The British Deparment of Transport has come up with a new way to tax its citizens. To combat congestion, the Department of Transport secretary Alistair Darling is looking for a politically neutral deal to bring in laws that enable a satellite based road charging system. UK citizens would be charged between 2p and £1.30 (between 3 cents and $2.35+ USD) a mile for each road trip, depending on what road they use and the time of day. Such a system may not be in place for another 5-15 years, and probably not universal in the UK until 10-15. Luckily, public support would have to exist for such a system to be installed. It is an ambitious plan, and we wonder whether public support would exist for such an intrusive tracking system, let alone the chances for widely variable mileage rates.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
md @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
i would support a similar system if it meant lowering other auto taxes. it would probably get more people to use the Metro. of course it probably wouldn't ever happen in the U.S., the liberals would be up in arms about invasion of privacy (No offense meant to anyone)
Devin Lussier @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
Actually I think the liberals would be happy because it would prevent people from driving as much and polluting and it would also prevent them from taking congested routes which mean stop and go traffic which means a severe reduction in gas milage. But then again, you're right, we may freak out about privacy, lord knows we've done it in the past. The problem is a system like this is a win/lose situation for all parties.
vvv @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
I'm not one of those privacy invasion freaks but this is so damn outrageous.
md @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
Outrageous?
personally we typically put under seven thousand miles a year on each car. why should we pay the same taxes for use of the same roads when there are others who travel tens of thousands of miles year. it isn't really that big of a deal to me, but it is an interesting idea. people who have more money pay more taxes, why shouldn't people who use the roads more pay more?
Tom W @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
Corruption waiting to happen. How many people would compare their actual travel against the billed travel? Maybe one in a thousand. The billing agency would be very tempted to pad the bills, and eventually they would. Any padded bills that were detected would be attributed to "technical errors". What a scam. Sounds like some crazy pork project. Toll booths would generate the same revenue without the opportunity for corruption.
magister @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
Oh you better believe that the gov. wants to bring this in. But why?
Think about where car propulsion will be in 5 to 10 years; very little dependence on purely petrol and hydrid and electric vehicles everywhere. Therefore the powers that be see tax revenues disappearing and want to recoup them and they are attempting to sell this by the dual reasons of lowering congestion and making it seem the right(moral) thing to do.......
Kev (joey) @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
one of these is already in function for trucks on German Autobahns - works with GPS
clearlynuts @ Dec 18th 2005 10:44PM
Jack up gas taxes and abolish car taxes. Say $4/gallon on top of the cost. For the family that drives fewer miles, they save. If you want to conserve resources, that'll work. If you want to make car taxes more equitable, that'll happen too. Maybe $4 is too high or too low; I'm sure someone can figure out the math.