14 ms·

All cars could be fitted with black box trackers under new tax plans

92 points by HeckFeck 5y ago

shawabawa3 5y ago
> In its report, the committee said: “If motoring taxation is linked to road usage, the committee has not seen a viable alternative to a road pricing system based on telematics.” Considering you have to take your car for MOT every year it seems like an easy solution would be to require milage to be reported at your MOT to verify how much road tax you need to pay
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > every year New cars don't have to be taken for MOT for several years. After buying a car you don't need to even take it to a mechanic for the first two or so.
  - VBprogrammer 5y ago
    Either make the MOT required from new or have a sub-MOT milage check. It's a completely trivial problem.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > It's a completely trivial problem. Well yeah - the simplest solution is doing it remotely, which is what they're doing.
      - VBprogrammer 5y ago
        I'm not sure how you feel that is that the simplest solution. Building an entirely new way of thousands of cars reporting their milage without fraud or privacy concerns. Versus doing nothing different other than using the data which is already gathered for a majority of cars.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Presumably the goal is to also reduce congestion, by having variable rate tolling that charges more for driving at high demand times and less for low demand times.
- joefife 5y ago
  Agreed - although remember the MOT only starts once the car is there years old. There is no MOT for the first few years. Also, and more of an edge case, there are some vehicles that don't require an MOT, such as vintage vehicles (which also don't pay VED) and don't public sector fleets (such as police cars)
  - Normal_gaussian 5y ago
    Also, there is significant evidence that reducing the frequency of MOTs would be a good thing all round (no real downside, until a car falls below a specific level).
  - kawsper 5y ago
    Maybe it could allow new vehicles to self-report yearly until the first MOT.
- dazc 5y ago
  I guess the plan would be to base pricing in such a way that it will incentivise good behaviour? For example, a journey distance of 1 mile or less could be made so expensive that people choose to walk instead.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    But this could also horribly backfire, with people driving ten miles to get gas or to the shopping center across town.
    - jtc331 5y ago
      Exactly. GP assumes there are only two alternative goods, but like almost every well-intentioned idea it doesn’t actually take into account human behavior and how artificially changing demand for one thing can have really bad consequences.
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  Indeed. It doesn't allow differential pricing per road type. Driving 10 miles through London is almost certainly worse than 10 miles down a country a road in terms of impact. Is that something worth giving up everyone's privacy? I personally don't think so, and I'm not even particularly privacy conscious. Might that be more open to fraud than a telematic solution? Doubtful. Those people who would attempt to commit fraud that way will be just as likely to do so otherwise.
- timthorn 5y ago
  The report calls for pricing to be dynamic based on time/congestion and take into account geography - a straight annual mileage report would not allow for this.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Dynamic pricing is just a way to justify trackers. The main issue, though, is simply that when people buy an EV they stop paying massive amount of tax on petrol/diesel.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Dynamic pricing is the only way to allocate a resource of fixed supply but hugely variable demand. The alternative of building more and more road is untenable.
      - mytailorisrich 5y ago
        Except this is not an issue and, in any case, not the issue here. Number of cars on the road depends on population at this point an on the housing model. We don't build "more and more roads" just to accommodate an infinitely growing number of cars. This is a mature market, no the 1950s or 1960s. If areas are deemed too congested there are already ways to limit congestion. No, this is a tax income problem caused by EV but they are taking the 'opportunity' to bamboozle us into thinking that trackers and dynamic pricing is required and that there is no alternative.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        > If areas are deemed too congested there are already ways to limit congestion. Such as? I have not seen an alternative to variable rate tools in the US.
        mytailorisrich 5y ago
        Here in the UK there may be congestion charges to enter certain zones, "Park and ride" schemes, limited and expensive parking space. To install a tracker on every car along with all the infrastructure for handling and billing is calling a nuclear strike on a molehill. Again this is just some interests trying "to load the boat".
- lastofthemojito 5y ago
  That seems like a 99% solution, but the farmers or amateur racers who put mileage on their cars outside of public roads might be annoyed by that solution. Same with people who spent a lot of time driving outside of the UK. But based on the privacy implications of the other approach, I'd much prefer yours, maybe with a way to submit documentation of off-road/out-of-country miles.
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    > That seems like a 99% solution, but the farmers or amateur racers who put mileage on their cars outside of public roads might be annoyed by that solution. They still release pollutants into the atmosphere, though.
    - chippiewill 5y ago
      The whole point of this taxation change is to account for ongoing electrification. The government are concerned about lost tax revenue from fuel duties and need a new mechanism to fund public roads through taxation by those who use it the most. It's not just about pollutants.
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      That's a second-order concern - the view that fuel taxes are effectively road usage charges is already cemented by the fact that "red diesel" (fuel with an added chemical colorant) used in agriculture has a much reduced taxation regime vs regular pump diesel.
      - globular-toast 5y ago
        Tractors do use the road and as large and heavy vehicles I imagine they do a disproportionate amount of damage. I think tractors are just considered more essential so low fuel tax can be considered a subsidy of sorts.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Most of the point of road pricing is to charge (much) more At places and times where traffic is congested, so traffic flows well 24/7 and we don't have to keep adding lanes and freeways eternally for the non paying traffic.
