Quote:
Originally Posted by Katana
Needless to say the idea was deeply unpopular, 1.5 million signed the official petition against it, and it died a death. One reason people felt they were being shafted with more tax and the fear that if they knew where you were they also know how fast you were going and you'd be automatically fined for speeding.
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No wonder that people thought it was unfair: those that lose the most are usually the loudest complainers. Notice that not everybody would lose, mostly those who (in theory anyway) can switch public transportation and many others would gain. The closer it is to elections, the harder it is for politicians to push painful laws through. Most people are uncapable of thinking only in the short term: "I don't want to change
today, I don't want to pay
today, etc.", they aren't able to mobilise enough grey cells to understand that by paying
today they won't have to pay
even more tomorrow. The truth hurts and people don't like pain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katana
Current road tax is based on CO2 emissions, the less CO2 g/km your car puts out the less tax you pay, and if your car produces less than 100g/km you pay no road tax.
I paid £150 for a years tax on my car, it puts out around 150g/km, some people with big polluting cars can pay £400 a year.
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So this only depends on the engine and not on the driving style. I can imagine two cars with identical engines, both pay the same tax. But Driver A has a heavy foot, takes off and races everywhere, slows down to the speed limit only on red lights. FE_A= 16 l/100km. Driver B has heavily ecomodded his ride and is an ecodriving guru. FE_B= 5 l/100km. Now, even though they pay the same tax, they definately have a different CO2 footprint.
The tax system based on engine displacement isn't better, since today you can find a 2 liter turbodiesel that gets much better milage than a chip-tuned 1.2 liter gasser. That's why I'm all for taxing fuel. Want to pay less tax? Get a smaller car and ecodrive it!
I believe that Germany already has a GPS system for tracking the milage of trucks. If this is true, then maybe building on that system would be a good next step?
PS: I don't understand people who protest against methods of enforcing the speed laws. Or politicians who give in to them. Both are rotten sick, ble
