Increase fuel duty to fund pothole repairs?
Discussion
From BBC news
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66481761
If I have understood it correctly the ever increasing number of EV's pay no road tax and much less tax for a battery full of electricity than IC engined vehicles drivers pay to drive along the potholed roads.
And the EV's are heavier so cause more damage to the roads?
It seems to me that these people need to go back to school
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66481761
If I have understood it correctly the ever increasing number of EV's pay no road tax and much less tax for a battery full of electricity than IC engined vehicles drivers pay to drive along the potholed roads.
And the EV's are heavier so cause more damage to the roads?
It seems to me that these people need to go back to school
A quick look seems to suggest that roughly 24% of cars on the road are either plug in hybrids or fully eclectic. A fuel duty increase would have to be fairly substantial to cover the additional costs associated to pot holes.
A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
- Exhaust emission
- Vehicle mass
- Mileage recorded at each MOT
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
They'll just use it for speed bumps, traffic lights and turning straight roads into obstacle courses and one way systems that cause chaos, they already waste hundreds of millions making driving a chore so no need to give them even more.
Yes to the scheme if the local councils are bypassed.
This is becoming a tax on the poor. If you are wealthy/consumerist you may have a new or electric vehicle. If you are poor you will not be able to afford one.
As others have said general taxation is also not exactly fair on those who have a vehicle but also travel by other means.
It all seems pretty regressive.
As others have said general taxation is also not exactly fair on those who have a vehicle but also travel by other means.
It all seems pretty regressive.
Snoggledog said:
A quick look seems to suggest that roughly 24% of cars on the road are either plug in hybrids or fully eclectic. A fuel duty increase would have to be fairly substantial to cover the additional costs associated to pot holes.
A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
That £50 a year mileage correction would pay for itself pretty quickly. A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
- Exhaust emission
- Vehicle mass
- Mileage recorded at each MOT
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
Wills2 said:
They'll just use it for speed bumps, traffic lights and turning straight roads into obstacle courses and one way systems that cause chaos, they already waste hundreds of millions making driving a chore so no need to give them even more.
Having seen a local scheme that somehow cost £3.7 million to convert a mile long dual carriageway bypass into a width restricted access road plus a bus only section - closing the bypass and adding a 1.4 mile diversion instead - and somehow lost all the landscaping & nice bike/pedestrian paths that were meant to happen (so basically it was just some paint and ripping out one lane each way), I'd agree that there's plenty of money in someone's road pots not going in the right places. Still that was a bargain compared to spending >£17million on some short bus lanes in a scheme that was never completed because the money ran out.
Not just council covered pothole repairs getting skimped either, lots of motorways getting riddled too and not repaired.
No, local councils just need to focus their attention on purely maintaining the highway rather than constantly f
king about with it making daft changes everywhere.
Too much money gets spunked up the wall on politically motivated vanity projects rather than maintaining their network to a reasonable standard.
This isn't road users problem to solve by burdening them with more tax, it's local councils who don't focus enough of their attention and budgets on simple old fashioned highway maintenance.
king about with it making daft changes everywhere. Too much money gets spunked up the wall on politically motivated vanity projects rather than maintaining their network to a reasonable standard.
This isn't road users problem to solve by burdening them with more tax, it's local councils who don't focus enough of their attention and budgets on simple old fashioned highway maintenance.
I never understand why the quality of the road surfaces that get put down in the UK are so poor compared to the equivalents in say France. Not really surprising that they seem to deteriorate very quickly. Is it just down to cost and the fact that we have higher volumes of traffic etc?
S600BSB said:
I never understand why the quality of the road surfaces that get put down in the UK are so poor compared to the equivalents in say France. Not really surprising that they seem to deteriorate very quickly. Is it just down to cost and the fact that we have higher volumes of traffic etc?
People don't realise just how much ageing infrastructure there is underneath UK footways and carriageways which is the reason you see them being excavated so often. You've got Gas, Electricity (various different voltages), Clean water, Foul water (sewage), Surface water drainage, combined surface and foul, UTC, BT, Virgin/Cable, Street lighting and now fibre too.A perfect carriageway is one with as little to no joints in it however when you've got STAT companies digging down to their apparatus for fun and leaving a patchwork quilt of a highway behind then you combine that with our climate you're only a winter or two away from a crumbling mess of a road.
There just seems to be a general unwillingness to maintain infrastructure these days.
Heading south towards Jct 18 on the M6, lane-2 has pothole after pothole. Obviously caused after “upgrading” to a smart motorway.
Many of the blue sections of the signage around the southern section of the M60 is illegible and needs refacing. Its 23-years old, so no surprise, it just needs a budget.
A bench in Tatton Park has been loose and rocking for years, recently, a H&S guy has checked it out and had it removed. A few buckets of concrete would have fixed it.
Cycling round East Cheshire, not only is the edge of carriageway crumbling, but its clear that the cause is likely to be because every gulley is silted-up and not being maintained, year-after-year.
At the local government level if there is ever going to be a vote between spending on potholes and safeguarding children, then there is no option, but then the same thinking goes on year-after-year.
It would be more acceptable if we has US levels of taxation, but we do not. We just accept decay as being normal and only to be expected.
Heading south towards Jct 18 on the M6, lane-2 has pothole after pothole. Obviously caused after “upgrading” to a smart motorway.
Many of the blue sections of the signage around the southern section of the M60 is illegible and needs refacing. Its 23-years old, so no surprise, it just needs a budget.
A bench in Tatton Park has been loose and rocking for years, recently, a H&S guy has checked it out and had it removed. A few buckets of concrete would have fixed it.