- verdverm 5y ago
  A problem with annual milage is annual tax. How many people are planning for a 4 figure tax bill? Gas tax is per fill and built in.
  - was_a_dev 5y ago
    Monthly tax bill for the year prior?
    - verdverm 5y ago
      Seems reasonable, a typical payment cycle. What happens when someone doesn't pay? (This is probably a more general question to payment period)
      - was_a_dev 5y ago
        Apply same laws as council tax and/or not paying road tax
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    This is largely a solved problem; consider income tax. You "pay" (withhold) monthly and true-up at the end of the year.
    - verdverm 5y ago
      Income tax is withheld on the income. Are you suggesting that we open the door to more taxes being withheld from paychecks?
      - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        No - I'm just pointing out that amortization and prepayment of an annual tax bill is largely a solved problem. I was more thinking of a monthly request to pay X. It is predicated on the motorist estimating their annual mileage; but if there was a simple mechanism to make adjustments based on deviation from the estimate then I can't imagine it would be too bad.
- michaelt 5y ago
  The quote is for a report into "road pricing" [1] by which they seem to mean mean pricing individual roads, rather than roads collectively. Right now, the country has a variety of toll roads, toll tunnels, toll bridges, congestion charge zones, low emission zones and suchlike. They can have complex pricing schemes - higher for more polluting vehicles, free at evenings and weekends, free for wheelchair users, higher during rush hour, free for taxis and busses. Dozens of schemes across the country have different ways of paying - and often the money goes to local, rather than national, government. So I think a mileage tax was not in the scope of the report. This was a report specifically asking "what if all roads were toll roads?" [1] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  They never heard of toll roads?
adflux 5y ago
This is also happening in the Netherlands. Not a fan personally... Gasoline cars already pay tax per mile, as gas is very heavily taxed. Electric cars do too, as electricity is also taxed pretty heavily. (Notice a trend yet?) The only advantage is that there can be a more fine grained taxation of cars, based on time and location. But I don't trust my government with that kind of data.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Do they not already have even better data via mobile networks? I am in the US and I assume the government has access to my location history to however accurate mobile networks are at any time, because I always have my phone on me.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - 6510 5y ago
    Not knowing the answer I just read 3 and a half page. It seems the Dutch police only obtains location data in real time and only when someone is a suspect.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      But do the mobile networks keep a log, and can those logs be subpoenaed anytime? I assume all protections can be dismantled in the name of “security” or a “terror threat”, even in the Netherlands.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    This wouldn't necessarily indicate the vehicle being used or its owner/registrant for tax purposes. Additionally, mobile network triangulation isn't usually as accurate as GPS or other satellite systems.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  The disadvantage of taxing based on fuel is that it mostly benefits newer cars, generally owned by the richer groups in society. People barely able to afford a car are hit by a pollution tax they can hardly work around, because it's either "pay the fuel tax" or "get another job", and despite the so-called labour shortage, that's not as easy as it seems if you're not educated. In terms of taxing pollution the Dutch system is actually quite reasonable, because there's barely any green energy being produced in the country compared to the old fossil fuel plants. All that "green" electricity is just a piece of paper that says the joules come from some hydro plant in Norway, but they don't actually come from a green source, of course. If you can charge your car by solar panels, you'll be much better off. Taxing by distance actually taxes road use rather than fuel exhaustion, which is a much better way to tax for road maintenance in my opinion. The heavy electric cars do a much bigger number on the roads than grandma's city car from twenty years ago. In an optimal system, both taxes would be combined and balanced. However, the government has shown that it will abuse any data it collects for other purposes, and balancing things isn't one of the government's strong suits either. It's sad, really.
timthorn 5y ago
Note that the proposal comes from a Select Committee of MPs - this isn't the Government. Select Committee reports often propose recommendations that the Government disagrees with and does not implement. Actual report is here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...
politelemon 5y ago
This 'nationalworld.com' post barely contains any useful information, where they have applied their interpretation. It's better to read the original pages from the Transport Select Committee, where the information is better presented. The 'news' page is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-committee/news/160791/road-pricing-act-now-to-avoid-35-billion-fiscal-black-hole-urge-mps/ https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-com... And their summary is here: https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/road-pricing-transport-report/index.html https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/road-pricing-trans... If you are time and curiosity rich, the full report is here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...
- politelemon 5y ago
  Separately, I can't help but wonder if there's some overlap with V2X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-everything Many countries have already allocated spectrum for it, and it's supposedly in all new cars (anyone chime in?). The report has left out implementation details because that depends on how the Govt would want to do the data capture, but I hope motorists don't get a bunch of additional devices piled on... I might be thinking too much in terms of software development but I'm always looking for efficiency in reuse.
samwillis 5y ago
