[talkingcars]

Comments welcome

Hi

I have been following the debate about the new car tax plans by our current administration with some interest.

1) I have long believed, since I started driving in the 80's, that car tax or should I say Road Fund Licence, should be added to the cost of fuel rather than as a paper disc. My argument is that those who use the roads the most buy most fuel .

This has been furthered by the push to reducing polution, the harder one drives the more fuel one uses and the more polution one produces.

Listening to the media about the current high cost of fuel reveals that the puplic is generally using less fuel which confirms my thought that the best way to reduce polution is to discourage driving all together by making the cost of fuel greater, this affects people weekly rather than once a year.

Part of my work involves dealing with the fuel for my companies' fleet of 7 LGV lorries so I am painfully aware of the effects of rising fuel cost on our operating costs, if the Road Fund Licence was moved to being charged on fuel I am sure that a "rebate" could be arranged through the company tax system.

2) Because a car produces more CO2 on a given test cycle doesn't mean that it will be more poluting in everyday use. I have made at least 15 return trips from Horsham to Manchester in the last year, I use almost exactly the same ammount of fuel in my "highly poluting" 2.5L MG driving at normal speeds as I do making the same trip as I do in my wifes' "highly economic" 1.4L Rover 100. This is because the MG is driving at a far lower engine speed. If I drive aiming to be economic I can actually use less fuel in the MG than I could possibly use in the Rover. I have proved this.

3) The information used by the goverment is flawed, the EC defined test that was used from 2001 to determin CO2 output was changed in 2004 to give a more acurate result, however this means that many cars tested before this have a higher rating than they would have done on the new test, my own car tested in 2001 gave a reading of 227G K/M, however the new test would have given 204G K/M. Of course prior to this new way of bracketing tax bands this was only information to help buyers chose cars sensibly but now it is being used as taxation information and needs to be corrected.

Many thanks
James Davidson

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