A petition has been set up to try and persuade the government to rethink its position on the proposed road pricing and vehicle taxation scheme. In their proposed world, all vehicles will have a tracking device fitted, which will report back to them on where the vehicle has been and consequently how much is owed. Privacy implications notwithstanding, this is a horrendous extra tax on a system that is already in place and already rakes in £4.8 billion a year for our governments big black pot of money for spending on anything they feel like.
We already have a scheme that taxes you on how much you drive, it’s called excise duty on fuel (VAT is also charged on top of the excise duty). The government doesn’t need to track the location of each and every vehicle on the road just to get money from the drivers. Hell, it doesn’t even need the road tax if it were to play it’s cards right with the maintenance of the roads and use of excise duty revenue.
I already pay my road tax, insurance and fuel tax on a car that has classic insurance. For the uninitiated, that’s a cheaper form of insurance for cars you don’t use every day. It’s only valid for 5000 miles and personal, non-commuting use only, yet I pay the same road tax as Charlotte who drives all over Scotland as part of her job. Millions of others are in the same situation. They drive a tiny amount a year, yet pay the same as those that wear their tyres out every 12 months. It’s called unfairness, and the government is attempting to appeal at those of us who are feeling hard done by (you, me, every OAP who has a car for the Sunday run…), at the expense of our privacy. Don’t let it happen. We are already the most surveilled society in the Western world, and we don’t need to add vehicle tracking to that list.
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