Worth baring in mind we in the UK have one of the most extensive ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera networks in the world. We are already tracked on almost all our journeys. You are unlike to be able to make a journey on any A/M road in the UK without being tracked. Occasionally a criminal case appears in the news where it’s clear they were able to track the culprits across the country with the network. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recognition_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recog...
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  > Worth baring in mind we in the UK have one of the most extensive ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera networks in the world. Second only to China actually. That goes for cameras in general. What a worthy adversary for #1. Not to mention the enormous abuses with ANPR. It seems like it's mostly used to harass political dissidents. Tommy Robinson was routinely stopped and questioned by police. Sure, nobody in their right mind likes Tommy Robinson, but targetted harassment by the police definitely isn't okay either.
- HeckFeck 5y ago
  I wasn't aware of this system. That made for some uncomfortable reading. They had a capacity for 50 million daily number plate reads in 2006.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    Your phone is also tracked at all times, and maybe even constantly recording on its microphone. As is your computer. Welcome to the concentration camp.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  So what then, we should just refuse to object and install cameras in our toilet bowls for their amusement?
markus_zhang 5y ago
The beautiful new world where everything is trackable and storage is so cheap that everything is stored. Future generations won't even think it is weird.
- trentnix 5y ago
  And when it's possible to track what they think, they won't be allowed to think.
- sol_invictus 5y ago
  It's difficult to read sentiment and know whether you're being sarcastic or not so please take no offense from my tone, but this is the complete opposite of "beautiful" - it is the first steps in turning humans into units of production with every action being optimized for you and leaving little to no individual freedom. It's communism 2.0 except the government doesn't only dictate production quotas but also "life quotas." It's an absolute nightmare and seeing what a spectacular failure communism 1.0 was, everyone should be more than freaking out about this.
  - sgjohnson 5y ago
    > everyone should be more than freaking out about this. Yet nobody does. Because everyone is living too comfortable a life to dissent. Just ask the Chinese. (general populace, not the government) And that's basically a reason why I'm a libertarian, but unfortunately I don't see the future as more libertarian, unless there's a massive paradigm shift. The general populace will put up with whatever governmet oppression or tracking or whatever, as long as they can keep living their cushy, comfortable lives.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      >Just ask the Chinese. (general populace, not the government) and what do they say?
  - userbinator 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure it's sarcastic and a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
mellosouls 5y ago
UK Gov is not proposing any such thing. It's a proposal in a select committee report. Clickbait.
sgjohnson 5y ago
Insanity. ~75% of the petrol price in the UK already is basically tax (fuel duty + VAT), and even more if you add indirect taxes too. I'm actually glad that I don't live in the UK anymore.
- kmlx 5y ago
  > ~75% of the petrol price in the UK already is basically tax (fuel duty + VAT), and even more if you add indirect taxes too. it’s close to 0% tax if you’re using an electric car. which is why governments around the world are trying to figure this thing out.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6510 5y ago
    I use to joke that its a miracle people are still allowed to go outside without a specific reason and/or permission. Corona made it less funny. I still have my pedestrians should wear reflective jackets helmets, safety shoes and knee pads joke. Curious how long that will last.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      We do have driving licences, I fully expect cycling and eventually walking licences in future.
      - mab122 5y ago
        It won't be named license mind you. For cycling mandatory insurance will be probably implemented very soon. For walking? I believe it will be a very long time until some license is needed. One idea I can think of is that maybe the government issued ID will be actually a tracker/payment/smartphone thingy.
    - garaetjjte 5y ago
      Some jurisdictions already require pedestrians to wear reflective objects at night.
boringg 5y ago
Outside of the obvious privacy and security concerns. Wouldn't the cost of tracking this heavily eat into the revenues from taxation? I can't see the government pulling this kind of operation without it costing a lot of money. So the question is - is the difference between what the new net benefits be greater than the current system. And then you need to add both the political anger from security + privacy into the equation.
- Someone 5y ago
  I would think a main benefit would be that fewer roads need to be built and maintained. That’s serious cost cutting. Lower congestion also can be a huge gain. Also, from what I understand the tracking already is somewhat solved in London.
- friedturkey 5y ago
  The potential for taxation is just a more presentable way of selling such a plan. Saying “we want to track your every movement” isn’t yet palatable. In another 10 years and some overhyped criminal incident later, it might be, though.
  - boringg 5y ago
    I guess all you need is a catalyst event to allow something like that.
- anonu 5y ago
  The UK is already a surveillance state. Cameras on every corner with sophisticated software to identify license plates and piece the data together. So the movement of people is already being tracked. As for the cost of doing so? I would guess its already very cheap and only getting cheaper.
HideousKojima 5y ago
Even if taxation is the current sole honest intent of those proposing this (which I doubt), the reality is that any kind of data collection that can be abused will be abused. We've seen this worldwide, in pretty much every country. Don't give them an inch on this because of the dystopian hellhole it will continue to enable.
mab122 5y ago
If they implemented it using only external tracking like cameras or actual people then I could be ok with it, but hell no trackers (or mandatory software) that I have no control of in MY car.
VBprogrammer 5y ago
