Pay as you go Future?

[Lancer1993]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/ ... 491138408f

"The Turnbull Government has announced it will investigate whether fuel excise and registration fees should be scrapped, and replaced with a system that charges drivers for how much they use the roads."

"He said introducing a system that uses GPS technology to track vehicles and charge users based on how far they travel, could also provide a more direct connection between these charges and how money raised was spent."

What do we think?
Do we want the government tracking our every move, maybe fining us by remote if we creep over the the speed limit?
Could be good for those who drive less than the average but other could end up paying a lot more to drive in the future.

Talk.

[aspir3]

Driving a car and buying houses are coming out of reach for many young Australians.
I suggest you all do what Malcolm Turnbull once said and make sure you have rich parents that can help

[VRXblack]

Well if you look at it right now, a lot of cars right now are already "connected to the internet" so this scary thing of the government knowing where you are at all times is already a reality. damn go and check your phone right now if you open up your maps application it will besically tell you where you have been since you have had the phone or from the last time it was wiped. The scary fact is that you are already being tracked without you even knowing it. Now bringing something like this in i think is a good option for some peopel so if they made it an option i would probably go with it. i mean for me i travel by bus every day to get to work and only really drive over the weekends. coming up to 1 year with my baby and just realised that i have only done 5,000km.
Would make more sense to make it an option and let the cummuters make the decision.

The unfortunate thing is that cost of living is rising but incomes are not catching up and a lot more people are struggling to pay things off, kinda the reason why i got rid of my motorbike. having to pay rego, insurance, petrol and servicing costs for 2 vehicles was just way too much.

[Skrallex]

GPS monitoring in cars for "how far we travel" is just a scapegoat for them getting the real monitoring policies through. Once the technology is in all the cars (and mandatory too, will probably have to be retrofitted into old cars), they will slowly increase the scope. "Oh your insurance is higher because we noticed you frequently drive in the rain", "Oh you were caught speeding once so you're now not allowed to drive through school zones", "Oh you're a protester to our policies? What if we accidentally leak all the strip clubs you've attended, or all the times you visit Maccas at 3am, etc".

It's a bad idea for a bad system. We already pay a driving toll, it's called a vehicle registration fee, and it goes up significantly all the time! Yearly registration for my car is about 10% the value of my car, in WA at least.

Not trying to sound like a conspiracy nut, but when you really think about why something like this would be necessary or beneficial, you come up seriously short. Sacrificing everyones privacy at the expense of increased road revenue or reduced road use is not worth it, yet it's exactly the sort of thing big Mally would be into.

[Lancer1993]

I seem to remember the UK government looking into this maybe 10 years ago, it never went ahead.

I understand they need more money to build and fix roads and the last thing they want is to put higher taxes on fuel or bump up regos. But not sure if this is the answer, my issue apart from privacy is how will it be administered and would we get a yearly bill from the government.

Driving a car and buying houses are coming out of reach for many young Australians.
I suggest you all do what Malcolm Turnbull once said and make sure you have rich parents that can help

Thats where I'm going wrong LOL

[lancerdarryl]

How much would this scheme cost to implement? It would not work with pre OBD cars I would think.I wouldn't be getting too worried about it if I were you.

[Lancer1993]

I agree, not worth worrying about, governments love doing this sh*t all the time. By my reckoning they have 3 options.

1) fit ever car with a GPS tracking device, would cost millions.
2) track you with cameras that read your rego number plate, would require 1000s of camera and outside populated areas it just wouldn't work.
3) note your odometer annually, but do they have every car go to a road worth station each year? Yes I know in some states this already happens but in QLD and others it doesn't.

It would take a country wide effort with all states in agreement. It would cost millions to implement with very little extra reward and probably cost governments votes at the following election.

Also on a personal note for any system like this to be far and reduce traffic in problem areas and maybe congestion at peek periods they need a way to impose higher rates on certain roads and at peek periods so more people who don't need to will avoid those roads or use public transport or push bikes. That should be the real goal of any reform like this.

I love driving but hate being stuck in traffic but don't think this is the answer.

[Mooman]

The technology to track your car already exists.

Vic roads down here monitor car travel details by using the bluetooth signal to supposedly 'anonymously' track how, when and where people go to allocate funding.

QBE insurance have a device called the insurance box that plugs into the OBDII port and sends them details of how you drive (speed, brake application etc.) to tailor insurance policy based on how safe your perceived to be.

Sure fuel could be cheaper but it's a double edged sword as you could potentially pay more if you drive long distances with an economical car, what you save on fuel consumption you lose on road tax.

[Lancer1993]

Yes but what about older cars, yes they could track the BT on your phone but that's not your its a phone so they would have no idea which car you are in. And cars with OBDII who will pay for the devices and whats stopping someone just unplugging it.

Basically it comes back to being good in theory for some but not good for others and very impractical and expensive to set up and monitor.

I don't see it happening any time soon if at all and by then we'll probably all have driver-less cars. I'd be like the cop in 'Demolition Man' driving the the old non smart car.

[burfadel]

I believe it's more distance over the year. It's coming in because a lot of revenue comes from taxes on fuel, and as cars become more efficient and the advent of electric and hybrid vehicles, it's a huge drop looking forward. The government starting from 2007--> 2012 grossly overspent, more debt means more interest payment on that debt, so they simply cannot absorb diminishing returns from fuel. They'd either have to cut welfare, education, or health care. Defence isn't an option as we're not even spending the minimum we're meant to as a function of GDP.

[Lancer1993]

But this is where I think it would be unfair to just go on total distance and not where you drive. Some in the country will travel much greater distances just to get to work but often with very little traffic. How is it fair to charge them the same as someone going through major populated areas every day when they could take public transport, which is not available in country areas?

For any pay as you go system to be fair in the future they need to take into account where you've driven as much as the total distance, or just bump up the fuel excise and charge people for going into some built up areas like capital cities.

JMHO

I agree they need to find more funding but right now they are just trying to keep in check with current spending on road which they are loosing that battle and have to find money else where to make up the shortfall.