Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Good evening Ladies & Gents
I have set up a petition to see if we can get the government to debate ring fencing road tax for repair & maintenance of our roads, your support would be appreciated.


https://petition.parliament.uk/petit...gM6TN8bIBQgWk2

Re: road tax
 

Considering road tax was abolished bloomin years ago and that it's your council tax that pays for road maintenance in the local area you may struggle with that one

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Re: road tax
 

Without wishing to sound pedantic, but it has been called VED for a long time & councils do get specific pots of money from the Government for road maintainance.

https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news/...ls-local-roads

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...21.csv/preview

Re: road tax
 

Yes Winston Churchill abolished 'Road Tax' and its about time the term was abolished from the English dictionary, often misquoted at other road users ie; YOU DON'T PAY ROAD TAX! so you can't use the road!

Re: road tax
 

Only about 4% of council tax income gets spent on roads, and only about 25% of combined VED and fuel duty income to central government goes towards roads, rest goes into General tax pot. Councils will always cut the things people notice the most to inconvenience the public and build a case for more funding, potholes are becoming an epidemic in pretty much every area, public complaints used to squeeze money out of central government. If all money from motorists was spent on roads they would be gold plated.

Re: road tax
 

Even if it was ringfenced, it's not enough so be careful what you wish for

*cycles off into the distance avoiding potholes*

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

This thread is also no longer called Road Tax, but Vehicle Excise Duty :D

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

I'm not that bothered by the state of the roads, in fact the worse they get the better. At the moment people think they can drive around with their head in whatever electronic device either entertains or protects them so the sooner they get a reality check and have to pay attention to what's happening outside the vehicle the better. As motorcyclists we should be quite adept at reading the road surface so just pay attention and ride around them.

Wind up mode now turned off....... The reality is there is only so much money to go around and their priorities have been elsewhere all the time the roads were "adequate". We're now rapidly approaching the point when they are not and as SV650rules points out, governments traditionally react to public demand in one way or another just so they can maintain the popular vote. Right, wrong or common sense doesn't come into it.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Couldn't have put it better myself :thumleft:

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Let's redirect government funds towards potholes and away from the health service and social care.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

:smt046

At some point near an election either local or national an announcement will be made about spending lots of money to improve the roads.

Having crashed on my bicycle because of a pothole I do care about the state of the roads, as some of these potholes are killers, I was lucky, my helmet save me from a head injury, but it's the only one I've not walked or cycled home from.

If councils filled these in, there'd be less damages cases against them.

Use this app to report them, because once reported the council becomes liable for any injury claims

https://www.fillthathole.org.uk/

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

There's a few idle politicians in NI who would be pleased to help. A pothole is likely smaller than the one they're basking in

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

I've noticed, having had a winter break from motorcycle commuting, a significant increase in the number of potholes this winter. Some are so deep there's exposed steel reinforcing wires visible.

I'll be reporting these as soon as i can memorise their locations. Hopefully not in a bad way.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

VED is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. I reckon I pay more income tax every day I work than the annual VED on my motorbike.

So can someone start a petition for abolition of VED, and a change to fuel taxation so that the tax rate reflects the fossil carbon content of the fuel. Effectively taxing the actual carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles.

That would make renewable fuels much more competitive, but it would make running a traction engine ruinously expensive.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

No disrespect intended mate but how do you not see a pothole big enough to have you off? I was only slightly tongue in cheek with my earlier post, I do wonder if we're going just a little bit to far with this trend to absolve drivers and riders of all responsibility for their own safety. We all know the roads are traditionally worse at this time of year, we also all know that potholes are not being fixed as quickly as we like. It follows that we should be driving and riding with that in mind and acting accordingly.

It may be that my view is a little distorted having grown up and learnt to drive in South America in a time and location where tarmac on the road was a real bonus, or it may be the thirty years I subsequently spent listening to all the excuses people offer as to why it wasn't their fault they crashed, but I'm definitely not as sympathetic to these issues as some would like.

Rather than jumping up and down and firing off e-mails every time you hit a pothole why don't we just tell ourselves what a muppet we were for not paying attention and resolve to do better next time. It's generally a whole lot more rewarding an approach! I particularly enjoy seeing the hole early and then deviating at the very last moment so the plonker tailgating me gets it full on......