In fairness a telematic device wouldn't necessarily need to report exact times and locations. Only the summary of journeys within predefined categories / geofences etc. Would I trust our government to implement this in a privacy preserving way? Not a chance.
LightG 5y ago
onpensionsterm 5y ago
The title is an incorrect editorialisation. This is not a government proposal, it's a committee proposal.
outsidetheparty 5y ago
Do UK cars not have odometers?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
OJFord 5y ago
Original title is: > All cars could be fitted with black box trackers under new tax plans Maybe adding 'UK' somewhere is warranted, but not 'Gov': as others have pointed out, this is based on a report from a parliamentary select committee.
nick88msn 5y ago
In italy almost all new cars have a black box for insurance discounts. It helps avoid car accidents frauds that have been so frequent in the last 20 years here. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10657-020-09657-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10657-020-09657-3
Mvandenbergh 5y ago
This isn't true. The Transport Select Committee found that the loss of fuel duty from full electrification would need to be replaced by either a 5% rise in the base rate of income tax, or something else. Given that: 1) 5% on the base rate of income tax (in effect already 20% + 13.8%) is a big increase and that the 1.5%/3% increase in the national insurance component is already going to substantially increase the wage tax burden on many people so this may not be politically tractable. 2) If you wanted to recover it from higher rate tax payers, it would be a massive increase, a lot more than 5% this is probably also not feasible. (There are 27m basic rate taxpayers out of 32m taxpayers and only 4.1m higher rate taxpayers). 3) VAT ditto would have a catastrophic effect on the cost of basic goods, even more regressive than the NI increase. 4) People are already used to paying this money as part of owning a car so no "sticker shock" The Select Committee therefore found that some kind of road pricing was the almost inevitable way of replaying fuel duty. They did not say that this would require full tracking telematics, there are broadly a few different ways of doing this: 1) By far the simplest and most privacy preserving is a simple mileage counter with a flat rate. This means no data needs to leave the car. 2) A zoning / timing system operating on the car itself. This would allow simple congestion charging based on location and time of use without data leaving the car. 3) Fully dynamic charging system, this requires a central database tracking all movement. I think a lot of transport economists would love 3 because they could make driving costs almost fully reflective of transport infrastructure costs - arguably someone who drives a light vehicle only at 3am imposes almost no load on the system while someone driving the same car, the same distance during the morning rush imposes a lot. It also allows the existing congestion charging infrastructure to be removed in London and the other places that are putting it in. However people generally do not like this idea so I am almost sure that we will end up with either (1), (2), or those with an elective (3) that allows savings for people willing to disclose the data.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  plebs have no say in political matters. You will be getting #3, plus a full cavity search annually, guaranteed.
HPsquared 5y ago
Cars are already taxed per mile according to weight and inefficiency, it's called fuel tax.
- verdverm 5y ago
  The point is what to do when electric cars are the norm and there is no fuel tax to pay for road maintenance?
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    I suppose they'll have to get rid of "carrot and stick" and transition to "big stick and smaller stick".
d4nt 5y ago
A pay as you go model seems reasonable in principle, but the devil will be in the detail. In theory the information being gathered is public already. I could follow someone round the public highways if I wanted to. But having everyone’s movements in one big database obviously presents huge problems. The UK has no written constitution, which has its advantages sometimes, but could be a problem here. What we have instead is institutions. So we must hope that one of them steps in and puts limits on how this can be used.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
The key issue here is that over the years petrol and diesel have become cash cows for the government, which is now in a bind because of EVs. Instead of jumping deeper into the rabbit hole with this slightly insane proposal perhaps the time has come to move tax income back to more sensible sources like income and corporate taxes. There could also be a drastic increase of the road tax but obviously that would cause a political shitstorm.
dboreham 5y ago
Hmm. You tax fossil fuels heavily in Order to persuade people to use less and choose more environmentally friendly alternatives. They do that but now you're used to having the money so you tax the thing you wanted them to switch to..
- bArray 5y ago
  Who would have saw this coming? /s I for one will not be installing a black box in my car, it's my right as a private individual to travel freely without informing the government about where I've been. I'll rip it out or put it in a lead box if I have to. I think COVID tracking has finally gone to their heads. Another one to watch is green energy - it is currently heavily subsidized by fossil fuel taxes, so when everybody finally uses green energy they will lose tax income and the cost of green energy will increase for maintenance and future projects. And as always, it is the poorest tax payers that ultimately pay the largest bills. They will be left with the largest road tax bill as they wait for a proper second-hand EV market to emerge, then will never see the tax break of owning an EV. They will be the last to adopt green energy, and will pay the most for it. Politicians are completely removed from the decisions they make. In their mind everybody lives like a toff they rub shoulders with in central London. But, as they will learn, you can only push the working class so far. History is filled with peasant revolts.
kmlx 5y ago
as written in a different comment, electric cars are very soon going to be the norm. and since they don't use any petrol during their usage, governments are trying to find out how to recoup that potentially lost tax revenue. one such way is via "tax per mile". whatever way they choose, i don't expect any government to simply give up on that tax revenue, as that will force them to either increase other taxes or explain to their voters that some state-funded services will have to close.

