We're being fairly incompetently tracked at the point of entry and exit to some towns and cities. Only really gets used at the moment to scan by registration number and bleep the police if a car reported stolen goes through. It's massively increased your chances of getting your car back if it's stolen by a casual criminal and you find out quickly, but that's about it. A bit more tie-in to crushing the remarkable number of uninsured cars driven by people who've never had lessons would be a big improvement.
On the substantive, no need to increase road tax, it's only useful as it forces people to report that they own a car, so we can check that they also have insurance and that it's roadworthy and so on. Road pricing though, yes please. A much more flexible policy than charging for the petrol, enables us to bring our freight charges down to a level where a chunk of the country isn't put out of busines by the continent via tax competition, and to make it cheaper to drive routes where we accept that there's no public transport, vs. making it more expensive to drive where there are alternatives and where there is a major congestion problem.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-14 01:36 pm (UTC)On the substantive, no need to increase road tax, it's only useful as it forces people to report that they own a car, so we can check that they also have insurance and that it's roadworthy and so on. Road pricing though, yes please. A much more flexible policy than charging for the petrol, enables us to bring our freight charges down to a level where a chunk of the country isn't put out of busines by the continent via tax competition, and to make it cheaper to drive routes where we accept that there's no public transport, vs. making it more expensive to drive where there are alternatives and where there is a major congestion problem.