4x4 drivers face huge charge rise in London

Blood coming back to the boil!

We're taxed heavily on petrol and thats enough to swap the V8 for a Smart. then big road tax £190?, parking, insurance taxes, congestion, toll and now pay per drive and heavier all that if your not in a little tykes buggy!!! Stupid!

If were not careful there will be a tax and rule for everything! O/T but a good example is they are looking to tax rubbish by amount, so there will be bin men weighing/counting bins, and people illegal tipping and complaining to council about what the council tax does pay for!

Keep it simple and fair FFS.

As I said I'll be using my vote, and probably my right to write to my MP too!

As a retro car user and cyclist I am all for the congestion charge which has reduced traffic in the city. I also think charging by the mile for road use and insurance is a good thing. I have done 170 miles in the last six months in the Datsun and paid for six months tax and a year's insurance, working out at around £2.00 a mile.

But Ken has a thing about 4X4s which I think is a bit pathetic. They are heavier but otherwise they take up the same amount of roadspace as a family saloon. People who drive cars that use a lot of petrol already pay a lot of tax on their fuel, and the price of their car (VAT) and on their road tax.

The congestion charge is a problem for Ken. He budgeted that it would bring in a lot of cash but it didn't bring in the projected revenues, because people stopped driving into the city. Since then council has been trying to extract more cash from it.

The more the congestion charge zone is extended, the less it will bring in per car, because more people become exempt as they live inside the zone.

Charlie

I forget the eaxct numbers, but I heard a report on Radio 4 stating that the CC brings in something like £100,000,000 a year. However the costs of running the scheme are £97,000,000. So on one had you can say "woohoo, £3million quid extra!" but on the other hand if its meant to raise money its very poor return on investment. At least its cashflow positive. Some tolling and road charging schemes have run at a loss for decades.

I don't want ot pay per mile. I don't want a black box. Lifes complex enough. I already pay a lot per mile due to running uneconomical cars. However my road tax is free and my insurance is cheap as I'm a low risk and I'm happy with that. I drive daily but I have low annual mileage.

London is one case, as it has a decent public transport network. Only problem I have is finding somewhere I can park at a reasonable cost when I go down there. If we go down shopping then it has to be a mass shop session to make it worth the effort and then you want the car close by to relay back with the bags.

Bit like VAT y'mean

OK another topical 'tax issue' - Sin Taxes

There is a case being heard (in Europe) in the next few weeks which will basically remove the chancellors stranglehold on excise for cigarettes and booze being brought into the country. If this case goes through, we will be able to order both from Europe and pay their prices.

The impact of that is estimated at several billion pounds. If the treasury loses this income they have already made noises that the money will be recovered through an increase in income tax or NI.

Now THAT is an unfair tax. Why should I pay for someone else to smoke or drink? If you want to have these 'luxuries' you should pay the tax on them, not me.

I have the same view on this as I do on the taxation of cars. You know the costs, if you don't want to pay them DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT.

The increase in congestion charge is the longest warning you will ever get of a tax increase - when was the last time you were given so much notice of a rise in tobacco duty, or income tax for instance? - and if you can't afford to/ don't want to pay, don't buy a high tax bracket car.

Whether we on this board care to believe it or not, cars are a luxury, not a necessity to human existence.

As said most of our cars are cheap to buy, often affordable due to the way we use them even if they are guzzlers, less miles = not as bad as loads of miles in normal car, so we generally buy cars we can run.

We're getting to a situation where a lot of people do need a car, rural areas, people travelling further to work/uni etc cos they cant afford that house near work or near trans links etc. plus 'Disabled badge holders'.

Its taxes on taxes that boils me up. and the daft rules. everytime a complex rule comes in a complex way of running that rule comes in so does people who try to get round it illeaglly/legally! and moral goes down

And more imposing on freedom. leave it out!

Pi$$ up in a brewery! we need transport everyday people and commmuters can use and afford, and less risk of attack.
We need cycle lanes that work - everywhere, signs that work. and city centres that don't get you lost and going round in circles (often entered by accident), and thats just the start...

I'm with what AK just said - i don't wanna 'pay per mile', i just want a simple life where i can drive where/when i want to.

i fed up of all the fcuking admin/paperwork sh*te i have to deal with as it is, without adding to it.

A car is a necessity, Without one i wouldn't be able to get to anywhere.

There is currently no viable aternative to the car. People need to realise that not everyone lives 10 minutes walk from a city centre.

Agrred, if you are looking for a cheap car you don't have to buy a Landrover. You can buy a Fiesta or Polo for peanuts.

While I'm tempted just to say "ah who cares its only London" the fact is its coming soon to a city near me. And quite how it will be implemented I don't know.

Cars are only a luxury if you live on a good public transport network to where you need to be and you can use it. The biggest bee up my ass is that my father in law is disabled, they need a car to move him about the place as he is paralysed from the neck down. Guess what, my mother in law can't get the free rate of disabled road tax for their car because SHE isn;t disabled and my father in law doesn't drive it. Of course he doesn't he's a quadraplegic. So they have to pay £190 a year to tax the frikkin car which they had to pay for as well when people like my uncle who once had a bit of a funny turn when he got hit on the head and had to have a couple of weeks of work gets a free car off motability, free road tax, the lot. Oh, and my mother in law has to pay higher rate of insurance because the Focus is classed as a "modified car" now that its been adapted for his wheelchair. Oh, and they had to buy a new focus because the comapny doing the conversion wouldn;t convert anything else. My wife and sister-in-law both have to do loads of running around, doing all the stuff the fvcking NHS is supposed to do but either can't afford to, can't be arsed to do or does so fvcking badly you wouldn't leave your worst enemy to it. Put it this way, he was in hospital, they rang my sister in law at work to ask her to go out an get a prescription for them. Oh, and the hospital is nearly 40 miles away because thats the closest one that has facilities to deal (often badly) with his disability. Yeah, just a luxury item these cars. Tax us to the hilt and provide a fvckin substandard level of care to people who've worked their plums off for 35 years and never claimed a penny in social all that time, who only want to live out in dignity and not be a burden to thie families, and no doubt thats going to be a luxury too some day soon. Between them I bet they do some serious miles a year on NHS business and caring for thier father. Should be getting a fvcking subsidy on them not tax.