92 points by HeckFeck 5y ago

> In its report, the committee said: “If motoring taxation is linked to road usage, the committee has not seen a viable alternative to a road pricing system based on telematics.” Considering you have to take your car for MOT every year it seems like an easy solution would be to require milage to be reported at your MOT to verify how much road tax you need to pay

chrisseaton 5y ago
> every year New cars don't have to be taken for MOT for several years. After buying a car you don't need to even take it to a mechanic for the first two or so.
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  Either make the MOT required from new or have a sub-MOT milage check. It's a completely trivial problem.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > It's a completely trivial problem. Well yeah - the simplest solution is doing it remotely, which is what they're doing.
    - VBprogrammer 5y ago
      I'm not sure how you feel that is that the simplest solution. Building an entirely new way of thousands of cars reporting their milage without fraud or privacy concerns. Versus doing nothing different other than using the data which is already gathered for a majority of cars.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
Presumably the goal is to also reduce congestion, by having variable rate tolling that charges more for driving at high demand times and less for low demand times.
joefife 5y ago
Agreed - although remember the MOT only starts once the car is there years old. There is no MOT for the first few years. Also, and more of an edge case, there are some vehicles that don't require an MOT, such as vintage vehicles (which also don't pay VED) and don't public sector fleets (such as police cars)
- Normal_gaussian 5y ago
  Also, there is significant evidence that reducing the frequency of MOTs would be a good thing all round (no real downside, until a car falls below a specific level).
- kawsper 5y ago
  Maybe it could allow new vehicles to self-report yearly until the first MOT.
dazc 5y ago
I guess the plan would be to base pricing in such a way that it will incentivise good behaviour? For example, a journey distance of 1 mile or less could be made so expensive that people choose to walk instead.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  But this could also horribly backfire, with people driving ten miles to get gas or to the shopping center across town.
  - jtc331 5y ago
    Exactly. GP assumes there are only two alternative goods, but like almost every well-intentioned idea it doesn’t actually take into account human behavior and how artificially changing demand for one thing can have really bad consequences.
VBprogrammer 5y ago
Indeed. It doesn't allow differential pricing per road type. Driving 10 miles through London is almost certainly worse than 10 miles down a country a road in terms of impact. Is that something worth giving up everyone's privacy? I personally don't think so, and I'm not even particularly privacy conscious. Might that be more open to fraud than a telematic solution? Doubtful. Those people who would attempt to commit fraud that way will be just as likely to do so otherwise.
timthorn 5y ago
The report calls for pricing to be dynamic based on time/congestion and take into account geography - a straight annual mileage report would not allow for this.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Dynamic pricing is just a way to justify trackers. The main issue, though, is simply that when people buy an EV they stop paying massive amount of tax on petrol/diesel.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Dynamic pricing is the only way to allocate a resource of fixed supply but hugely variable demand. The alternative of building more and more road is untenable.
    - mytailorisrich 5y ago
      Except this is not an issue and, in any case, not the issue here. Number of cars on the road depends on population at this point an on the housing model. We don't build "more and more roads" just to accommodate an infinitely growing number of cars. This is a mature market, no the 1950s or 1960s. If areas are deemed too congested there are already ways to limit congestion. No, this is a tax income problem caused by EV but they are taking the 'opportunity' to bamboozle us into thinking that trackers and dynamic pricing is required and that there is no alternative.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        > If areas are deemed too congested there are already ways to limit congestion. Such as? I have not seen an alternative to variable rate tools in the US.
        mytailorisrich 5y ago
        Here in the UK there may be congestion charges to enter certain zones, "Park and ride" schemes, limited and expensive parking space. To install a tracker on every car along with all the infrastructure for handling and billing is calling a nuclear strike on a molehill. Again this is just some interests trying "to load the boat".
lastofthemojito 5y ago
That seems like a 99% solution, but the farmers or amateur racers who put mileage on their cars outside of public roads might be annoyed by that solution. Same with people who spent a lot of time driving outside of the UK. But based on the privacy implications of the other approach, I'd much prefer yours, maybe with a way to submit documentation of off-road/out-of-country miles.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  > That seems like a 99% solution, but the farmers or amateur racers who put mileage on their cars outside of public roads might be annoyed by that solution. They still release pollutants into the atmosphere, though.
  - chippiewill 5y ago
    The whole point of this taxation change is to account for ongoing electrification. The government are concerned about lost tax revenue from fuel duties and need a new mechanism to fund public roads through taxation by those who use it the most. It's not just about pollutants.
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    That's a second-order concern - the view that fuel taxes are effectively road usage charges is already cemented by the fact that "red diesel" (fuel with an added chemical colorant) used in agriculture has a much reduced taxation regime vs regular pump diesel.
    - globular-toast 5y ago
      Tractors do use the road and as large and heavy vehicles I imagine they do a disproportionate amount of damage. I think tractors are just considered more essential so low fuel tax can be considered a subsidy of sorts.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Most of the point of road pricing is to charge (much) more At places and times where traffic is congested, so traffic flows well 24/7 and we don't have to keep adding lanes and freeways eternally for the non paying traffic.
verdverm 5y ago
A problem with annual milage is annual tax. How many people are planning for a 4 figure tax bill? Gas tax is per fill and built in.
- was_a_dev 5y ago
  Monthly tax bill for the year prior?
  - verdverm 5y ago
    Seems reasonable, a typical payment cycle. What happens when someone doesn't pay? (This is probably a more general question to payment period)
    - was_a_dev 5y ago
      Apply same laws as council tax and/or not paying road tax
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  This is largely a solved problem; consider income tax. You "pay" (withhold) monthly and true-up at the end of the year.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    Income tax is withheld on the income. Are you suggesting that we open the door to more taxes being withheld from paychecks?
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      No - I'm just pointing out that amortization and prepayment of an annual tax bill is largely a solved problem. I was more thinking of a monthly request to pay X. It is predicated on the motorist estimating their annual mileage; but if there was a simple mechanism to make adjustments based on deviation from the estimate then I can't imagine it would be too bad.
michaelt 5y ago
The quote is for a report into "road pricing" [1] by which they seem to mean mean pricing individual roads, rather than roads collectively. Right now, the country has a variety of toll roads, toll tunnels, toll bridges, congestion charge zones, low emission zones and suchlike. They can have complex pricing schemes - higher for more polluting vehicles, free at evenings and weekends, free for wheelchair users, higher during rush hour, free for taxis and busses. Dozens of schemes across the country have different ways of paying - and often the money goes to local, rather than national, government. So I think a mileage tax was not in the scope of the report. This was a report specifically asking "what if all roads were toll roads?" [1] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...
inter_netuser 5y ago
They never heard of toll roads?