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

I have been out today driving in Shropshire and there are patches of road where it is literally impossible to dodge potholes because they have bred into a rash and cover pretty much the whole width of road. Some you can dodge as long as there is no-one coming the other way as you need to take up most of the other half of road to miss them. I have been driving and riding for more years than I want to remember and cannot honestly think of a time when roads were in such a bad state. A lot of the road signs and names are becoming unreadable because they don't get cleaned any more, road marking are disappearing.

It is not just this time of year either, but seems to be all year round and I bet some potholes are celebrating their first or second birthday. We have just come back from Wales and their roads looked in better condition, as do Scotlands roads when we have been up there. It is often hard to see potholes when they are full of water, so as well as avoiding obvious ones you have to avoid driving through any water on the road - it gets pretty tiring after a while.

There is plenty of money around (if the worlds 5th largest economy cannot spare a few bob to tidy the roads up there is no hope for anyone).

I have lived in both South Africa and Australia where dirt roads were common outside of main urban areas, and paved roads were called 'all weather roads' - sure you were happy to get off the 'washboard' surface onto tarmac or concrete no matter if they had a few potholes (you had to go above 60mph on the straights of dirt roads so that you just kept hitting the top of the ripples and they felt quite smooth, but try to go around a bend at that speed and you literally 'vibrated off the road', and many unwary people did just that). But we are talking about large countries with small populations, so you can understand they may not have had a lot of money for roads except the main highways.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

TBH it's bad enough where I ride dodging things that are supposed to be there. The more things to look out for, the more likely something will eventually catch you out. There aren't really any excuses - roads should be maintained.

I've seen potholes near a kerb where a cyclist would ride longer than a wheel and over 6 inches deep. In the dark, in the rain, reflections everywhere, in the shadow of a car or van - someone's gonna come a cropper with it. They need fixing.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Are better roads in Scotland and Wales linked to grants from Europe?


(I'll now duck)

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

More to do with being subsidised by English taxpayers via skewed Barnett formula which has effectively isolated them from austerity cuts south of the border (or east if you are Welsh), and even if money came from EU as part of the fraction we get back major part of still undoubtedly paid by English taxpayers.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Is that similar to 'Grindr'. ?

:rolleyes:

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

None taken Red, it was a stealth pothole but in the lanes I ride, they can appear without enough time to react. I forget the exact circumstances as to me hitting it, but on 25mm tyres it doesn't take much to cause a crash. I had a double blow out, which were both pinch punctures caused by the sharp edges of this particular pothole.

Believe me if I could have avoided the pothole and subsequent trip to hospital, I would have, bicycles don't have suspension to cope with potholes.

Those potholes that are under tree cover can't be be seen on dull winter days.

Many potholes are in the cyclists line on the road, so can't always be avoided with a quick swerve, as you've got a car blocking you swerving space, we get enough hassle from drivers if we ride too far from the curb.

Plenty of drain covers with collapsed tarmac round their edges, which are especially deep, and just perfect to catch a Cyclists wheel and send them flying.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

If you suffer damage or injury due to a pothole you can pursue a Public Liability Claim against the responsible council. The kicker is, is the council is not responsible if they are not aware of the relevant pothole and the claim will be denied (I used to work in a councils insurance department).

So, report every pothole that you see to the council so they don't have a get out excuse. At least someone else may get a payout.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Yup, and if they know about it and can say that repairs were scheduled within a reasonable time they don't have to pay you either, which seems quite sensible to me....... Of course, if they weren't so busy paying out loads of dosh to people who want to replace their tatty alloys and worn out tyres with nice new ones wearing top spec Goodyears they might actually have some money to repair the roads....... If everybody knows that the roads are knackered and full of holes then drive according to the conditions, you'd have a far better reason to complain if the roads were actually very good and you had no reason to expect that rare pothole to suddenly appear in front of you. I know I'm in a minority here but seriously, is it always somebody else fault?

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Let's replace seatbelts with a 8"spike in the middle of the steering wheel....:reaper:

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Of course, if the councils took it upon themselves to monitor and fix the things they were responsible for, they wouldn't have this issue in the first place...

