By Dave Yorkshire. One of the subjects rarely addressesdis that of our transport infrastructure. Of course, our roads are unduly crowded, which brings us on to our much-discussed immigration policy, but I would like to address a potential policy, which I believe would be a winner with the electorate and is certainly nationalist in nature.
Switzerland Autoroute Stickers
Currently, all UK car owners that do not fill out a SORN (statutory of-road notification) declaration form must display the annual or half-yearly road tax disc as proof of having paid Vehicle Excise Duty in their car windscreens.
The method of calculating this cost actually changed in April of this year, when vehicles formerly placed in one of two payment brackets dependent upon engine size were reclassified into no less than thirteen brackets based upon the ‘theoretical carbon emissions of the car’, which is, in turn, based upon the theoretical assumption that theoretically high CO2 levels are causing a theoretical change in climate.
These ridiculous assumptions aside, I believe the system of road taxation is, in any case, grossly unfair to the British public.
Why is it, given the heavy increase in road-users of foreign origin that only British road-users are required to pay for the maintenance and repair of our roads?
Given that many of the vehicles – especially heavy goods vehicles – are in Britain for work-purposes, should the proprietors of these vehicles not also be paying for the upkeep of our roads?
The French, of course, have the péage system of motorway toll booths, but these are unnecessarily expensive and can grind traffic to a halt. The system I would favour in place of our present one is that of Austria and Switzerland, among other countries.
When entering Austria or Switzerland by motorway, each vehicle is required to purchase a vignette before entering the country. This small sticker is then affixed to the inside corner of the windscreen (as per the illustration with this article).
These can be purchased at motorway service stations near to the border in the countries that surround the two in question. For residents of those countries, the vignette can be bought in any newsagents or tobacconists.
While the vignette is only needed for travelling on Austrian and Swiss motorways, I would suggest a compulsory vignette for all vehicles using any British roads. This would then mean that any vehicle leaving a British port or the Eurostar terminal without a vignette could be immediately seized upon by customs officials and the owner fined.
Vignettes could be sold on the ferries themselves, as well as at the terminals for people entering the country, and in newsagents, post offices etc. for the general population of Britain.
Prices would vary according to length of time needed, as holidaymakers would only need shorter-stay vignettes. As a tentative price list and range, I would suggest the following:
| Personal vehicle | LGV | HGV | Motorcycle | ||
| Length | Price | Price | Price | Price | |
| One day | £1.70 | £9 | £17 | N/A | |
| Three days | £3.50 | £18 | £35 | N/A | |
| One week | £6 | £35 | £60 | N/A | |
| Fortnight | £10 | £55 | £100 | £1.70 | |
| One month | £15 | £85 | £150 | £2 | |
| Three months | £35 | £200 | £350 | £5 | |
| One Year | £120 | £700 | £1200 | £16 | |
You will note that motorcycle vignettes begin at a fortnightly premium. This is because it would be cost-ineffective to produce and retail a lower-priced vignette for a shorter stay, and £1.70 is hardly going to break the bank even if one is only entering the country for a day.
As said, this is only a tentative list, and classifications for caravans, cars with trailers etc. can easily be debated on.
One will notice, however, that it would be relatively cheaper to buy longer-stay vignettes: for example, a yearly vignette for an HGV would cost £1200, whereas it would cost £1400 to buy four three-monthly vignettes, which is the equivalent time-span.
This would favour transport companies resident in this country, as they would benefit from buying the yearly vignette in relation to transcontinental lorries visiting short-term for pick-up and/or delivery. This bias of pricing also applies to visitors of all description.
One can also note that the yearly tax is somewhat cheaper than last year’s road tax; with the extra money generated from road-users from overseas, prices can be reduced – possibly further reduced in the future.
As a last note, to further aid private hauliers, as opposed to transport companies, I would also suggest that they be able to claim back a percentage of road tax as a personal tax rebate commensurate with the degree of yearly earnings, which would help them to be competitive with regards the pricing of contracts against haulage firms both at home and abroad.
I personally believe that this policy would generate more revenue than the current governmental road taxation policy, and the extra money could be spent on the creation of much-needed roads in places like North Yorkshire, where a dual carriageway all the way from York to the Yorkshire coast that bypasses the string of villages in between has been much needed and petitioned for by local residents for many years. The project would also create many short-term jobs.