adflux 5y ago

This is also happening in the Netherlands. Not a fan personally... Gasoline cars already pay tax per mile, as gas is very heavily taxed. Electric cars do too, as electricity is also taxed pretty heavily. (Notice a trend yet?) The only advantage is that there can be a more fine grained taxation of cars, based on time and location. But I don't trust my government with that kind of data.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Do they not already have even better data via mobile networks? I am in the US and I assume the government has access to my location history to however accurate mobile networks are at any time, because I always have my phone on me.
- deleted 5y ago
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- 6510 5y ago
  Not knowing the answer I just read 3 and a half page. It seems the Dutch police only obtains location data in real time and only when someone is a suspect.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    But do the mobile networks keep a log, and can those logs be subpoenaed anytime? I assume all protections can be dismantled in the name of “security” or a “terror threat”, even in the Netherlands.
- vinay427 5y ago
  This wouldn't necessarily indicate the vehicle being used or its owner/registrant for tax purposes. Additionally, mobile network triangulation isn't usually as accurate as GPS or other satellite systems.
jeroenhd 5y ago
The disadvantage of taxing based on fuel is that it mostly benefits newer cars, generally owned by the richer groups in society. People barely able to afford a car are hit by a pollution tax they can hardly work around, because it's either "pay the fuel tax" or "get another job", and despite the so-called labour shortage, that's not as easy as it seems if you're not educated. In terms of taxing pollution the Dutch system is actually quite reasonable, because there's barely any green energy being produced in the country compared to the old fossil fuel plants. All that "green" electricity is just a piece of paper that says the joules come from some hydro plant in Norway, but they don't actually come from a green source, of course. If you can charge your car by solar panels, you'll be much better off. Taxing by distance actually taxes road use rather than fuel exhaustion, which is a much better way to tax for road maintenance in my opinion. The heavy electric cars do a much bigger number on the roads than grandma's city car from twenty years ago. In an optimal system, both taxes would be combined and balanced. However, the government has shown that it will abuse any data it collects for other purposes, and balancing things isn't one of the government's strong suits either. It's sad, really.

timthorn 5y ago

Note that the proposal comes from a Select Committee of MPs - this isn't the Government. Select Committee reports often propose recommendations that the Government disagrees with and does not implement. Actual report is here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...

politelemon 5y ago

This 'nationalworld.com' post barely contains any useful information, where they have applied their interpretation. It's better to read the original pages from the Transport Select Committee, where the information is better presented. The 'news' page is here: https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-committee/news/160791/road-pricing-act-now-to-avoid-35-billion-fiscal-black-hole-urge-mps/ https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/153/transport-com... And their summary is here: https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/road-pricing-transport-report/index.html https://ukparliament.shorthandstories.com/road-pricing-trans... If you are time and curiosity rich, the full report is here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/789/report.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtran...

politelemon 5y ago
Separately, I can't help but wonder if there's some overlap with V2X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-everything Many countries have already allocated spectrum for it, and it's supposedly in all new cars (anyone chime in?). The report has left out implementation details because that depends on how the Govt would want to do the data capture, but I hope motorists don't get a bunch of additional devices piled on... I might be thinking too much in terms of software development but I'm always looking for efficiency in reuse.

samwillis 5y ago

Worth baring in mind we in the UK have one of the most extensive ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera networks in the world. We are already tracked on almost all our journeys. You are unlike to be able to make a journey on any A/M road in the UK without being tracked. Occasionally a criminal case appears in the news where it’s clear they were able to track the culprits across the country with the network. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recognition_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number-plate_recog...

