Don't worry, this will be more than made up for chimp-wise by the pointless "24x7 lights on" legislation causing bulbs to burn out that much more often.

How on earth does keeping the MOT schedule as is, or extending to bi-annual make a difference to headlight bulbs needing replacement or foglight usage?

Surely its up to the police to pull more people over when driving without lights working or with fog lights on innapropriately.

France and there is no annual road tax.

Good grief. I'm actually in agreement with the French! Road tax is about as logical an idea as window tax.

Edited by unthrottled on 01/02/2012 at 18:33

Except in France there is a load of toll roads

Yes, but you only pay for what you use-which makes sense. As opposed to paying a flat rate based upon the theoretical fuel consumption regardless of how many miles you drive.

I'm talking about the logic of the tax, rather than the amount.

Toll roads and fuel duty make sense. Road tax is daft.

Im a bit split on this issue. On one hand we know many European nations including France and Germany have MOT's every two years and it hasnt resulted in the sky falling down or all the children dying there. We also know cars are put together much better than when the one-year legislation first came in. It'd cut down on red tape for motorists, give longer intervals between garages dreaming up bogus bills for things that dont need replacing etc

However, its all too common in this country for people to take the MOT certificate as gospel. Plenty of people go 'it has an MOT, its fine' and dont even check the tyre pressures for the next 12 months. Thats one thing, but its even worse when people know there is a problem with their car but go 'it doesnt need an MOT for 3 months so i'll leave it.' However in times when nobody has any money, its hardly surprising people will skimp on vehicle maintenance and that is probably the real reason why we cant do it.

Yes, but you only pay for what you use-which makes sense. As opposed to paying a flat rate based upon the theoretical fuel consumption regardless of how many miles you drive.

It'd be too complicated to 'pay for what you use' and it'd cost the motorist more. Any time the British Government tries to change anything it always results in the public's wallet becoming lighter, so they should just leave everything alone. Even if you dont agree with the current set up, you have to admit British incompetance means you're better off leaving it alone rather than risk what destruction they'd bring us if they tried to change it.

Toll roads and fuel duty make sense. Road tax is daft.

Yet its toll roads and fuel duty which receive the most opposition in this country. I've never seen a rolling road block protesting against car tax. I dont like toll roads, the UK doesnt accept toll roads. Bigwigs are toying with the idea of widening the A14 with a 'toll lane' or a whole new 'toll road' and this week saw every large East Anglian business (most notably haulage firms obviously) 100% condemn any idea of any toll what-so-ever. The idea has zero business support. The only people who support it are those who dont drive on it and wish everyone else would stop it. The feeling amongst sensible people is that we've paid for this road 16,874 times already, why should we pay for it again?

Toll Roads dont work here, the M6 Toll is a prime example. It was built to relieve congestion on the A5 (i think its the A5, im happy to be corrected) but because its a toll, its usually empty and the A5(?) is still full. Haulage firms say they only use the M6 Toll in "exceptional circumstances" due to the cost and motorists arent going to pay to use it if theres a free road running alongside it. The Dartford Crossing is also ridiculous, they say the toll is to deter usage and reduce congestion, but if it wasnt for everybody stopping to pay the toll then there'd BE NO CONGESTION!!!!!!!!!

There should never be any toll roads in Britain at all. They dont belong in this country. The French can do whatever they like, I dont care about France.

I am in Western Australia. We don't have any annual roadworthiness tests. The sky has not fallen in. The police pull over cars that they think could have a problem and give them a yellow sticker if they think they are unroadworthy. They then have to present the car at a test centre within a set time and get it checked for roadworthiness. The system works fine and we don't have heaps of unroadworthy cars. As pointed out above the big problem is unroadworthy drivers.

The MOT test is a big earner for garages and I suspect that they go to great lengths to make sure that most people have a big bill to pass it.