Just taken the plunge. I'm not happy at the cost, excessive surely for a two wheel form of transport? Is this emissions based or assumed luxury item based? We're over a barrel as usual so have to cough up and smile. No doubt thousands of others will also be re taxing their bikes today, serious revenue.
It’s says something when a small car is far cheaper than a bike. Obviously it’s not about congestion in the governments eyes. It must be seen as a luxury tax like tv licence
It wouldn't be so bad if they tax was used to keep the road surfaces in a good state of repair. Round here my 4x4 struggles to cope with the pot holes seen a couple of cars stopped after hitting one with broken front suspension. My Mrs Nissan Juke is less than half that to tax.
It's not about the size of the vehicle, it's emissions based. New cars run much cleaner and more efficiently than our bikes therefore cost less. Personally for less than the cost of one small take out pizza a month I'll suck it up.
I keep meaning to ask my MOT guy if he can test the emissions on the bike without having to book in and him go online for an MOT cos according to my V5 the bike (1200GS) is rated at 115g/km which would put it in category B at £30 per year if registered up to March 2017 or £180 if registered after that.
So why do we have to put up with Euro 5 strangulation if the emissions aren't tested on bikes I wonder?
Possibly because they are tested in Europe and at the time we were in the EU. Additionally to that manufacturers are going to produce to a common standard rather than for each individual countries specifications.....only guessing of course
It hurts more when you have multiple vehicles and do your mileage shared across them. I'm currently paying £794 a year in VED to cover about 15,000 miles I've long advocated that VED should be scrapped and a few pence more be added to fuel as that should drive behaviours in terms of buying more fuel efficient vehicles, driving more efficiently and will also link duty paid to use of the roads. The arrival of electric vehicles has ruined that plan though.
It may be PARTLY emissions-based charging but I really don't think the structure is scientific, fair or consistent. I'd feel fairly confident that most modern bikes of up to, say, 1,000cc and with a cat. fitted will be as, or more, efficient as a family car of a similar size. And by "efficient" I mean in terms of emissions, consumption, and - perhaps more importantly - environmental cost throughout the "whole life cycle" of the vehicle. Can you imagine the cost and environmental impact of fuel; oil changes; consumables, etc., during the vehicle's normal lifespan and then recycling or disposal at 'end of life' for a small family hatchback? And that's all without taking into account an holistic view of cost of manufacture! I really can't see a modern motorcycle (assuming it isn't de-catted, etc.) making significant inroads in comparison to the whole lifecycle costs of an equivalent car ..... though I haven't done any research on that and am happy to stand corrected. My wife has an Audi A3 1.0 with cylinder on demand (COD) technology - i.e. it cuts 2 cylinders in certain 'steady state cruising' conditions. It's still a one litre car; needs four tyres, drags around a steel body with plastic, foam, fabric and who-knows-what-else materials making up the bigger picture and it probably averages in the forties to the imperial gallon fuel consumption - and for all this she pays the princely sum of £20 per year VED!! I have absolutely NO idea what current road tax rates are for motorcycles but I doubt that very many qualify for THAT low a level of charge! I'm gradually coming around to the once horrific view that slapping another fiver on the cost of petrol and scrapping all bar a notional charge for annual road tax/registration is a more equitable way forward ... overall. Let those who use it most, pay most? Very few vehicles are causing any (further) environmental damage when thye're not being used.
I think our respective posts crossed in the ether. I agree completely with the linking of road use duty to .... well ..... road use. I don't see the arrival of electric vehicles ruining the plan - just massively increase the cost of electricity used for charging a road vehicle, wherever it's charged. The principle remains the same in that the end user pays. It would require - and be - a massive shift in our cultural view of road vehicle useage but, overall, would, I think, be a fairer and more practical approach than the historic view of blind, blanket taxation of motorists.
100% agree with road tax being included in fuel. A direct correlation between mileage/pollution/road use/road damage I wouldn't object to paying a few pence more per litre of fuel if I didn't have to pay tax across two bikes and a car whether I am using them or not For electric vehicles, I am sure the government can find a way of taxing them based on mileage. Maybe a reading taken each month or at the point of MOT and the tax charged accordingly.
I'm not sure having to charge your electric car from a stand-alone petrol genny on your drive would help speed their adoption I suspect this is where the idea of by-the-mile road pricing comes in as it covers all vehicle types
what a useful, sensible, mature and entirely erudite way to look at things. Alas none of what you say is relevant. The government needs money, they can reap that from taxing....well, anything they can. Fairness is a "nice to have" but entirely unnecessary when it comes to achieving "gathering cash". You may stand a chance if everyone decided to own less vehicles and the proverbial bottom fell out of the "revenue raised via VED" market; but that won't happen. Wasn't there something I read that we should (and legally "can") register as businesses or something and use the same tax loopholes, avoidances and all the other "legal ways to pay less tax" that the wealthy/informed know about? The most disheartening thing is that we may all happily pay MORE tax if we got more bang for our buck.... Is it Denmark that has a very high rate of tax but an equally high standard of government provision and general satisfaction in that status-quo? Here we pay tax and get an arguably poor service for doing so. Apologies - I am supposed to be working and it is very quiet so I am bored and so ranting about things I know nothing about...ignore me, I am going back to the "Babes on bikes" section now....
There’s always winners and losers with any form of tax. People without kids still contribute to schools and colleges. Illiterate fuckwits still contribute to libraries (bad example as they probably don’t pay tax). A car if driven sparingly still needs infrastructure to be set up and maintained so there is a perhaps a minimum contribution needed to cover things that all drivers need regardless of mileage, and then maybe pay extra if you do more miles than that. Similarly those that do a lot of miles are perhaps generating tax in other ways for HMG - be it income tax, corporation tax thorough increased sales, VAT on all the Yorkie bars they eat etc... charging them more to drive might reduce their mileage and the associated tax revenues from other sources... I think it’s a bit like students paying for Uni. If they do well they are likely to earn more over a lifetime. They will pay more tax. That doesn’t work now though as Universities are now run as businesses to fleece gullible students of all the money they don’t have yet and provide them with a worthless certificate - only for industry to have to retrain them when they start working. Duh.
I do think bikers get a raw deal when it comes to road tax. All my 3 bikes are over 600cc so I pay the higher rate of duty on those, whereas my 2 litre 160 bhp car costs just £30 a year. I managed to save a princely £3 by taxing my Tuono on line yesterday before the price hike.
We get taxed on accidents as part of our registration. This means cars are based on safety ratings. Mrs Dartplayer pays $80 for a 5 star big 6 cylinder wagon and I pay $670 because idiots don’t wear protective gear or ride without caution and it’s over 600cc. Below is “just” the accident component, excluding tax of course
I pay £93 for my 2010 bonneville 865 £20 for my 1993 TZR 125 and £0 for my 2015 Toyota auris hybrid I made sure that the car was under 2017 as I believe that from 2017 even hybrids are taxed