sgjohnson 5y ago
> Worth baring in mind we in the UK have one of the most extensive ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera networks in the world. Second only to China actually. That goes for cameras in general. What a worthy adversary for #1. Not to mention the enormous abuses with ANPR. It seems like it's mostly used to harass political dissidents. Tommy Robinson was routinely stopped and questioned by police. Sure, nobody in their right mind likes Tommy Robinson, but targetted harassment by the police definitely isn't okay either.
HeckFeck 5y ago
I wasn't aware of this system. That made for some uncomfortable reading. They had a capacity for 50 million daily number plate reads in 2006.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Your phone is also tracked at all times, and maybe even constantly recording on its microphone. As is your computer. Welcome to the concentration camp.
inter_netuser 5y ago
So what then, we should just refuse to object and install cameras in our toilet bowls for their amusement?

markus_zhang 5y ago

The beautiful new world where everything is trackable and storage is so cheap that everything is stored. Future generations won't even think it is weird.

trentnix 5y ago
And when it's possible to track what they think, they won't be allowed to think.
sol_invictus 5y ago
It's difficult to read sentiment and know whether you're being sarcastic or not so please take no offense from my tone, but this is the complete opposite of "beautiful" - it is the first steps in turning humans into units of production with every action being optimized for you and leaving little to no individual freedom. It's communism 2.0 except the government doesn't only dictate production quotas but also "life quotas." It's an absolute nightmare and seeing what a spectacular failure communism 1.0 was, everyone should be more than freaking out about this.
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  > everyone should be more than freaking out about this. Yet nobody does. Because everyone is living too comfortable a life to dissent. Just ask the Chinese. (general populace, not the government) And that's basically a reason why I'm a libertarian, but unfortunately I don't see the future as more libertarian, unless there's a massive paradigm shift. The general populace will put up with whatever governmet oppression or tracking or whatever, as long as they can keep living their cushy, comfortable lives.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    >Just ask the Chinese. (general populace, not the government) and what do they say?
- userbinator 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure it's sarcastic and a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

mellosouls 5y ago

UK Gov is not proposing any such thing. It's a proposal in a select committee report. Clickbait.

sgjohnson 5y ago

Insanity. ~75% of the petrol price in the UK already is basically tax (fuel duty + VAT), and even more if you add indirect taxes too. I'm actually glad that I don't live in the UK anymore.

kmlx 5y ago
> ~75% of the petrol price in the UK already is basically tax (fuel duty + VAT), and even more if you add indirect taxes too. it’s close to 0% tax if you’re using an electric car. which is why governments around the world are trying to figure this thing out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 6510 5y ago
  I use to joke that its a miracle people are still allowed to go outside without a specific reason and/or permission. Corona made it less funny. I still have my pedestrians should wear reflective jackets helmets, safety shoes and knee pads joke. Curious how long that will last.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    We do have driving licences, I fully expect cycling and eventually walking licences in future.
    - mab122 5y ago
      It won't be named license mind you. For cycling mandatory insurance will be probably implemented very soon. For walking? I believe it will be a very long time until some license is needed. One idea I can think of is that maybe the government issued ID will be actually a tracker/payment/smartphone thingy.
  - garaetjjte 5y ago
    Some jurisdictions already require pedestrians to wear reflective objects at night.

boringg 5y ago

Outside of the obvious privacy and security concerns. Wouldn't the cost of tracking this heavily eat into the revenues from taxation? I can't see the government pulling this kind of operation without it costing a lot of money. So the question is - is the difference between what the new net benefits be greater than the current system. And then you need to add both the political anger from security + privacy into the equation.

Someone 5y ago
I would think a main benefit would be that fewer roads need to be built and maintained. That’s serious cost cutting. Lower congestion also can be a huge gain. Also, from what I understand the tracking already is somewhat solved in London.
friedturkey 5y ago
The potential for taxation is just a more presentable way of selling such a plan. Saying “we want to track your every movement” isn’t yet palatable. In another 10 years and some overhyped criminal incident later, it might be, though.
- boringg 5y ago
  I guess all you need is a catalyst event to allow something like that.
anonu 5y ago
The UK is already a surveillance state. Cameras on every corner with sophisticated software to identify license plates and piece the data together. So the movement of people is already being tracked. As for the cost of doing so? I would guess its already very cheap and only getting cheaper.

HideousKojima 5y ago

Even if taxation is the current sole honest intent of those proposing this (which I doubt), the reality is that any kind of data collection that can be abused will be abused. We've seen this worldwide, in pretty much every country. Don't give them an inch on this because of the dystopian hellhole it will continue to enable.

mab122 5y ago

If they implemented it using only external tracking like cameras or actual people then I could be ok with it, but hell no trackers (or mandatory software) that I have no control of in MY car.

VBprogrammer 5y ago

In fairness a telematic device wouldn't necessarily need to report exact times and locations. Only the summary of journeys within predefined categories / geofences etc. Would I trust our government to implement this in a privacy preserving way? Not a chance.

