Driving plans for pay-per-mile tax and the implications

EP's right some people have adverse reactions to anythng political, even when its obvious from the thread title.

Personally I agree with you, we should all be triggered into action about authoritarianism.

It was brought up a while ago that it would be helpful for there to be trigger warnings on posts that some people may find difficult. It is not necessarily an autism thing but this kind of topic can affect some people's mental health etc so Iain is giving them the option to avoid the thread.

The whole road tax thing needs rethinking, it seems to me not right that you can have a heavy car that does a lot of damage to the roads and yet it costs £20pa in road tax and yet a lighter car even though less fuel efficient will be £100pa more. I really think we should be ashamed of the state of our roads, many of them are in a terrible state. National A roads, dual carriageways and motorways that come under the Highways Agency seem to be better maintained than the smaller local ones that are left to cash strapped councils, I think more money needs to be spent not just on maintainance but on replacing sections where theres more patch than original surface.

I wasn't thniking of insurers having access to medical records to defend court cases, but of people who are assaulted, I don't believe the police wouldn't have a rootle through your medical records, if that meant they could find a way not to prosecute, a reason like, your mental health or anything that could be considered as a "disorder". If the police accesses any information and did use it in a case then the defence would have access to it too. How safe would our data be? We know of some appalling things done by police officers, like taking and sharing photos of the bodies of two murder victims, I'm not saying that all poiice are like this, just that some are and as the boundaries between public and private become ever weaker, how private will private be? 

I don't have a smart phone as Iain and others already know, I don't want one either, I'm a disaster with tech, the only thing I want to know about sat navs is how to turn them off, this seems to be another instance where not having a smart device will count against you, along with the whole ID thing. I'm finding people increasingly view me with suspicion for not having a smart phone or using social media other than here, ordinary people seem to be less suspicious, but businesses and government offices seem to think I must be hiding something and that my explaination that I'm a total klutz must be some kind of ruse for what I'm really doing, which must be bad and possibly dangerous. In reality my life is fairly mundane, I do post some personal stuff here, but it's never anything I'm unhappy with the world knowing, there are somethings that remain private.

It seems that society is in a position where privacy is being eroded and if you don't share everything when asked or better still volunteer it, then you must be hiding a monsterous secret life. There is a huge difference between secrecy and privacy, my bank statements are private, but not secret, I shut the door when I go to the toilet, not because I'm "up to something", nor is it because people don't know what it is I go in there to do, we all know why we go to the toilet, but we shut the door and do it in private because it gives a veil of privacy that society values. Secrets on the other hand are things that may cause harm or damage to me, another or a group of others, our passwords are supposed to be secret, things people tell us in confidence are supposed to be kept secret, except in certain situations like if you have reason to believe a child is in danger.

By the way Iain, given my technoklutznes, would you trust me to drive an electric car?

Iain said:

Trigger warning - there is some discussion of authoritatian government below so if this is triggering for you, please look away.

I mean no disrespect, but this seems to me to be an odd thing to say.  Is it wrong to be triggered by the threat of fascism?
Or are we talking about the kind of trigger that leaves people messed up?
Is it an autism thing, to be averse to authoritarianism?  I thought it was perfectly normal: is it more so with autistics?

Stuart333 said:

They can already track you from your phone.

You have the option to turn your phone off.

They can already track you from your phone. Newer cars have a phone and tracking as well, it's for the sat nav and emergency calls. There are anpr cameras all over the place.

This is for money. They make billions a month from fuel taxes.

Only around 10% of vehicle taxes are spent on roads, money from vehicle tax, vat on sales fuel duty, insurance tax, fines. The rest goes in the pot to pay for schools, hospitals, benefits, etc.

The move to move economical cars, EVs and working from home means they don't have the money any more.

The need billions from transport. You going to work is a cash cow.

A way to get money is charge per mile. It has privacy concerns. It has been suggested that data is aggregated, but to price you need journey data. Someone will have access to it. The temptation to look at it for other purposes will be too high.

It allows variable pricing based on time, so easy congestion charging everywhere. They say you won't pay more but you will, and it will go up every year. They can also charge more for some types of vehicle.

They said there would be some allowance for rural people. But government don't in general understand or care about the country. They are city types 

The real issue is whether they drop the other taxes. It was the original idea, but I think they may now want this in addition. It is hugely unpopular, but I'm not sure that is enough, the government don't like private transport 

The head of Volvo, I think, said around 2010 iirc, that if cars were invented today the government would ban them.

They want you to use public transport. It is social engineering.

Road pricing  has been talked about for 15 years, I am not sure it is imminent. But tax rises in November are coming for sure.

TheCatWoman said:

If they do bring in such a thing will it be just England or the whole UK?

Will there be allowances made according to postcode or where you live?

I would imagine there would be a phased approach due to the need to retrofit old cars, but I expect they will use a ramping up of the Carbon Tax rules to force more and more older cars into scrappage and support the car industry.

If they can establish that they are creating loads of jobs (even of only for a few years) and car manufacturing is on the rise then they can claim it as a victory.

The fact it adds a big load to our pockets is our problem.

TheCatWoman said:

such things are wide open to mission creep

This was the main point of my article, It is convenient for them to be able to see everything going on and this will add a whole lot more data to their knowledge.

