I agree about adding Vehicle excise duty to fuel.

I've never understood batting about from one TL to the next to sit in a jam,time isn't 'saved' just more fuel burned and dangers increased,especially for the vulnerable road users.
I seems to me that drivers are being driven by some internal mechanism to speed and laws are there to be broken .Which isn't even clever as there's no gain in heavy traffic.
I've recently witnessed more RLJing cars and some are laughable if they weren't so stupid and dangerous,jumping one red when there's another clearly visible within 100m or less is plain stupid,yet I see it regularly in towns and cities.

[reohn2]

Mick
Do you pay VED on the Fiat 500?

[Vorpal]

I think that the government should use one or more of the studies that shows the cost of pollution to health, and the benefits of active travel, etc. Then, set the fuel tax according to the overall cost of driving. It's probably best if they use existing published methods (such as those used by the EU) to calculate contributions to environmental damage.

I'm okay with farmers continuing to benefit from some sort of fuel duty relief. IMO, their use is significantly offset, in several ways, by growing crops and feeding people.

[al_yrpal]

Reading buses all run on gas which I think is made by rotting down food waste. They are excellent buses and usually spot on time on our local route. I agree with Mick on the Community buses these are a lifeline for old folk and there is always a stream of people ready to act as volunteer drivers.
I used to be the bus manager and went to County Council meetings with bus managers from other towns and villages. There was a surprising variation in who got subsidies and red tape. Ours was all voluntary with no subsidy except a small council payment for taking bus pass holders who couldnt walk far to a supermarket. We ignored all the red tape except the operators licence. We ran the bus and selected and trained drivers using common sense. The big hurdle was buying the bus. Ours cost £40 ,000 and we raised that by sponsorship, donations and organising events.

Al

[Vorpal]

Community buses are a whole nother thread

If other resources, such as public transport are not going to be adequate for all members of a community, then public funding should provide at least the bus, fuel, and training/licencing for volunteers.

p.s. maybe community buses should be exmpt from fuel duty, too

[al_yrpal]

Our whole Community is quite proud of our bus which has been in action for 30 years. We all like the fact that it is provided and run by us with no bureaurocracy from the clipboard wielding wallies from local government. Some other Oxfordshire villages cant seem to get their act together. We organise fun fund raising events, seek donations, sell unwanted jewelry etc saving for a new bus every 5 years. The old one goes to another local charity at a bargain price. We have an office and drop in centre and we have volunteer car drivers to take old people to and from hospital and medical appointments. We do home visiting with the lonely too. Its all free of bureaucratic interference and entirely voluntary. It would be good if there were more financial help with these activities but if it came at the expense of outside regulation I am not so sure.

Al

[squeaker]

Now would be a good time to scrap Vehicle Excise Duty and whack the price of fuel up so tax is related to road use and move to the French system where you have an insurance disc and MOT disc on the windscreen.

Al

+1

+2