LightG 5y ago

onpensionsterm 5y ago

The title is an incorrect editorialisation. This is not a government proposal, it's a committee proposal.

outsidetheparty 5y ago

Do UK cars not have odometers?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

OJFord 5y ago

Original title is: > All cars could be fitted with black box trackers under new tax plans Maybe adding 'UK' somewhere is warranted, but not 'Gov': as others have pointed out, this is based on a report from a parliamentary select committee.

nick88msn 5y ago

In italy almost all new cars have a black box for insurance discounts. It helps avoid car accidents frauds that have been so frequent in the last 20 years here. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10657-020-09657-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10657-020-09657-3

Mvandenbergh 5y ago

This isn't true. The Transport Select Committee found that the loss of fuel duty from full electrification would need to be replaced by either a 5% rise in the base rate of income tax, or something else. Given that: 1) 5% on the base rate of income tax (in effect already 20% + 13.8%) is a big increase and that the 1.5%/3% increase in the national insurance component is already going to substantially increase the wage tax burden on many people so this may not be politically tractable. 2) If you wanted to recover it from higher rate tax payers, it would be a massive increase, a lot more than 5% this is probably also not feasible. (There are 27m basic rate taxpayers out of 32m taxpayers and only 4.1m higher rate taxpayers). 3) VAT ditto would have a catastrophic effect on the cost of basic goods, even more regressive than the NI increase. 4) People are already used to paying this money as part of owning a car so no "sticker shock" The Select Committee therefore found that some kind of road pricing was the almost inevitable way of replaying fuel duty. They did not say that this would require full tracking telematics, there are broadly a few different ways of doing this: 1) By far the simplest and most privacy preserving is a simple mileage counter with a flat rate. This means no data needs to leave the car. 2) A zoning / timing system operating on the car itself. This would allow simple congestion charging based on location and time of use without data leaving the car. 3) Fully dynamic charging system, this requires a central database tracking all movement. I think a lot of transport economists would love 3 because they could make driving costs almost fully reflective of transport infrastructure costs - arguably someone who drives a light vehicle only at 3am imposes almost no load on the system while someone driving the same car, the same distance during the morning rush imposes a lot. It also allows the existing congestion charging infrastructure to be removed in London and the other places that are putting it in. However people generally do not like this idea so I am almost sure that we will end up with either (1), (2), or those with an elective (3) that allows savings for people willing to disclose the data.

inter_netuser 5y ago
plebs have no say in political matters. You will be getting #3, plus a full cavity search annually, guaranteed.

HPsquared 5y ago

Cars are already taxed per mile according to weight and inefficiency, it's called fuel tax.

verdverm 5y ago
The point is what to do when electric cars are the norm and there is no fuel tax to pay for road maintenance?
- HPsquared 5y ago
  I suppose they'll have to get rid of "carrot and stick" and transition to "big stick and smaller stick".

d4nt 5y ago

A pay as you go model seems reasonable in principle, but the devil will be in the detail. In theory the information being gathered is public already. I could follow someone round the public highways if I wanted to. But having everyone’s movements in one big database obviously presents huge problems. The UK has no written constitution, which has its advantages sometimes, but could be a problem here. What we have instead is institutions. So we must hope that one of them steps in and puts limits on how this can be used.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

The key issue here is that over the years petrol and diesel have become cash cows for the government, which is now in a bind because of EVs. Instead of jumping deeper into the rabbit hole with this slightly insane proposal perhaps the time has come to move tax income back to more sensible sources like income and corporate taxes. There could also be a drastic increase of the road tax but obviously that would cause a political shitstorm.

dboreham 5y ago

Hmm. You tax fossil fuels heavily in Order to persuade people to use less and choose more environmentally friendly alternatives. They do that but now you're used to having the money so you tax the thing you wanted them to switch to..

bArray 5y ago
Who would have saw this coming? /s I for one will not be installing a black box in my car, it's my right as a private individual to travel freely without informing the government about where I've been. I'll rip it out or put it in a lead box if I have to. I think COVID tracking has finally gone to their heads. Another one to watch is green energy - it is currently heavily subsidized by fossil fuel taxes, so when everybody finally uses green energy they will lose tax income and the cost of green energy will increase for maintenance and future projects. And as always, it is the poorest tax payers that ultimately pay the largest bills. They will be left with the largest road tax bill as they wait for a proper second-hand EV market to emerge, then will never see the tax break of owning an EV. They will be the last to adopt green energy, and will pay the most for it. Politicians are completely removed from the decisions they make. In their mind everybody lives like a toff they rub shoulders with in central London. But, as they will learn, you can only push the working class so far. History is filled with peasant revolts.

kmlx 5y ago

as written in a different comment, electric cars are very soon going to be the norm. and since they don't use any petrol during their usage, governments are trying to find out how to recoup that potentially lost tax revenue. one such way is via "tax per mile". whatever way they choose, i don't expect any government to simply give up on that tax revenue, as that will force them to either increase other taxes or explain to their voters that some state-funded services will have to close.