Cycling round East Cheshire, not only is the edge of carriageway crumbling, but its clear that the cause is likely to be because every gulley is silted-up and not being maintained, year-after-year.
At the local government level if there is ever going to be a vote between spending on potholes and safeguarding children, then there is no option, but then the same thinking goes on year-after-year.
It would be more acceptable if we has US levels of taxation, but we do not. We just accept decay as being normal and only to be expected.
We had 40k being spent (ignoring the fixed costs of council budgets not attributed to the task) of reducing about 300m of nsl signs to 40 mph signs near us, despite trafic monitoring showing average speeds were 35mph anyway.
Then part of a street was resurfaced... only to later have an island added and required resurfacing round the island with some nice joints, which sit just where the busses drive.... already the surface is becoming loose.
Lines painted, then burnt off and repainted to provide an extra couple of feet around a bus stop. Damages the sealed surface once again.
Council favourite currently appears to be changing kerbstones for bus access (with associated Patching of the tarmac surface), coupled with placing a pedestrian island just behind where the bus will stop, meaning no-one can overtake a bus taking on or dropping off passengers.
All serves by a legion of council officers of course.
They also pedestrianised our high street despite consultation revealing non-one wanted it, @ a cost of £4M.
I wish they'd stop finding ways of wasting money, and just maintained what we have for now.
No wonder there's a need to raise more income.
Tax based on emissions and mass would seem to be the answer.
Road pricing will probably be coming, but unless it's done by Anpr people will find ways round it.
Then part of a street was resurfaced... only to later have an island added and required resurfacing round the island with some nice joints, which sit just where the busses drive.... already the surface is becoming loose.
Lines painted, then burnt off and repainted to provide an extra couple of feet around a bus stop. Damages the sealed surface once again.
Council favourite currently appears to be changing kerbstones for bus access (with associated Patching of the tarmac surface), coupled with placing a pedestrian island just behind where the bus will stop, meaning no-one can overtake a bus taking on or dropping off passengers.
All serves by a legion of council officers of course.
They also pedestrianised our high street despite consultation revealing non-one wanted it, @ a cost of £4M.
I wish they'd stop finding ways of wasting money, and just maintained what we have for now.
No wonder there's a need to raise more income.
Tax based on emissions and mass would seem to be the answer.
Road pricing will probably be coming, but unless it's done by Anpr people will find ways round it.
Edited by Previous on Saturday 12th August 11:07
My council (town of 80,000) has spent £1.3m buying a privately-owned massive bingo hall to turn into some sort of arts centre, that nobody asked for and wasn't in any sort of manifesto. Our local council tax still went up this year. They can fk off with asking for more money until crap like this is stopped.
paulrockliffe said:
90% of the issues with the roads aren't pot holes, they're because someone was allowed to dig the road up and no one checks they've put it back together properly.
The stuff I see daily is more often than not structural failure instead of poor reinstatement, we're past that point and into joints failing, foundations failing, surfaces shedding and so on.Roads don't last forever especially without preventative maintenance or early fixes to faults before they progress.
As it is there area proper dangerous faults on major routes that'll take a car wheel off being left for weeks before being fixed, so it looks like we've gone beyond under investment into outright just not bothering.
Reminds me of one thing I've just seen - money being spent at one end of a road rebuilding it wider to add a second bus lane, while at the other end of the road a mile away half the tarmac overlay has shed from the original underlying concrete and there are holes though the 9" concrete too, to the point where mud is coming up.
Obviously the money exists just in the wrong pot.
(Before anyone asks the fked end of the road isnt getting widened and even the bits near the new work werent resurfaced when the widened part was)
Obviously the money exists just in the wrong pot.
(Before anyone asks the f
ked end of the road isnt getting widened and even the bits near the new work werent resurfaced when the widened part was)Edited by pquinn on Saturday 12th August 11:32
pquinn said:
Obviously the money exists just in the wrong pot.
This is the problem. Bus Lanes
Cycle Lanes
Traffic calming (speed cushions and build outs)
Bus boarder kerbs
Upgrading zebra crossings to pelicans
Bus gates
Pedestrianisation schemes
All expensive faff that gets priority over the one thing that'd make the biggest difference to the majority of road users, resurfacing and patching works.
Snoggledog said:
A quick look seems to suggest that roughly 24% of cars on the road are either plug in hybrids or fully eclectic. A fuel duty increase would have to be fairly substantial to cover the additional costs associated to pot holes.
A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
I think that's a fairly proportional and sensible approach.A very un-PH view, but I've always thought that yearly Vehicle Tax (applicable to all cars) should be calculated on:
- Exhaust emission
- Vehicle mass
- Mileage recorded at each MOT
There's an obvious gotcha in that people who travel vast distances abroad would end up paying a lot more. But the counter to that is that when you're driving abroad you're rarely paying a local 'fee' for using the roads.
Awaits flaming
The problem it creates is that it penalises nearly all light and not so light commercial vehicle operators.
As they are the people that are out working, delivering and repairing, all their costs will have to rise accordingly and retail prices will then have to rise to cover them resulting in yet more inflation.
Unless Commercials were exempt of course?
I thought the picture at the top of this was really appropriate: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/12/uk-fun...
Four useless overpaid people pretending to be interested in the problem, and not a single one actually doing anything to fix it.
Four useless overpaid people pretending to be interested in the problem, and not a single one actually doing anything to fix it.
Do you not think that half the reason it's last on the list is because they don't want you driving your car anyway? They'd much rather you walked, cycled or took public transport. Leave the fixing potholes and the roads to crumble and they probably see it as a free way to encourage you to ditch the car.
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