Help needed to stop Govt's New Pay-per-mile Tax

If they drop the price of fuel to a decent level and it stays there then they are just grabbing the money another way unfortunalty It will feel alot worse when you spend £300 a month on mileage tax than filling your car up 8 times and paying the £300 over the period of the month. you will also have the 30p per litre fuel price I hope.

my workings
I fill up 4 times a month 60 litre tank each fill is about £50
I pay about £200 over the month
£130 is tax the rest is the cost of the fuel. fuel prices should drop to about 30p a litre so my fuel bill should drop to about £70 a month. road tax is negligable £18 a month I think so my current monthly bill is £218

The problem is that the price per mile will proberbly cost me more
the average cost of the new scheme per mile
2000 miles at 27p per mile if £540 a month then the fuel sort of say £70 from above rough estimates. The new thing is a rip off ok it will stop people using their cars at peak times so the roads will be clear for those that want to pay to drive at peak times.

There is no incentive for people to buy smaller, more econimical cars, everyone may as well drive 10 miles a day in a BMW X5 and it will cost about the same as to drive a 0.8l smart car people dont car about fuel economy they just want a big car to fit their family in and feel safe or be able to put their foot down on the empty road as that is what the government are hoping will happen.

I think it will result in back roads being used more as people switch their sat navs to take them the shortest route rather than the quickest route.

The whole plan isnt going to work Im afraid they are just trying to find excuses to not improve the road networks around the country. they need express motorways, a elevated layer on top of existing roads long trips use the top deck shorter trips use the lower deck every so often there are junctions between the decks so the guy traveling from Glasgow to Birmigham can drop down arround jct 11 ready to make his exit. at Jct 6 or wherever.

just my Idea.

sorry that turned in to a rant and very garbled. Im gonna stop

WOW! There's a lot of these threads on this subject here, promise this is the last I am going to comment on!

albertross wrote:

It's an election loser.. take a very brave or foolish government to introduce it. Gordon's time in Downing street is gonna be short lived.

Am glad you at least admit that it may be a very brave move. Any change to taxation is controversial and will be ceased upon by govt opponents, but this is such a thorny issue and the knee jerk reaction caused by this petition is bound to have been expected.

We all experience traffic problems and almost all of us admit something must be done to curb car usage and traffic volumes on the roads. So what is wrong with a 'user pays' policy? It works in relation to electricity and gas usage and introducing a policy of paying a flat rate for using power will only see a massive increase in usage, with the effect that those doing their best to reduce consumption are penalised and pay for those who use and waste lots.

This policy is only under discussion at the moment and it is unlikely to be implemented for quite a few years due to the technology required. Meanwhile we may well see the increase in congestion charging brought about by local authorities who have decided to tackle the issue of gridlock and the economic burden of congestion.

Petrol tax is a user pays system, and doesn't involve billions of pounds of money wasted on invasive tracking technology. I am more concerned about our civil liberties being eroded, than tax.

I don't see how the technology needed to implement road charging stops you walking, or cycling, or catching buses. Or cadging a lift of your mate. How is this "invasive"?

If car drivers were serious about their civil liberties, then they would be covering up their number plates, or campaigning for their abolition. But they're not. Why is that?

As long as you drive around in a car with a legible number plate, your car can be tracked. Not just by the government, but by anyone who cares to set up a roadside number-plate data capture system.

Let's face it. Are you really going to avoid a particular stretch of motorway, just because you think there might be a bunch of anorak-clad people with notebooks and pens on one of the bridges, furiously scribbling away while all the cars and vans go past? I think not.

How much more difficult would it be for some nosey parker to mount a video camera on a motorway bridge, and feed the output through OCR software to log all the number plates automatically? The computing power and gadgetry you need to do this is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time. But will this stop you driving along a particular motorway? I think not.

So forgive me if I take the claim of a concern for civil liberties with a bit of a pinch of salt. You know the implications of driving around with a clearly visible number plate - yet you still choose to do it anyway.

Albertross, I am trying to reconcile your last post with post 2 in this thread, where you appear to think the whole idea of petitions is a waste of time. The score now is well over 1,000,000. I think any government will have to take notice (maybe not act) of 1,000,000+ petitioners.
I totally agree that the main point here is the civil liberties issue, and I am amazed at some of the other responses here that appear to discount this.
I will certainly object to forking out for a gadget that will track me, and bill me for a mileage charge at the same time. Don't knock the number of threads on this subject. The more people that petition, the more chance of notice being taken.
Maybe getting to the time for civil disobediance?
Cheers, Dave

Petitioning has been a feature of the democratic process for years.