Road Fund Tax, Fuel Duty, Toll Roads, Car Purchase Tax, Car Insurance Tax.... PLUS there’s the little matter of VAT on top of all of that! The list just goes on and on!
Now it's not news to any of us that The Government, through The Treasury, already levy a hefty charge on road users by way of taxation on fuel which is subject to both Fuel Duty and VAT.
And it's no surprise that they want to tax us even more heavily!
But the difference is that now they want to use technology to levy a new and supposedly different charge which they are calling Congestion Charge. Only they can’t make their mind up, they (The Government) have no real strategy so they (The Government) also want to bring in road pricing!
They plan to do this by introducing hi-tech tracking devices that encourage people to stay off major routes and use rat runs. The road system in the UK has evolved to meet the need – the NEED for people to move between their place of residence and their place of work. Introducing hi-tech tracking devices will not remove that NEED, people will still NEED to go to work.
And they (The Government) are ignoring all the other problems:-
Uninsured drivers – the cost of insurance is forever going up. This year the increases are not because accident rates are going up, or because the percentage of young drivers has increased. No, the main factor in this year’s increases is the cost of flood damage to property as a result of the spring floods which in many cases could have been avoided if expenditure on maintenance of drainage systems had not been reduced due to budgetary cut-backs imposed by The Government. Why should the motorist pay for general accident claims resulting from flooding? Those that claimed will loose their NCD. Rates for Home and Business property and contents should go up IF the insurance companies are to recover some of their losses. But why should insurance for vehicles go up unless there were significant payouts for damage to vehicles (which there shouldn’t be as generally speaking, vehicles can be moved away from floods and flooding).
The unemployed & long term sick – again, they (The Government) want to reduce the people on benefits. Why? If you get them back into work then they will have to travel, so congestion will increase. Leave them at home, keep them off the road – just don’t pay them benefits. No benefits will mean that they find work (could be a problem, leads to commuting) or survive by living of savings (that’s OK) or turn to crime (end up in prison, no commuting there) or become homeless (no need to commute, just stay at work) or die (that’s cost effective). But if they (The Government) don’t want us commuting then they should look at ways of getting us OUT of work!
Immigration - strange but immigration IS a factor here. Firstly, do they really think that illegal immigrants will drive cars that are legally registered, insured and fitted with a hi-tech tracking device? Of course they won’t, like all criminal classes they will find a way round the monitoring. And if the immigrants know that they will have to have these devices fitted, do they (The Government) really believe that these people will pay the charges levied? Of course they won’t – they will just keep on the move and the debt will build up and remain unpaid! The requirement to fit these devices will lead to an increase in illegal activities as people from countries not used to fitting them evade having to do so while in the UK!
But, The Government is intent on going ahead with introducing these hi-tech tracking devices therefore there must be an ulterior motive. Is it simply the desire to bring in Big Brother by the back door? If they were truly concerned about Congestion Charging and Road Pricing then every vehicle, trailer, attachment, etc… would have to be fitted with a device. A vehicle towing a trailer/caravan does more damage to the road and causes more congestion than one without. Similarly, a larger vehicle towing has a greater impact than a small one. So to get the charging right and fair to all road users and for The Treasury, everything has to be fitted with a device. And the cost should be adjusted based on the number of people in the vehicle and the only way to do that, and to make sure that the correct person is charged, would be to fit every PERSON with a tracking device. Ah! The ultimate Big Brother. At least it would do away with identity cards – fit a chip into everybody at birth. That would solve the immigration problem – all those immigrants wanting to come to the UK to “work” (and causing more congestion) wouldn’t be quite so keen if they knew that they would have to have a chip implant.
So why does The Government keep insisting that it has to press ahead with Road Pricing and Congestion Charging? Two reasons… 1. Jobs for the Boys, and 2. Toys for the Boys. They would employ more Civil Servants (commuters) to run and maintain the Technology (computers) which at the end of the day means it all boils down to technology for technologies sake! And at the end who has to pay for this immense piece of pointlessness? Us! The tax payers!
So my question to them (The Government) is this – just when are you going to get your collective heads together and thrash out a strategy that is cheap and simple to put in place, self administrating and ensures all the revenue raised is paid to The Treasury. Hang on a minute, that system is already in place and is proven to work – it’s called Fuel Duty.
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