olivernz:

 

Truck does 30-40x the damage. are they going to pay accordingly? 

 

they already do. 

HarmLessSolutions:

 

The magnitude of road wear between 2 or 3T is negligible so hardly worth differentiating RUCs between lesser weights. Besides which the proportion of RUCs that actually relates to weight is not as much as many would assume so the effect would be minimal in any case. 

 

quite true. probably a factor in why they changed it.

however as a lot of this is political rather than practical, going back to weight based could ease voters minds.

Interesting that weight of ev's gets brought up, people saying that they are heavier and cause more wear and tear. I get told buy a double cab ute/shark 6 hybrid, the vehicle I drive is half the weight and we just bought a MG4 that is almost a ton lighter than a Shark6. 

My old pavement design notes state each truck design axle 8.3t load equals 20,000 cars, One truck can load the road as much as 100,000-120,000 cars (light vehicles).

I rather have a clean vehicle not powered by imported fuel, and pay a reasonable road user charge.

SATTV:

 

mattwnz:

 

some people with smaller less polluting cars are going to end up paying a lot more it seems. Eg if you have a small hybrid with a 50 litre tank and it can do almost 1000km on a single fill, then the lower fuel price isn’t going to come close to making up the cost difference of the additional RUCs. It actually makes it more attractive to have an inefficient polluting car than the status quo. I imagine it also makes getting an EV even less attractive as electricity charges are increasing a lot. 

 

Basically, what you are describing is why this needs to happen, more fuel efficient cars on the road means less feul excise and tax to make and repair roads, this makes it a level playing field for all cars.

 

I support this, yes some people will be paying more but it is a much fairer system.

 

EVs are not less attractive because of rising electricity costs; in many households, solar panels were put on the roof to charge the car for free. The reason they are less attractive is that they have gone from zero mileage tax to RUCs.
PHEV are going to be the winner here, they pay petrol tax and RUC.

 

This is just levelling the playing field, if you want petrol / diesel / hydrogen / electric power, you just pay the same per KM.

 

John

 

Not everyone has the ability to install solar panels or own a home where they could be installed. Lower income people often rent. If using a charging station they often pay very high rates for power. So even though battery evs could be a solution, there are problems. There is also going to be less green options in the future for second hand cars if people are turned off buying EVs. The clean car discount was supposed to increase the EV vehicle fleet. Now many people are buying hybrids instead if they don’t have a cheap or free source of power

Curious, is there any reason that registration can't be included on road usage as well once the RUC system is in place? Instead of the flat, time-based fee per vehicle, People waste so much rego costs on a vehicles that they only use on weekends.  You can only drive one vehicle at a time.

cruxis:

 

Curious, is there any reason that registration can't be included on road usage as well once the RUC system is in place? Instead of the flat, time-based fee per vehicle, People waste so much rego costs on a vehicles that they only use on weekends.  You can only drive one vehicle at a time.

 

I would like to see that moved to it and the ACC portion sorted out too as if I have all cars registered at once I would be paying well over what I should for both rego and ACC contributions.

I once suggested that it should be moved to the drivers license but it upset many people who think you should have a license but no car incase you need to drive one for work.

insane:

 

Tinfoil hat wearing statement: Feels like a step closer to enforcing digital telemetry that the govt can see where you're going, who you visited, when, how fast, whether you should be sent an efine for your driving. Govt digital currency accepted as the sole payment method :D

 

 

 

Back to reality - without too much thought, it makes sense to overhaul the current system. 

 

 

 

I actually want a system where cars are monitored BY CHOICE.

Lots of privacy issues to sort before it could be a thing which from your average joe, seems easy to put onto paper but obviously getting it robust and uncrackable would be the difficult part.

Monitored vehicles would need to have data stored in the vehicle only. - give the owner incentive to use it. AKA you get cheaper rates on RUCs initially on the choice to use the system, but further rate incentives based on positive driving behaviour. 

Negative driving behaviour should be locked onto the system too. If you have negative behaviour speeding, slow drivers(tied against maps traffic data perhaps) etc should lead to penalties for the vehicle owner.

