Matt Greenop: Fair way to go to smooth out bumps
5:30 AM Saturday Feb 2, 2013
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All of the gnashing of teeth around changes to the Warrant of Fitness system is now irrelevant, there's nothing left to say and the once-yearly WoF for young(ish) cars will go ahead. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out - the doomsayers reckon it'll be carnage, but I don't think we'll quite see the apocalyptic effect that some say it will.
They said the same about the give way rule change, and that went by without the world coming to an end. Of course, some do like to point out the sky is falling occasionally, and there are a couple of areas that we still really need to get our proverbial ducks in a row on.
First are diesel road user charges or the Bulls**t Travesty Tax as we like to call it. Aside from subsidising a bit of the bill for big trucks the only thing it really achieves is confuses the marketplace about buying diesel passenger vehicles for private use.
Pay it at the pump, leave business users to sort it out using a modified version of the current scheme.
The other one is the quad bike - a handy farm machine, granted, and also a bit of fun if you know how to use one safely. But every year we seem to sit back and read horror stories about people getting badly hurt because they don't know how to use them properly.
It's high time that a well-sorted training programme was put in place to make farm children (and in many cases farm adults) learn to use quads responsibly
We're not talking a full time degree in not crashing quads here - a few hours with the right person doing the talking and there'll be quite a few less country funerals.
And then there's Simon Bridges and his 'new measures' to curb speeding on our roads. It's still all a big surprise, so we'll reserve judgment on that one for the moment.
Anything else, wise readers, that we need to get sorted? It'll give some of the WoFflers something to do this year.
And diesel road user charges are only in place because farmers kick up a stink about how much more it would cost to run their farm vehicles if the taxes were placed at the pump. A very small group of people causing issues for the rest of us.
We also need the tax taken off petrol and a milage tax like diesel users is applied. This could be done with a chip in our registration sticker read by a sate-alight and sent a bill every month. Or a meter installed to a car wheel like tracks have and checked at WOF time to make sure tax has been paid. It's not fare many diesel car drivers disconnect their speedo and pay hardly any tax. If not then TAX should be paid at the diesel pump.