No it's Vehicle Excise Duty. Road tax was abolished ages ago. 1920's I think
EDIT: Ahh 1930's
started reading, blood boiling already
Good to see stuff like this hitting the mainstream media. The BBC's had a few bits and bobs on lately which try to promote more sensible attitudes towards cyclists.
I wonder if Singletrack and other cycling magazines could club together and print a load of in-car stickers saying "I pay Vehicle Excise Duty not Road Tax" (or some such)?
Ideally these might be disseminated for free in-magazine, but I'd happily pay and display.
Great to see this. I am pleased.
To those drivers who still believe Road Tax exists : I don't see you shouting at, and driving at, the cars which pay zero VED. So you can't even follow your own faulty logic!
Many government agencies have now started calling VED "car tax"............... The Post Office calls it car tax. So does gov.uk, the government website formed to communicate simply. So does the Campaign for Clear English. And the AA.
Why is it often called car tax? don't motorcycles, HGV's etc pay it? surely it's use still associates closely with "I pay for my car to use the roads, so I have more right".
Should be called vehicle omissions tax or something which makes it clearer what/why you're paying.
Many a cycle commuter in the UK has confronted a dangerous driver,
Even in an article like this, cyclists are still the ones being confrontational I see.
The best argument to respond to "I pay road tax..." goes like this:
It's vehicle tax not road tax - roads are paid for out of income tax. I paid xx grand last year. How much income tax do you pay?
This is on radio4 now
I regularly try and run those stupid electric cars off the road in my big diesel car, putting their drivers lives at risk whenever possible. They don't pay road tax and have no right to be on the roads! 😉
Seriously though, is this still being discussed? Are people that uninformed? Maybe the VED web site and literature needs to make it a lot more explicit what's being paid for.
Should be called vehicle omissions tax or something which makes it clearer what/why you're paying
+1 for this. Pollution tax gets my vote. Simple to understand.
Yes, people are that uninformed. Incidentally, I noticed a car advert a few months back which stated that "Road Tax" for a year was included...
i had a knob shout it at me on Monday night as he cut me up... just before the lights went red and i then had about 1 1/2 mins to explain to him how much of an ignorant twunt he was because i also paid for the roads through all the taxes i paid.
He didn't have a reasoned response, more of a grunt and a crude gesture
Maybe the VED web site and literature needs to make it a lot more explicit what's being paid for.
You're assuming these people can read
Maybe the VED web site and literature needs to make it a lot more explicit what's being paid for.
You're assuming these people can read
They can apparently fill in the form. Maybe they get a responsible adult to help them. Assuming of course that they've actually bothered to pay it at all.
I for one would welcome a taxation priority scheme on roads...as a 40% taxpayer most motorists would have to get out of may way as I ride past on my bike, and no doubt so would most lorries that are working for major companies like Amazon etc.
Folk only seem to pay attention when there's a cost involved. I've thought for a while now that if the VED reminder from DVLA included something like this:
[img] 
[/img]
Say with the 'potential' column replaced by a list of the costs for each category then maybe, just maybe, a proportion of the great uninformed might understand the reality of it all.
Just google 'Road Tax' and you'll see how commonly used it is.
eg Parkers "Road Tax" rates:
http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/advice/road-tax-guide/
NHS:
http://www.nhs.uk/CarersDirect/guide/transport/Pages/road-tax-exemptions.aspx
My other bicycle is a tank. What were you saying about this Road Tax thing?
Good feature on this on R4 Today at ~08:55 today.
And what about those damned Radio 4 listeners able to listen to their beloved Woman's Hour because I pay a TV license fee - makes my blood boil!
Actually the argument for both is pretty much the same. most radio listeners by a TV license also and a good deal of cyclists own a car and thus pay VED.
Yes, heard the [brief] Home Service broadcast.
Good luck to the chap setting up that website, but he's going to have to do a lot of converting amongst the general public and politicians ("Car Tax" sounds like a bad thing, so people will always use that wording) to get people on side.
What are the odds that this makes it on to Jeremy Vine's show today? I'm sure that would make for blood boiling listening!
