road tax , rant

[thebigfelly]

just thought id have a wee rant on here about road tax, and feel free to correct me if im wrong but surely i thought the idea of road tax was to pay money to the goverment for use of the roads , highways and enviroment for the fumes the car produces from the rear etc etc .. in return for this money we pay , the goverment uses the cash to give to local authorities/councils to keep and maintain the roads to an acceptable driving standard for all road going vehicles....?? if im wrong please someone point out and i might calm down a little ...

as ive just drove from dalkieth into the city centre to pick my good lady up and the state of the roads especialy in the city centre was a joke,while driving round the assault course of pot holes, raised bricks sticking out of the cobbles, high man hole covers and subsided roads i was actualy thinking to myself WHY the hell am i paying to drive on such damaged roads of such a poor standard , i actualy believe dirt roads in india would be in better knick than these ones up town , and theres be less traffic lights and road works especialy with the tram line construction , it doesnt get any better as you get towards dalkieth , again more pot holes, subsided roads that are very low on the left and high on the right , like someones came with a spoon and took a giant scoop out of the road and poured a little tar over it , most of them are still damaged from last big freeze in 2010 ...so if im correct in thinking my road tax should go towards paying to keep the roads in good knick and reasonable driving condition, then i think instead of the goverment charging the car by the size of the engine and fumes it produces . the driver of the vehicle should pay a road tax for what he thinks the qaulity of the roads he is driving is is worth

e.g - crapy roads all cracked and pot holed £10 - £30

same roads always getting dug up and countless road works £30 -£50

ocasional road work and odd pot hole £ 50 - £100

top driving roads always clean,1 day road works , clear lines painted, always grited and open

£100- £150

think if that was the case then the goverment would be due me a tax rebate lol

oh and to finish my rant off , surely instead of 3 different utilitys diging up the same bit of road every couple of weeks one after the other , why not just say to the waterboard,gas board,telecomunictaions folks, electricty folk and anyone else that may hav pipes or so underneath and say we will be digging up this patch of road in "X" comming weeks/months if you have maintenance work/upgrades to be carried out , please be ready to do it as we wont be digging it up again for a furth 6- 8 months .. and just have everyone use the same open hole one after the other then fill it up at the end , prety sure at sheriff hall roundabout where the trafic lights are the same bit of road was only dug up just at xmas , and before that september , and nows its being dug up again grrrr

anyway rant over, lol hope some of yous have had a laugh at my wee moan about it all , hopefully the blood pressures lowered now and i fall asleep now

[davey l wrx]

If only that was true.... The New Liabour goverment we had changed it (under Mr Broon) to Road Fund Licence so they could spend the money on whatever they wanted. In the old road tax was just that and used for the roads. Under the new wording Mr Broon could spend it on whatever he wanted as it was there to let you use the roads but not neccesarily be spent on the roads. It was the start of motorists being taken for every possible penny by them and the coilition that's following them.

If only the money we pay went to keeping the roads in good condition we'd have the best roads in the world. I did laugh when they tried taxing 'gas gusslers' and 4 wheel drives' off the roads for the sake of the planet..... then ask for help from them when the crap weather hits as there aren't enough 4 wheel drives being used by councils, etc as they can't afford to run them now.

I know one guy in a 4 wheel drive club who when asked for help e-mailed his local MP asking if he'd get a reduced rate on his car tax for helping.... Strangely he never got a reply! Could have been something to do with the way he worded it about about being taxed to death for having a car then being asked to rescue the council/government because they were useless...

[ciaranrb5]

Don't get me started. I fitted snow tyres on to the golf and burst the side wall in of them hitting a pothole after 3 days. £135 in the bloody bin after 3 days. Went down to take a phototherapy next day and............. They had bloody fixed it

[doug970]

Don't get me started. I fitted snow tyres on to the golf and burst the side wall in of them hitting a pothole after 3 days. £135 in the bloody bin after 3 days. Went down to take a phototherapy next day and............. They had bloody fixed it

well if it makes you feel any better, i hit a pot hole in South Lanarkshire, (I have honestly seen tank tracks which are smaller), and took a photo of it after it burst my tyre, buckled the alloy on my then Ford ST. I complained and sent in the photo and the response was that they knew of the pot hole and were about to fix it. Yup well out of pocket for a new alloy and tyre, just glad i was not on the motorbike at the time. I honestly wonder how many serious incidents/fatalities are caused by the condition of the roads and the lack of repair.

why cant we have roads like Germany - built pre WW2 and still fully intact? Same climate, same frost / snow etc

ah that's right, they don't pay their taxes so politicians can have first class travel, second homes and travel expenses more than my annual wage. Oh the RANT!!lol

[billyboy]

What really gets up my nose is hybrids and supposedly low emission cars (its a load of crap by the way).We all use the roads and should pay the same amount of tax.After all if you pay less tax you will use the roads more wont you?Why should people like us pay more to allow these eco warriors to use the roads more.Also next time you are out in any city centre check the amount of buses running around with no passengers on them using up diesel and polluting city centre streets.Why do bus companys use twin axle double deckers off peak when a single decker would do?????