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How about just doing away with the road tax all together. Instead, just add a little extra tax to the fuel. This would mean all road users will contribute everytime they fill up, including foreign visitors. There would be savings in police and court time and costs prosecuting tax dodgers, you can’t avoid if it’s included in the fuel price. Also, savings in printing the discs and processing at the DVLC. There would be no extra costs collecting the tax either.
Yes, but then the many wouldn’t be supplementing the road tax of the few who drive tens of thousands of miles a year, while paying the same tax. I only use my car for about 1,000 miles a year, if that, yet have to pay exactly the same as somebody who drives 100,000 miles a year, and there is no incentive whatsoever to NOT use my car – after all, it costs me £15 in tax every month, just to sit there on my driveway, so I think ‘I may as well use the car today, otherwise each journey I take will be even more expensive’.
At last someone is talking about this issue. We run a haulage business, one artic, and it really annoys you that not only do we pay full road tax in the UK but as soon as we leave the UK you start paying again either the French tolls, the Benelux Eurovignette or the German Maut. Whereas when the foreign trucks come into the UK they pay nothing at all. Hence they can stay here and do cabotage work, basically doing internal work in this country. We have a collection of little machines in our truck that save us having to keep buying tolls, they register when you enter countries like Germany and Austria and you are then sent a bill. The German machine cost us around £300 to have installed but it is a necessity because if you pay the German road tax and there is a problem and you have to deviate from the route you specified you will be fined, and the Germans are very efficient at tracking you down, it literally takes minutes for them to find you. These extra taxes mean that it is very hard for us to compete, especially against the Eastern Europeans who were given handouts to buy their trucks etc. A level playing field would be much appreciated. The Benelux Eurovignette has been made much easier to purchase now as you can buy it online, which saves having to find post offices etc whilst worrying about other matters. Thank you for taking this matter on board, I have been campaigning for this for some time.
I like the idea and the thought behind it, but I also think that doing away with the road tax entirely and putting an extra sum on the price of vehicle fuel is a better idea. As Harley Davidson points out in his posted reply here, any form of “displayed payment certificate” still means that someone who drives ten miles per week must pay the same as someone who drives a similar vehicle a thousand miles per week. Also, putting the charge on fuel instead has the additional advantage of eliminating a section of the paid bureaucracy, namely those who run the Tax Disk departments, and replacing them with a smaller, simpler official setup, thereby saving some money that way. As Soo, who also posted a reply here, may also appreciate, a simple system of some kind of graded “priority cargo fuel rebates” could also then be easily introduced to refund a percentage of their annual fuel costs to transport companies who are entirely British-owned, or who carry loads beneficial to British society, i.e. supermarket deliveries, medical supplies, raw materials to industry etc. This would have the beautiful result of not only getting foreign vehicles to contribute to the upkeep of our roads, but maybe actually getting them to pay the lion’s share, which of course is as it ought to be. Foreign vehicles that do some good for Britain get some refund on fuel costs, foreign vehicles that do not benefit our country pay the full whack. Foreign tourists and holidaymakers, who also benefit our national income, could also have a percentage refund of some of their fuel charge on sending in their receipts. Any takers?
Here’s the problem I see with doing away with road tax entirely and putting the whole cost on fuel. Andrew has already pointed to the issue of foreign registered artics, entering the UK with their tanks filled to the brim with thousands of litres of diesel, taking loads around our country at foreign diesel prices. Now a 35 ton artic does about 8mpg and a 7.5 ton that anyone with a proper (ie. pre-EU) british licence can drive does about 15 so they won’t get THAT far but yo take my point I hope that taxing fuel alone will make a foreign lorry MORE profitable (except that thanks to the euro-£ exchange rate last year a litre of diesel in france and belgium was MORE expensive than a litre of diesel here, but that’s another fudge factor i guess)
But I hope I have shown it’s not a simple issue.
In S Africa, to avoid the non-payment of 3rd party person and property insurance, such minimum insurance is included in the fuel price. Individuals then choose to insure their property or not.
To those who suggest putting extra duty on fuel, there would be nothing to stop vehicles ‘stocking up’ with fuel in Calais before boarding the ferries. Therefore, extra fuel duty would only affect long stayers. To ‘Harley Davidson’, if your car is sitting on your driveway, you don’t need a vignette and can purchase one whenever you wish to take your car for a drive. I would suggest the creation of dispensing machines similar to lottery ticket machines in newsagents etc. No system is perfect, and someone will always complain, but it’s just about getting things as fair as possible – especially with regards the inequality between foreign and British motorists.