I thought that the DVLC had a computer that listed who owned cars, what cars were registered, and which cars were taxed.
I suppose that these new road tax cameras are to "catch" unregistered untaxed cars driven by unlicenced drivers.
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Well if they are unregistered how do they know where to send the ticket? If your expecting Plod to do some detective work you're in for a long wait.
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I suppose its got nothing to do with the recent security clamp down either. An extra set of electronic eyes in the ring of steel...
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You should see the press release about this. I've published it verbatim in the news at www.honestjohn.co.uk without comment, but I bet you guys and girls will have a few.
HJ
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David W......
If I buy a duck, grow some spuds and maize, can I buy your Tractor - Fergy, Ford, Case or John Deere.
I could then go on cheap days out and claim I was going to Market........
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"There will now be NO EXCEPTIONS. NO EXCUSES. NO ESCAPE. "
Ingoring the (massive) question of surveillance of the populace, the above phrase is..interesting.
As a proportion of cars (I seem to recall around 10%) are not registered to their current owner, this is all a bit lame, as all these people will be excused from the clampdown.
As usual, there is a choice between attacking the generally law-abiding (easy to pursue, afraid of the law, likely to have funds, likely to pay fines, etc) and attacking the generally law-breaking (hard to find, no respect for the law, no cash to pay fines, etc).
As usual, the choice is to go for the easy target. No mention of finding incorrectly registered vehicles in here. These people get away with speeding past Gatsos already, now the Government adds road tax dodging to their exemption from prosecution.
Vin
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I wonder how many people are actually stupid enough to drive around in a car registered in their own name, at their own address, for months and months after the tax runs out. Can't see this scheme paying for itself, but I can see it having some very useful surveillance applications which of course won't be mentioned by DVLA or the police..... Very Big Brother.
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Check out the latest Association of British Drivers journal:
Apparently in Manchester nearly half of all accidents involve hit and run drivers, most of whom appear to be driving unregistered cars.
And they "catch" some unregistered cars speeding up to 15 times A DAY!
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I used to wonder how drivers without any insurance cover managed to drive round with a valid tax disk on the windscreen, thus saving themselves some awkward further questions from an inquisitive plod. The answer was revealed by one of those "lovabe rogues" one sometimes come across. When renewing his tax disk, he presents an insurance cover note printed on a home computer. No PO clerk ever does any more than check the reg no and the expirity date on the certificate, and with the hundreds of different insurers about who would suspect that a well produced forgery was anything other than genuine?
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There are a number of ways around it, but I think usually people just stick to buying old-bangers which still have some tax on them or using the wrong tax disc.
However, I wonder how "lovable" you'd find him if he had just into one of your loved ones without his insurance ?
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"Lovable" was was used in it's sarcastic tense, Mark. I have been rear ended by someone without insurance. Not funny.
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Tom
I imagine that there are more than a few tax discs about produced in the same way.
Also, I imagine that a home computer 'Insurance certificate' may well fool the Police too, especially at night when they can't ring to confirm validity. The new Insurance data base should stop this, but will the Post Office have it?
Whilst no-one likes uninsured drivers, this sytem is the usual blunt instrument likely to penalise the otherwise law abiding drivers whose MOT is a few days out, whilst missing the anonymous drivers who simply are not on the system. It will achieve this at minimum effort and manpower, despite the fact that actually stopping cars would be likely to catch the real tearaways - but that requires resources and costs. Regretably, I'm not surprised.
Regards
John
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I think that in this thread and a host of others there are plenty of arguments why mostly law abiding citizens would be quite happy to carry proper id and produce it when required. Taxing a car could be one of those occasions. Or is that an infringement of civil liberties. Or am I going to be accused of being anti motorist....again.
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It beggars belief as to what measures the authorities will go to to collect revenue i.e. Car Excise Duty or RFL. For years it was been shouted that if you put a proportion of this Tax onto the cost of petrol then EVERYBODY will pay. Importantly those that use the road more than the average motorist will also pay for this - OK I appreciate they use more juice and already do so. DVLA can then concentrate on getting details of owners up to date, a task they seem to be failing miserably at.
Once read years ago that Oz were to introduce a similar way of paying for Insurance through extra tax on petrol which would have meant that claims would be paid out by Govm in less than 6 weeks. Dont know if it came about.
Seems to me there is also a security/crime prevention aspect in cameras being able to detect stolen/suspect vehicles on record with Police National Computor and DVLA records merging?
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Another good reason for putting road tax onto fuel is that visiting foreigners would pay too! They charge us to use their motorways so they shouldn't mind paying on their fuel to use ours - although ours are crowded rubbish compared with theirs I must admit!
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Dwight
In case you haven't noticed, the cost of the road fund licence HAS been added to the price of fuel, hence the price differential between the UK and Continental fuel, the trouble is that the UK RFL has been retained as well.
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The problem with puting road tax on fuel is that I do 40k business miles per year, and the extra cost would be passed on to my customers. Every business in the country would have to do the same, so we would all end up paying more, even non-drivers.
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Yes Tom but the road tax is like an eat all you can buffet! Some of us get more out of it than others. If you use the road a lot why shouldn't you pay more than those who drive to the shops twice a week and Brighton twice a year?
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But it ain't called road tax, it's called Vehicle Excise Duty. You don't pay for using the road, you pay for owning a vehicle.
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Going to stand in the unpopular corner with Stuart B I think.
OK so I don't agree with the whole of the taxation system (though I do like free RFL and diesel at £1/gallon for the tractor) but that is the sysyem and there is also the element of ensuring , at least at the time of taxation, there is a current MOT and insurance in force...even if only a good scan copy of the cert.
So are we, the HJ visitors, going to be hurt by this one bit? No because we all tax our cars..............don't we?
And as to the issue of cars not registered in the current users name, well that's "our" fault really. If we all complied with the requirement to notify DVLA of the new keeper soon they would know all the correct users.
OK so the 0.001% of the really bad boys will find a way, but they always do don't they.
Time for Top Gear methinks.
David
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I think that anyone caught driving without tax or insurance shoul d have their vehicle impounded. They should thenbe fined a minimum of £2000 and be given a week to pay up. If they don't, their vehicle should either be crushed or auctioned off. The money could then be used to pay for medical costs of those involved in accidents.
Andy
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Hmmm...Bearing in mind that 'road tax' accounts for just 12% of the overall tax burden on motorists, even if every single disc-dodger was caught it would mean only a 12% claw-back for the treasury. However, as many dodgers also have false plates or don't even register their cars, the figure recovered will be insignificant. Hidden agendas, methinks.....
Secondly, the publicity for this says 'you are paying more because the tax dodgers are not paying...' Oh yeah? So when they've copped plenty of these dodgers our road tax will come down, will it? Riiiiight....
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I think they've caught on to cloned plates. Any 'official' number plate maker is now required to see proof of ownership of the car before they will make up the plates. There is some confusion as to whether this is new law or forthcoming law, but some plate-makers are applying the rule now.
HJ
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