Do you like the tax disc? Well the Dutch are implementing road tolls based on ‘pay per mile’ technology, next year it’s on trucks and by 2018 it will be cars too.
The idea in principal is quite reasonable; you only pay for what you use. Now people like me, with several V8 cars that hardly ever do much mileage, would benefit and the smug bloke down the road who does a million miles in his rep-mobile would get clobbered.
But the way the Dutch are doing it raises some questions. Every car has to be fitted with a tracking device which sends your position to a central data base, which works out which road you are on and sends you the bill.
First problem is that sat-nav systems are not accurate enough to tell exactly which road you are on, for instance there is an A road running right next to the M6 Toll road, one meter out and you get charged the wrong rate.
Then there is the ‘Big Brother’ issue, the state knowing your every movement, sure this would help with crime and recovering stolen cars, but there are obvious civil liberty issues too.
And finally there is the big problem that any government large scale computer project gets built down to a cost, and quality always suffers, it simply isn’t a reliable way of doing things.
Oh, and as a final issue, you would have to buy the trackers too, more expense.