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

ophic, the rules are that a council should have an inspection system in place and that any potholes found are recorded and acted upon within a time frame appropriate to the class of road. A roads very quickly and C or unclassified roads longer. All these rules are set in stone and if a council doesn't have such a scheme in place, it really can't defend any PL claims. Potholes reported by the public go into the same database. Also in the rules is a definition of how deep a pothole or defect has to be to be classified as such. I can't remember offhand how deep a pothole has to be to be repaired but I think it was 70mm for roads and less for pavements. The council I worked for had a scheme in place and was able to reject over 70% of PL pothole claims and won most of the few that went to court.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Either the roads are fit for purpose or they're not. If they are, then there would be no big payouts and RH's claim would be false. If they're not, then perhaps they're not doing a very good job. I can see that under the current system, there's no incentive for the councils to notice potholes because as soon as they do, they're liable for it.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

That's not true of the council I worked for. It's cheaper to pay for a crew of inspectors than having to deal with thousands of pothole claims. I read that a few years ago, Stockport Council had no inspection scheme in place and paid out over £6 million in 1 year for pothole and tripping claims.

I retired 3 years ago and when I left the council, they had just reduced the number of inspectors as a result of the government massively reducing the central grant and costs needing to be reduced. I suspect that other councils have had to do the same. Fewer inspectors means the frequency of inspections is reduced, meaning potholes are not noticed as quickly.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Councils here are just paying the claims these days

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Create a new Potholes Agency (that will generate another 5 or 6 thousand jobs for civil servants), offer everyone on the dole a mandatory 'Pothole Fixing Course' or a cessation of benefits then employ them all (at minimum wage of course) to go fix the potholes.

Fixes both the roads and the benefits issues in the UK, win win!

Also will see a staggering number of people suddenly finding work, anything to avoid the hell of fixing pot holes day in, day out.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

On their first day there would be an epidemic of twisted ankles, strained backs etc. supposedly caused by potholes - within 48 hours they would mostly be back on benefits.


Would certainly get drivers attention - the more safety things and drivers aids fitted to cars the less attention people pay to the road, confident that in a crash ' I'm all right Jack' and I won't get hurt, s0d the others.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

On the first day of the course, not the first day actually doing any work.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

and most of the potholes would be fixed using photoshop.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

The problem really is the fact that's it's impossible to fix properly.

2 examples near me:

First one is a "small" one about 6 inch diameter, gets filled in once to twice a month, the edges go a little then chunks. It's a patch job that just keeps getting re-done. There aren't many on this bit but this is the one that is like a cockroach.

Second is a stretch of road on a hill, always had lots of potholes some really big ones that were patched, so they let it get really bad then resurfaced. However they must have only skimmed an inch or so off and then laid the shiny new tarmac. Within a month it started delaminating a d once again in the same places the holes came back.

The first one they can't close the (very) short bit of road to try and resurface as it's a seriously busy road that connects 1 side of a river to the other.

The second one is a very busy road (again chaos if it's closed but there are some alternatives) which is frequented daily by HGV's as it's a main connecting road. Add them and the incline it's no wonder the new surface broke so quickly.



There are a few places around where they've resurfaced with the nice new quiet tarmac which I think will be buggered in no time. Can already see ridges forming coming off roundabouts where the HGV's go.


Essentially what I'm getting at is, whilst the repairs need to be done and cash is hard to come by for them and inspectors, really we need a hardier solution for the surface itself.




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Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

40 tonne lorries really punish our roads, vehicle weight is supposed to be evenly distributed over the axles, but axle loading of the wheels under the trailer turntable can be very high.

Concrete roads do sometimes crack, but don't get potholes but people complain about the noise. Concrete has an advantage at night as well as your lights shine further than on a black asphalt road.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

Pyro, as you say, small circular holes get filled and then decay and need to be repaired again. This is because the correct way to repair a pothole is to use a disc cutter to make sharp edges in a rectangle around the hole. Then the material inside the rectangle cut away and all loose material removed and new tarmac infilled. Although this is as permanent as possible, it is expensive in time and equipment, so it usually only done where it is essential. At least by the council I worked for.

Re: Vehicle Excise Duty Petition (Road Tax)
 

There is no denying HGV's are bad for roads, you only have to look at the state of roads such as the A2 (in the news last week) and the M20 which carry all the traffic in and out of Dover to see that, however is there a practicable alternative? For my sins I do a bit of HGV driving and you would not believe how many motorists moan "something that size shouldn't be down here" whenever I go in and out of farms (typically in the countryside) or shops (usually in towns....). I generally ask them if they would rather see a line of twenty Transit vans because that is just about what it would take to replace my HGV. That's twenty times as many drivers in the queue ahead of you, not just at the roadworks but also in MacDonalds, roughly five times as much fuel being used, and most definitely a whole lot more people peeing in lay-bys........

On the bright side it might solve the unemployment problem, although the thought of some of the unemployed scumbags I've met being let loose with a pallet of Strawberries just doesn't bear thinking about......