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Coming soon: Pay-as-you-go road tax
Last updated at 11:08am on 18.08.08
Taxing: Could pay-as-you-go road tax be on the way?
Pay-as-you-drive road taxes moved a step closer last night after the Government confirmed it was launching the first ever trials of the scheme.
As part of several pilots taking place across Britain, cars will be fitted with black boxes on their dashboard which can be tracked by satellites allowing their exact movements to be monitored
The Department of Transport said it is currently appointing companies to carry out these schemes.
Members of the public will be invited to take part in the trials which are likely to occur some time between now and 2010.
It is believed that the pilots will take place in about ten different parts of the country.
A Department of Transport spokesman said no areas had been agreed yet by the companies charged to carry out the scheme.
In most cases, the trials will involve a satellite tracking a vehicle's movements and motorists will then receive a monthly or weekly bill which will vary depending on when and where they drove.
Up too 100 drivers in each area will voluntarily test the black box technology which will allow their movements to be tracked.
New Labour has vacillated over starting a road pricing scheme which could see some drivers pay up to £1.30-a-mile.
When road pricing was first proposed while Tony Blair was Prime Minister some 1.8million people signed a petition on the Downing Street website calling for the Government to abandon it.
Last year, ministers indicated that they would not press ahead with a national pricing scheme.
The Conservatives last night warned that the 'spy in the sky' projects are will pave the way for a national road pricing programme.
Tolls: Parts of the motorway network have been earmarked
Theresa Villiers, the shadow Transport Secretary, called on her opposite number Ruth Kelly to halt the trials.
"It seems that Labour's unpopular plans for a national road pricing scheme are alive and well," she said.
"They are determined to press ahead with their untried and untested spy-in-the-sky national project even though it looks like an IT disaster waiting to happen.
"Ruth Kelly should start listening to drivers and scrap these pilots for a national road pricing scheme that is unnecessary and unwanted."
The Department for Transport has insisted that the pilots are designed "to inform thinking about motorway capacity".
A spokesman said: "The contract for the scheme has been put out to let and we are in the process of finalising which companies will oversee it.
'The pilots will be run purely on a voluntary basis with people applying to take part."
Last month the Government set out plans for pay-as-you-go lanes to beat motorway jams.
Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly announced proposals for dozens of motorway widening schemes that involve building an extra lane or getting drivers to use the hard shoulder.
Motorists would pay around £5 a time to queue-jump jams using American-style pay lanes.
Roads including M1 from the Home Counties to the North, the M6 around Birmingham, the M27 and M3 near Southampton, the motorway network around Manchester, and the M4 and M5 around Bristol have been earmarked for tolls.
Reader views (23)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
Anybody who agrees to take part in the trials can be equated to turkeys voting for Christmas!
- Dave, Enfield, UK
dear/sir/madam /how would all of the public get to work? Also don't they know people who make cars sell them repair them all would be out of work they are thick in this country? Yours sincerley graham john gomersall freeman
- Graham Gomersall Freeman, hull yorkshire
If Labour proceed with this plan they'll be lucky to have 10 sitting MPs following the next election and will be out of power for decades.
- R M, London, UK
Ms Bewick, you're spot-on: when I saw the headline, I thought 'At last, they're putting the tax on fuel use' (which cuts out all the Disc bureaucracy and overdue fines, and is easily calculated). It could all be so easy, with third party insurance also paid for as you go in the fuel price. Then I saw the small print. So it's all about spying - again. And of course, lucrative spying contracts for chums of the government, and companies the ministers can then go and work for when they're kicked out of office.
- Mdj, Leyton, e10 london
I have been away from UK for 30 years so I don't know exactly how much one pays for tax today, but I noticed on the photo a price of 150 I presume that's the fee for a year. At 1.30 per mile that the government want s to charge that means a few trips down to Tescos and you have blown away a years tax fee. Nice going George what a great fund raiser and a even better vote looser.
- Jon Vickers, SC USA
1.30 a mile! So that's how they're going to pay for the fuel rebate. 5 pounds to jump a queue, just like the old Soviet Union comrade! The important trundle past us plebs in the jam...
- Mark, London
How long must we wait for a public transport system that works ? That's all we ask for and less of us would drive!
- Gordon, London
Getalife, OldBore of Ilford - you know what the government is like for losing sensitive data, not a month goes by without some story breaking about which department has lost a portable or some disks.
It's no so long ago that civil servants at Dept of Work and Pensions were colluding with criminals over the theft of personal details 'on an industrial scale'. In fact the problem will become even worse as the government intensifies data sharing across departments.
Not in my name, Gordon Brown and Ruth Kelly.
- Jools, London
£1.30 a mile? So on an average 12k miles a year, that's £15600? I can't see that winning many votes. Jane has got it right ... we already pay (lots of) tax as we go on fuel - why complicate matters?
- Paul, London
We already have a "pay as you go" road tax system, it's called fuel duty and it's an absolute rip off.
This is just another NuLabour con to trick people out of even more money.
Anyone who drives a car and votes NuLabour must be barking mad!
- Keith Lonsdale, Doncaster
Barold, ilford - this is the mantra of those who sleepwalk into dictatorships. If you're honest and do the right things in China you have nothing to worry about. How about we integrate this with the police database? Say if you are observed driving in the area around the time of a serious crime the police can demand you provide a sample of DNA for their database.
- Zady, London
I am pleased I have sold my car, big brother has now arrived and they admit this.
- Ian Makin, Twickenham
Get this government out now.
- Tom, London
Jane of Bewick.....you are sooo RIGHT
- Andy, sussex
Get over the big brother rubbish. If your honest then there is nothing to worry about. I pay my car tax but not everyone does. Lets do it for car insurance as well.
- Barold, ilford
"Motorists would pay around £5 a time to queue-jump jams using American-style pay lanes"
No, we will pay £5 to sit in a different jam, as this daft scheme will do nothing to cut congestion.
Instead of charging us to drive on motorways we have already paid for, why not invest a fraction of the £50bn annually taken from motorists to build a new network of toll-only motorways? That I would pay for, assuming it was as efficient and empty as the M6 Toll Road. However, this is as unlikely, since it would be greenwashed if it ever got past the idea stage.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
This has nothing what-so-ever to do with pay as you go road tax and everything to do with being watched and monitored. We already have pay as you go road tax in the form of petrol duty. Mr Orwell was so right, no wonder he hid away on a remote island.
- Jane Bewick, London
Once again Labour is wasting our tax monies on useless projects. That will be cancelled out by the next government. Why does New labour Consistently drive a wedge between the public and itself, has anyone told the labour party that they should focus on making the public like them not hate them all the more?
It will be a wonderful thing to see these labour cronies begging for jobs once they are thrown out of Parliament!
- Phil, London
So they can read your emails, track you by phone, come into your house (soon) without an inviteand now track your every move. So from craddle to grave they will now everything about you. God help us this is Big Brother and beyond.
- Fly, london
Strangely, I get the feeling that however little you drive you still won't be paying any less road tax.
But that's by the by, its just a way of tracking your movements and if you exceed the speed limit they can automatically issue you with a fine.
Bottom line - $$$CASH$$$ (isn't it always?)
- Steve, London
What a great idea, because everyone's a law abiding citizen and no one fails to pay their road tax at all do they? Just go and buy a foreign car, fail to register it in the UK and then you can drive around tax, mot, license and insurance free.
- D Fraud, London
Great with a small strip of tinfoil and some gaffer tape we can all drive for free.
- Bruce, London
Wouldn't the cheapest way to achieve pay as you go road tax be to abolish road tax and transfer the tax to fuel instead?
- Sarah W, London
