Green tax! A threat to retroers....

Thats the system they have in France at the moment. However, as of next year, they are SCRAPPING the rules about where and when you can use your classic car! How progressive is that! That means their politicians have had a discussion in the french parliament and they have decided to EASE EXISTING RESTRICTIONS FOR CLASSIC CAR OWNERS! I know its a totally crazy, irresponsible concept but they have somehow gone ahead and done it.

This does worry me... and there seems to be a distinct lack of solid, reliable information out there. As we're all aware, scientists sponsored by oil companies will publish findings that go against other reports by green groups. Then the government will pick and choose information to suit its needs.
I've heard that old cars are less polluting due to most of the energy used being consumed in manufacture. But then on this thread I've seen almost the opposite sort of figures. So what is disinformation, and what is fact? To be honest I don't think we'll ever know.
It seems that a lot of the figures just based on CO2 emissions favour the car, but then they ignore all the other pollutants.
Stick an important sounding acronym on a pie-chart and people will believe it.

I know my car pollutes, but what really irritates me is that this government are using the (vote-winning) "Green" issues as an excuse to squeeze more money out of us motorists. If they wanted to stop us using cars, they'd ban them (they love banning things), or make road tax £4000 per year. But I can guarantee that the taxes will not be that high, they'll be just high enough so that most people will still pay them (and still use their cars), thus generating more money for the coffers. Sickening.

What is more, the less well-off will suffer. Someone who owns a brand new BMW X5 and a house in Kingston-Upon-Thames isn't really going to feel the pinch of a few extra hundred quid to park their car outside.

I always thought that the tax exemption malarky was in place as cars of that age are usually "hobby" cars and only see the road a few times a year and cover very low mileages. They are not in the same category as a daily driver that may cover 20,000 miles a year. Also classic car buffs may have more than one old car tucked away in their garage. Its not fair that theyd have to pay tax for 2 or more cars that hardly ever see the road! What about all this heritage pap that goes with it? My dad always told me that with tax exemption the government were effectively paying you to keep an historic vehicle on the road.

All it is is sucking up to the enviromentalists, nothing to do with reality!

The problem is like in Yes Minister

"Humphry, I need to do something about his"
"Do something or appear to be doing something Minister?"
"Both, if possible"
"Well, thats certainly a novel approach"

To do anything meaningful with transport and the environment will take longer to acheive than one term of a government administration. Nothing strategic is done any more. See One guy might spend 5 years beavering away on it, no noticable improvements but he's going the vital groundwork, another guy comes in and 6 months later it starts bearing fruits. The second guy looks like a god, the first guy looks like a charlie, when its all the first guy's effort. No politican wants that to happen to them.

What if the global warming we're currently going through is a natural cycle? Then the government be getting extra tax revenue/discouraging us from using/consuming so much for something that would happen anyway?

Someone made a comment about domestic/building emissions. I can assure you that this in the process of being addressed and it hasn't been forgotten about, I have to deal with the barmy ramifications of this on a daily basis and it's a nightmare trying to get new buildings up to standard.

Meanwhile we continue to buy and consume things that have no control on them at all - news today about that gigantic ship on its way from China, SS Santa as it's been dubbed, full of curse word of which probably 0.01% is actually essential for daily life.

It's all a load of c*ck and thoroughly depressing really. I don't know where you'd start to make an impact on any of it, other than winding the clock back about 3,000 years and living like that forever.

Blairs Britain ...

Band-IT Country! ;D

thank you !

This has all got absolutely nothing to do with being friendly to the environment & everything to do with raising taxes to make up for the economic mismanagement of a so called prudent chancellor. The same chancellor who is responsible for raping the private pension funds (thus putting far more strain on the government coffers & the reduced amount of money being spent by pensioners isn't going to help economic growth....), & transforming a large surplus into a rapidly rising defecit.

Cars & drivers are picked on as they are the easy targets - already the Lobotomised Dork party are proposing to charge for residents' parking permits based on the CO2 tax band of the car, rather than the flat rate that has always been the case previously. Stupid, incompetant fools.... can't they see that this will only encourage people to use their cars during the day (rather than leaving it parked on the street at home & taking public transport) so that a permit isn't required.

As for the whole is it green or isn't it, there is no car currently in production that provides the same level (or greater) of comfort, reliabilty, dependability, flexible load carrying capacity, compact overall dimensions & manouverability that I desire as my Amazon. If there was one, then I would consider buying it!

I admit, I've not really read through all the press surrounding this, but I'm 90% sure it won't affect retros.
The whole idea behind this is that you pay based on emissions, yeah? Well, sound data on emissions is only available for cars sold after some point in 2001 when it became a legal obligation for the manufacturers to provide it. It's the same as road tax: post-2001 vehicles are taxed based on emissions; pre-2001 on engine size.
Of course, nothing's stopping them saying '5 litre hemi, sir? Certainly, your parking permit will be £120,000', but I haven't seen that been mentioned...
EDIT: Although I have just read that every car you own you pay an extra 50% for a permit, so big fleets of cars are out. Which given it's only possible to drive one at a time, is maybe a bit silly.
I've also read that given current government policy, aircraft emissions will grow from 5.5% of total CO2 emissions now to 25% by 2050. Still, they've got good lobbyists.