If you are claiming for mobility support but are still regularly travelling then your claim may be denied because you are currently meeting the need anyway. From the reasons people have quoted for why claims are denied, this seems quite plausable and of course saves the government money.

TheCatWoman said:

Then you've got the issue of who has access to the information, this could have huge legal implications, could your medical history be used in open court to discredit your testimony, even as a witness? 

Insurers can already ask to see your medical records even to take out health insurance so I am fairly sure that where the records are relevant to a court case then they can do this too. There is detail on the current rules here:

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/confidentiality-and-health-records/requests-for-medical-information-from-insurers

As to whether they can use it to discredit a witness - that is unlikely to be easy under the current law but I wouldn't put it past the insurers if they wanted to lobby for it.

There is an interesting article on MPs influence in major companies here:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/mps-and-outside-business-interests/

If a big insurer wanted to influence a change in the law, how do you think they would go about it?

I think it is very much like lobbying in the USA, but it is much more discreet in the UK.

This discussion was made with the UK government in mind.

We already know that the intelligence services in the UK and USA gather all electronic communications and metadata on us for "security" purposes which has some justification, but the over-reach into what else is monitored is my concern.

There is no oversight or accountability for this and because it is done in the "interests of national security" then any attempt to find out about it will be blocked.

I think they are learning from Trump and proposing something fairly extreme, getting push back from the public and saying "we hear you" and implementing a more moderate system, but still taking a big step towards removing our personal liberty.

Remember we have no constitution in the way the US has to act as a legal backdrop, only a Citizens Charter that is vague at best and almost unenforcable. Through this we are not as free as we would think.

If they do bring in such a thing will it be just England or the whole UK?

Will there be allowances made according to postcode or where you live? If you live in a rural area then you do a lot of miles simply to get to the shops for food, driving 3 or 4 miles to get to the local shop isn't unusual, or further for the GP.

Do I trust the government, no, I don't trust any government to do right for the majority of the people, our politics is to adversarial, to us and them, when government changes the new incumbents spends half their time undoing what the previous lot did and not replacing it with any better, just with a different ideological bent.

I disagree with Digital ID cards, this government may not have any great designs on curtailing our activities or monitoring us, but such things are wide open to mission creep. A future government could well decide that we have to have all our medical details on them to prove we can see our GP and how often we see our GP. It could decide that we do have to produce it on demand of the police. Then you've got the issue of who has access to the information, this could have huge legal implications, could your medical history be used in open court to discredit your testimony, even as a witness? 

Firstly, I don't love the suggestion because I do a high milage to work which already costs me more in petrol. Let alone ending up being in a higher band of road tax than cars that probably have higher co2 emissions than my own. I don't know how they'll do the pricing yet, it's just a bit of a grumble of mine. I'm aware that a simple answer would be to find a job closer to home. But the reason that I work where I do is because that job fitted my needs and others didn't. It feels like autism needs are constantly being taxed themselves.

Anyway, that wasn't your point. I really don't believe the government are doing it to try and control us. I do believe they are doing it for money. 

I don't really understand your point about being tracked. If the police want to arrest you, they can already find out where to find you and will come and arrest you. Unless you're going on the run in said car, in which case you probably have done something to deserve being arrested for. I feel like the easy answer to this is - don't break laws. I will never understand people talking about controlling governments when it comes to breaking the law. Who would want to live in a lawless society where people can just do whatever they want?

Posting on social media gets a little more complicated and probably needs clear laws but there are huge issues with it and it does need policing. The people that posted on social media to rile people up and get the to commit attacks on innocent people absolutely deserved to be arrested and punished after the Southport attacks. "Well they didn't have to do it" is not an excuse for encouraging that level of hate. People that use social media to racially abuse people deserve to be arrested and punished. Yes there is a place for anonymity on the internet (such as here) but far too many people hide behind an anonymous user name and think they can say what ever they like.

I really don't think there are going to be people sitting there scrolling through all 69+ million of our social medias and other internet usage. But yes algorithms and such may be used to find people that are actually committing crimes using their social media.

I really don't believe there is a big plan for a surveillance state. I think people have jumped overboard with this digital ID thing. They've already said it's not mandatory (yes there might be implications if you don't). But they can already look up all my details using my passport or driving license. So what is actually the difference? I'd personally prefer to be able to carry my ID digitally, I don't have to worry about remembering it/losing it. It also will hopefully help keep kids safer as it will reduce the potential for fake IDs. 

Having said all that. Do I think the government is nice? Trustworthy? I don't think I believe that any politician is nice and trustworthy. I've seen the way that they "deal with issues" in parliament and children in schools are far better behaved than they are. But whilst I don't think they are particularly trust worthy, I do not think we are currently heading in the direction of a country like China.

I do also think the current government is in an impossible situation. Between the conservatives, Brexit and COVID the country has been left with a mess and not a lot of finance to fix it. Money has to be saved somewhere. How can they do that without upsetting someone? Whichever direction they decide to go in, there will be a group of people ranting and raving and saying they are a terrible government. If they try to put things in place they are an authoritarian government. If they don't put anything in place they are not doing enough. I really don't know what they could do which would make people not hate them.

I am massively concerned that we are heading towards a reform government though and that is a country that I would not want to live in. So no I don't particularly like or trust this current government but I'll take them over the current alternatives.

Did you have a government in mind, our Uk government or governments more widely?