What we should do is do away with the stupid thing altogether. It's just 'a' tax and has no bearing whatsoever on cars, lorries, bikes or anything else that uses the roads.
if you want to tax vehicles fairly then stick (more) tax on fuel. That way people who use their vehicles more, pay more tax. It still needs to come with the highlights that it doesn't pay for the roads but it means that the tax for joe bobbins who uses his car all the time, is more than the tax I pay because I help the environment/congestion/parking/life etc by using my bike while both my cars are sat at home doing nothing.
this approach will also encourage safer driving, more economical cars, visiting foreigners will pay more into our tax pots and dickheads on the roads will have far less of an argument.
That article also suggests that cyclists go around constantly cutting poor car drivers up and running red lights. What a load of tosh. No mention of all the car drivers who cut up cyclists (often injuring or killing them) nor of the hundreds of thousands of car drivers who jump red lights. One almost killed me this morning when he went through red that had been there for at least 5 seconds. but I still don't think all car drivers jump red lights.
Yeah put it all on fuel. Will upset many people though as price will jump up a lot and people complain at the price as it is - they won't appreciate the VED saving. But I don't care about that, just the politicians do. Would mean efficiency counts for more and that's a good thing - help us hit our pollution targets too.
As a bunch of cyclists, well thats why we're here, we're talking to the converted on here.
I trolled a few comments on UKClimbing where there are actually some non-cycling car drivers and sure enough they dont all agree. Sigh.
Antipathy of motorists toward cyclists is jealousy plain and simple.
Drivers feel persecuted by rules, fines and high taxation (they aren't really though)
The experience of most people driving also differs vastly from the ideal of open roads and freedom that they were no doubt sold at some point. This cognitive dissonance is another source of frustration for them.
Cyclists in comparison get a free ride.
And look there goes a cyclist going through a RED LIGHT!!
BLOODY CYCLISTS!!!!
&@#!!! %$£@!!!!
DON'T EVEN PAY ROAD TAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if you want to tax vehicles fairly then stick (more) tax on fuel.
Is the amount of tax collected from VED significant compared to tax from fuel anyway? Looks like at least half of fuel cost is tax so every time I fill up that's about 50 quid in tax. My tax disc cost me £125 so that's a little more than two visits to the pump. Not that much really.
I'd guess that you wouldn't have to raise tax on fuel much to cover the cost of removing VED. Not exactly a vote winner though!
[quote=mrblobby ]if you want to tax vehicles fairly then stick (more) tax on fuel.
Is the amount of tax collected from VED significant compared to tax from fuel anyway? Looks like at least half of fuel cost is tax so every time I fill up that's about 50 quid in tax. My tax disc cost me £125 so that's a little more than two visits to the pump. Not that much really.
I'd guess that you wouldn't have to raise tax on fuel much to cover the cost of removing VED. Not exactly a vote winner though!
You'd also make savings on the cost of collecting & enforcing VED though. Mind you, VED could also be rolled into the MOT cost.
Rough back of a fag packet, you'd need an extra 10p tax a litre to cover the cost of VED (assuming averages of 12k a year milage, 40mpg, 137.5 pence per litre.) And that's not taking into account all the VED collection saving.
Currently VED means you get a nice little 'Tax' disc to put in your car/truck/tractor window, which is also supposed to help identify the legitimacy of a motorised vehicle on the road. If it was scrapped this disc would be lost....
....unless it was included on your MOT certificate and when your vehicle passed it's MOT you got something to stick in the window.
That way it should also be easier to identify whether it should be on the road or not - no MOT, no disc.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...
'Road tax' is a colloquialism, and a perfectly accurate one at that. If one buys three identical cars producing identical emissions, races one on race tracks, rallies one in private grounds, and drives one on the public roads, guess what, only the car driven on the public roads is required to pay a tax..hence 'road tax'. Simple.
