Denationalising the roads……

You would still need to address those driving without insurance, and an MOT.
Something which the excise licence helps to keep in check.

The roadside scanners reads your number plate not the disc in the window, and checks for insurance MOT etc, removing road tax will not stop that.

When the government says it will cost taxpayers less, that’s the time to get worried. They simply won’t do without that cash that road tax etc provides, and will make it up the deficit somehow else.
Remember when diesel was cheap until more motorists started to use it? They are already moaning about the lost tax on ‘green’ cars!
Denationalising national assets like the railways might have saved the government money, but the cost to the British taxpayer was enormous…

Denationalising the road network would involve phasing out taxes applied specifically to the road sector, such as fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax).

Never happen.

I hope this discussion includes Massey Ferguson Tractor owners, who clog the roads up, especialy around Newquay 😉
Baz, That includes you.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Indeed we do. However there does not appear to have been the significant reduction in use from those who do have a choice, which people predicted.

we just keep coming back for more…..

Some of us have no choice, you just have to cough up.

I’ve often wondered, that if there was a 10% drop in vehicle usage, where would the chancellor look, at raising
an extra £4 billion pounds a year to make up for it ?

I seem to recall people predicting a far larger drop in car usage when fuel exceeded £1 per gallon. Then it was £2 per gallon, then £5 per gallon……apart from an occasional short-term blip we just keep coming back for more…..

Simple, scrap car tax, put it on fuel, you would save billions by simply laying off all of the staff involved and shutting down the DVLA car taxation offices. Car tax fraud would dissapear over night and you would pay for the usage of the network

It would suit those of us owning more than one vehicle, with only one on the
road at any one time.
You would still need to address those driving without insurance, and an MOT.
Something which the excise licence helps to keep in check.

I’ve often wondered, that if there was a 10% drop in vehicle usage, where would the chancellor look, at raising
an extra £4 billion pounds a year to make up for it ?

As someone who does 20000 miles a year just commuting I don’t know about this one. It costs around £3000 a year for me to commute, that’s just fuel alone. About £2000 of that is tax so if that was removed the cost would have to be around 9.5p per mile for me to stay as I am.
There is little point in the government saying people may have to look far and wide for work and then punishing them if they have to travel any distance.

So what happens when the govt. runs out of things to sell I wonder,,,

And all this dual tolls may take people off main roads for a while but would choke the whole B road network up, and what happens where there is no B road to your destination? It’s a farce, if they spent the tax revenue generated by car tax in the first place on the network we wouldn’t be having this conversation…

Want to generate extra billions to spend on the road network…. Simple, scrap car tax, put it on fuel, you would save billions by simply laying off all of the staff involved and shutting down the DVLA car taxation offices. Car tax fraud would dissapear over night and you would pay for the usage of the network, do 5,000 miles and you would pay less than those doing 50,000.. As for road haulage, simply have them registered and claim a rebate based on vehicle mileage at the end of the year etc… This country is paying out for more and more damn civil servants, these new police overseers as far as I can see are just adding another layer that we have to pay for.

+1

Nice idea,but,imagine you want your boiler servicing of dish washer repairing,never mind having shopping delivered .All this would go up four fold.

And all this dual tolls may take people off main roads for a while but would choke the whole B road network up, and what happens where there is no B road to your destination? It’s a farce, if they spent the tax revenue generated by car tax in the first place on the network we wouldn’t be having this conversation…

Want to generate extra billions to spend on the road network…. Simple, scrap car tax, put it on fuel, you would save billions by simply laying off all of the staff involved and shutting down the DVLA car taxation offices. Car tax fraud would dissapear over night and you would pay for the usage of the network, do 5,000 miles and you would pay less than those doing 50,000.. As for road haulage, simply have them registered and claim a rebate based on vehicle mileage at the end of the year etc… This country is paying out for more and more damn civil servants, these new police overseers as far as I can see are just adding another layer that we have to pay for.

Will they be selling shares? What if the French bought it would we have to drive on the others de of the road?

I don’t think my nerves could stand it if it was an Indian company!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

We had all this statistical guff thrown at us, when all the stops were pulled out, to convince us what a great idea privatising the rail network would be. Just look what an unqualified success that has been, with its falling fares, vastly improved quality of service etc etc. Then there are the substantial government subsidies further draining the public purse, necessary just to keep the whole ediface from crumbling. Privatise the roads? yeah, go for it, why have just one subsidised transport network, when you can have two;)

True!!

Denationalising the road network would involve phasing out taxes applied specifically to the road sector, such as fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax).

Never happen.

So this has raised its head again….

I have yet to be convinced that there is evidence for the these claims:

“A privatised road network would be cheaper and faster for motorists
Allowing private owners to negotiate routes, set toll rates, control access and determine rules for users would:
1. Ensure more efficient use of existing capacity
2. Provide more efficient investment in new capacity
3. Allocate traffic flows more efficiently
4. Smooth traffic jams
5. Reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities
6. Allow innovations such as higher speed limits and heavier lorries
Road users would pay less under a privatised road network than they do at the moment and would have a better quality network. For example, tolls for cars could be as little as 6p per mile on a brand new motorway. For most cars, this would be less than the fuel duty currently paid. Charges for using existing parts of the network would generally be even cheaper than this.”

They seem to be assumptions to make their case.