[corsa]

Ive damaged two cars and both claims settled, one with SLC for £350 and one with GCC for £795.

Hit them in the pocket and they will eventually fix the roads.

Davie

[johnmacdonald]

We have two cars, a WRX PPP and an Accord 2.4ivtec. Both attract £260 road tax, even though both cover only about 4,000 miles per year. WRX has recently hit a deep pothole and nearside front has serious need of camber adjustment. Here in east Herts, they simply dollop a shovel full of dry black stuff into the hole and it's gone within a few days. What the hell are we paying for? Who will pay for cost of alingement? Not East Herts DC!

[Cossie]

well i hit a pot hole in cumbernauld at condorrat and the pot hole was a meter by half a meter and 7 inchs deep ,

i hit it at 4 am where there was no lights on my way to work obviously i never made it to work that day , so i lost a days wage and also a set of alloys as 2 wheels hit it i took pictures and went on the phone calm and was then told it my responsibilty to fix the alloys and that its not there fault the roads are like this i mean the pot hole or bomb hole as i shouted at the stupid girl on the phone is where they keep patching up every year , must admit i started to swear down the phone when she told me its not the goverments or councils fault and i should watch where im driving as well as its me that has to pay to fix my own wheels , when i had 3 cars paying bloody 240 , on each car for tax ,

i then after i came off the phone to the lady went to see if it was still there 3 hours later and low and be hold they had filled the bloody thing and i had no pay out for the wheels ,

[jamesm]

There was an article last year about the compensation that local authorities were having to pay out for claims for damage to vehicles. At current rates, it is actually cheaper to pay out compensation than it is to do proper, pernament repairs to the roads!!

[Weird Nev]

We have two cars, a WRX PPP and an Accord 2.4ivtec. Both attract £260 road tax, even though both cover only about 4,000 miles per year. WRX has recently hit a deep pothole and nearside front has serious need of camber adjustment. Here in east Herts, they simply dollop a shovel full of dry black stuff into the hole and it's gone within a few days. What the hell are we paying for? Who will pay for cost of alingement? Not East Herts DC!

We have a pothole outside our house, it's been there for 5 years, just gets a little bigger every winter. We park one of our cars (not the Scooby thankfully!) in a bay next to it. A few weeks back before the snow my wife saw 2 lads come along and dump a sack of tarmac into it, hit it with a spade and then leave. 3 weeks alter, the pothole is back, as bad as before. But worse than that, where cars and busses have gone over the pothole and loose tarmac, it's fired tarmac all over my mrs's car, covering all 4 panels on one side in tar. Only noticed when I cleaned it of all the road salt.

A few days back a van came by and re-did the repair, to a slightly better standard, but I know the pothole will be back bigger and worse next year. I saw them sweep all the debris back into the hole, still full of water, before just tarmac'ing over the top. Next freeze will just lift and crack the repair.

Rubbish.

[baldobaz]

A lot of councils hire contractors to do these jobs, these companies charge the council a premium for doing the work but they only use a fraction of that to actually fix the holes, thus making sure they get maximum profit, all to our expense cause its up to us to fix the expensive damage to our cars.

The best one i have seen so far is GCC, Renfield st/ Union st in the city centre is one big bloody bus lane, road is all chewed up all down the left hand side due the buses and bus stops, fri 4:30pm peak time and there is a GCC tarmac blower blowing stones and a tiny amount of tar into the holes whilst the buses are draggin it straight back out, amazing, totaly amazing, who the hell in the council thinks that this is gonna work, i ended up tipping a ton pallet of wine out side a restaraunt cause of the massive hole i had to park the truck in.

[wrx kenny]

Easy answer put your car on polish plates, don't pay road tax , don't bother with an mot it's the way forward . There certainly getting away with it in airdrie and have been for years and years .

Kenny

[maddogsx]

half the battle is spineless wretches, if everyone who was due to buy road tax on say april bought it 2 days late then the govt would sit up and take note, esp if may-june-july etc went the same! obviously everyone won't do that and many keyboard warriors will type fancy long winded speils of inspiring shite but unless the majority of people actually do something then the govt and successive govt's will continue to use their subjects any way they choose.

As for Toyota prius's and the happy clapping save the butterfly brigade they annoy me to the point i would rattle them right off the road in a temper if i wouldn't damage the scooby, self righteous up their own ar5es.

that's me started for the day now then pmsl.

[thebigfelly]

Glad im not the only one to rant about this. I was just realy miffed with the state of roads and crapy repairs to them or no repairs at all.

Bet if it was a pot hole outside number 10 itd be fixed straight away all level propper job done.

[Cossie]

if it was outside number 10 it would be redone but the whole road would be redone lol not just a patch job ,

or maybe they would not fix the road and use it on a new door and number lol