Data should only be retrievable at time of landata updates eg; wof, rego, RUC, write-off and owner change.

As a road user I hate seeing people driving slow on motorways, and it seems to be something the cops cant be bothered policing. Slow drivers, while not the same threat as a speeding vehicle, still are a problem that can create accidents under certain conditions.

richms:

 

cruxis:

 

Curious, is there any reason that registration can't be included on road usage as well once the RUC system is in place? Instead of the flat, time-based fee per vehicle, People waste so much rego costs on a vehicles that they only use on weekends.  You can only drive one vehicle at a time.

 

 

I would like to see that moved to it and the ACC portion sorted out too as if I have all cars registered at once I would be paying well over what I should for both rego and ACC contributions.

 

I once suggested that it should be moved to the drivers license but it upset many people who think you should have a license but no car incase you need to drive one for work.

 

Be careful what you wish for because like the casino model the government will always insure they're the winner by designing the system accordingly.

HarmLessSolutions:

 

The discussions that occurred when motorcycles' ACC levies were hiked back in 2009 were along similar lines to this. Worth noting that while petrol has an ACC component in its pricing there is none in the diesel price. Diesel vehicles have ACC as part of their rego cost. Part of the reasoning for motorcycles being pinged for ACC in their rego was because the amount of fuel they used was insufficient for the fuel component to pay for this.

 

Be careful what you wish for because like the casino model the government will always insure they're the winner by designing the system accordingly.

 

It just seems to be a waste for them to develop this whole new system to charge one distance and vehicle type expense, and not move other things onto the same system at the same time.

I should be able to drop 2 months rego on the convertible over summer as easy as buying RUC in an app and not have to mess about going to a legacy mail service retailer and queue up behind people wanting to send postcards just to get a little slip of paper to put in the car if I decide I want to use it.

That would require another law change - currently the majority of vehicles are subject to continuous licencing, so you can't just buy some rego for the weekend. If you have a vehicle that you only use in summer, you can put the rego on hold over winter for a minimum of three months. Beware that if you re-licence before that three month period is up, you'll be required to back-pay to when you put it on hold. 

Ge0rge:

 

That would require another law change - currently the majority of vehicles are subject to continuous licencing, so you can't just buy some rego for the weekend. If you have a vehicle that you only use in summer, you can put the rego on hold over winter for a minimum of three months. Beware that if you re-licence before that three month period is up, you'll be required to back-pay to when you put it on hold. 

 

I know, that is what I do at the moment, but its still a hassle vs just turning it on in an app and going. Same with the Ute as I cant get anything done that I need it for over winter.

cruxis:

 

Curious, is there any reason that registration can't be included on road usage as well once the RUC system is in place? Instead of the flat, time-based fee per vehicle, People waste so much rego costs on a vehicles that they only use on weekends.  You can only drive one vehicle at a time.

 

 

 

you can only drive one, but family members can drive others registered to you at the same time.

In the government press releases, there are references to "Enabling the use of a broader range of electronic RUC devices, including those already built into many modern vehicles".

Does anyone know of cars with this capability or is the statement really just referring to heavy goods vehicles?

I'm interested to know exactly which vehicles supposedly already have the built in capability to administer RUCs and how that actually works for the owner.

robertsona:

 

In the government press releases, there are references to "Enabling the use of a broader range of electronic RUC devices, including those already built into many modern vehicles".

 

Does anyone know of cars with this capability or is the statement really just referring to heavy goods vehicles?

 

I'm interested to know exactly which vehicles supposedly already have the built in capability to administer RUCs and how that actually works for the owner.

 

 

 

I would assume anything with a cloud connection that gives you the ability to link things to it that shares location and odometer readings would have what is needed.

HarmLessSolutions:

 

 

 

Be careful what you wish for because like the casino model the government will always insure they're the winner by designing the system accordingly.

 

They will also likely price into the RUC, that a lot of people won't pay them, so everyone ends up paying for thiose users as a result. People can't avoid paying with the petrol levy.