Now as to 'road tax' not paying for the roads...really? Next your going to tell me 'alcohol tax' (another colloquialism) doesn't pay for alcohol, or that 'tobacco tax' (yet another colloquialism) doesn't pay for tobacco! Taxes are named after what activity invokes the tax, not on the destination of revenue. Again, really really simple stuff.
The police don't have gangs of hawk-eyed officers wandering the streets looking at tax disks. Pretty much everyone who is nicked for car tax evasion is captured by a camera that has access to the VED database.
I don't see why it's necessary anyway. DVLA know all registered cars, they have access to the insurance database and all MOT records are in the system too. They can easily identify cars that have no MOT or insurance and have not been SORN. Or they could just send you a bit of paper to stick in your window when your MOT is filed, there doesn't have to be a cost associated with it.
Edit...
only the car driven on the public roads is required to pay a tax..hence 'road tax'. Simple.
Many cars are exempt even when driven on the public road.... so not that simple 🙂 Emissions tax maybe more accurate.
Road tax is not ring-fenced for the roads, there's a difference. By tying revenue gathered from VED into road expenditure, the drivers complaining would have a point but the two streams aren't linked in any way. Alcohol tax pays for the roads as well. All taxes end up paying for everything, that argument has no basis, there's just a big pot.
No-one is saying the money isn't needed, more that there needs to be some resolution that removes the perception that road tax provides some unalienable right to use the roads, more so than groups who don't pay road tax.
Many cars are exempt even when driven on the public road.... so not that simple
Doesn't alter what I said at all
Emissions tax maybe more accurate.
When I've already shown that of three cars producing identical emissions only a car driven on the public roads would be required to pay? Seriously? Maybe you need to re-read what I wrote?
It's no different to National Insurance really in terms of public perception.
Emissions tax maybe more accurate.
When I've already shown that of three cars producing identical emissions only a car driven on the public roads would be required to pay? Seriously? Maybe you need to re-read what I wrote?
Emissions on public road tax 🙂
Edit: Though that is a good argument for just scrapping VED and putting up fuel duty!
All taxes end up paying for everything...
Agreed
...there needs to be some resolution that removes the perception that road tax provides some unalienable right to use the roads...
Agreed
And the best way forward is always the truth, plain and simple. Trying to suggest that there is no such thing as 'road tax' just doesn't get past even the most cursory of glances. In so far as facts and accuracy are concerned, the BBC once again falls flat on its face whilst bending over backwards trying to appease the great unwashed.
The whole "there's no such thing as road tax" is just totally unhelpful- achieves nothing, just makes you look like a *. Does anyone really think the dialogue will go like this:
"You don't pay road tax you *, get off the road or I'll run you down"
"Actually I think you'll find that road tax was abolished and replaced with vehicle excise duty"
"Oh really? Well I stand corrected, I shall no longer drive into cyclists"
It doesn't matter what it's called. It's just a justification for hate, it's not a reason for it. And "road tax" is just a shorthand for VED anyway- it crops up all the time, even on .gov websites.
The whole "there's no such thing as road tax" is just totally unhelpful- achieves nothing, just makes you look like a ****.
This. In fact, that's probably what I should have just typed!
When I've already shown that of three cars producing identical emissions only a car driven on the public roads would be required to pay? Seriously? Maybe you need to re-read what I wrote?
Its amazing how many people seem to miss this obvious fact. If a car is on the road they have had to pay (a lot) of tax to get it there, its unsurprising they (incorrectly) think they have some rights. The focus on VED/Road tax from both sides is stupid, why cant everyone just get along... 🙄
Any regular commuter in Britain will have at some point come across someone in a vehicle who has told them to get off the road because they don't pay road tax. That's the origin of Carlton's campaign. Yes, it's pointless using the specifics when you have a monkey hanging out of a lorry window shouting at you but if it helps (and I believe it has), change media behaviour which in turn influences stupid people, then it's worthile pursuing.
As I say though, it'll never carry much weight with cyclehaters in general but it will stop them believing there's this huge groundswell of legitimate support for their hatred.
As a VED-paying car owner and cyclist, I might have to go in search of some pre-tax classic cars today and shout at the owners.
