With the foreign hgv road charging coming in while they’re at it can’t they be fined for not fitting headlight masking as well??
I’ve yet to see any and foreign cars as well. Might be a good little earner. I’m sure we would get fined “over there” 
gilburton:
With the foreign hgv road charging coming in while they’re at it can’t they be fined for not fitting headlight masking as well??
I’ve yet to see any and foreign cars as well. Might be a good little earner. I’m sure we would get fined “over there”
I’ve never been fined over there for doing the same thing in reverse. Also isn’t the daily charge such a silly low amount that it wont amount to any serious detterent from them driving on our roads anyway given they can quote for work so much more cheaply, and dont we also have to pay the charge and then claim it back later? (until the government decides that they wont to keep the money, no doubt after a trial period of a few years)
This is no different to any other European country that I’ve been to. Yes we often have to pay to use their roads, be it road tolls, vignette or the German maut, but contray to popular myth, domestic vehicles in those countries also pay. Yes they use our roads for free, but only because we do ourselves. Where its free, its free for all, where theres a toll, theres a toll for all. Making foreign trucks pay is only shooting ourselves in the foot because you can bet your bottom dollar, that we’d also be paying the very same thing as yet another tax on our industry. Unless something was implemented like in Switzerland where foreign vehicles register their milleage on entry and again on exit and pay the difference, something very simple and easy to do on an island where arrivals and departures are limited to one train terminal and a hand full of ports. The Swiss ofcourse are targetting foreign vehicles, where as the UK wants money not only from foreign trucks, but more importantly from every single British truck too.
Road charging in the UK is a very dangerous and slippery slope that British politicians can not be trusted with not to abuse against the ordinary people of this country. Trucks today, everyones car tomorrow. The German public thought it was a fantastic idea when hundreds/thousands of roal toll gantries were placed over the autobahns to charge ALL trucks to drive on them. That was until the government announced that the same technology could easily be adapted to charge every type of vehicle, including Fritz and Jurgens private car and they suddenly then lost much enthusuasm for the whole thing when like much in the so called free western world, it was brought in through the backdoor in the guise of something quite different, only to matterialise later as a potential threat to everybody.
Charging us “foreigners” to use your roads will really make no difference to us at all. You must remember that the UK is a net importer,in other words it imports more than it exports. All we will do is add the additional cost of your road charges to the existing haulage rate, you the UK consumer will then pay the road charge for us.
Add to that the new French toll on all national roads that comes in next year and the additional cost of goods imported into the UK by road will rise considerably - all to be paid for by UK consumers. Good idea charging foreign trucks isnt it.
Hombre:
Charging us “foreigners” to use your roads will really make no difference to us at all. You must remember that the UK is a net importer,in other words it imports more than it exports. All we will do is add the additional cost of your road charges to the existing haulage rate, you the UK consumer will then pay the road charge for us.Add to that the new French toll on all national roads that comes in next year and the additional cost of goods imported into the UK by road will rise considerably - all to be paid for by UK consumers. Good idea charging foreign trucks isnt it.
This is ultimately what will happen.
Hombre:
Charging us “foreigners” to use your roads will really make no difference to us at all. You must remember that the UK is a net importer,in other words it imports more than it exports. All we will do is add the additional cost of your road charges to the existing haulage rate, you the UK consumer will then pay the road charge for us.Add to that the new French toll on all national roads that comes in next year and the additional cost of goods imported into the UK by road will rise considerably - all to be paid for by UK consumers. Good idea charging foreign trucks isnt it.
I agree but the problem is that if a Spaniard, German or even a Pole ups his rates to compensate, you can be sure that a Romanian or Bulgarian will still do it for the same price as before as his much lower costs (largely wage related) allow for him to do so. British big industry will never tollerate the price going up, they’ll simply use people who can do it for the same rate as before. Thats the reason why freight rates from the UK to Spain are the same or even less than they were 10-15 years ago when British trucks used to go in their hundreds and why now its all done by eastern block and also why now even the Poles are suffering seriously in the face of RO and BG competition so that rates stagnate or decrease even further, regardless of tolls or increased regulation that put operating costs through the roof.
Well as I understand it ALL trucks will pay it including UK trucks. The current road tax will be adjusted for UK trucks to compensate so in theory we’ll all pay much the same.
Hombre, thats a sure way to be joining the dole queue, transport doesnt work that way, if you decide to put the rate up, the exporter will of course look for a cheaper option, and as dear old espania has already increased its unemployment queue by hundreds of thousands, then i would have to swallow the increase, or join them.
Our company ( being a fruit company ) who owns farms in Spain, employ spanish hauliers to bring the fruit over, we also own polish companies, so transport is not difficult, and uk subbies are queueing to join us, so there is no shortage of people to do the work cheaper. Its always an option to pass on the costs, and in reality thats the way it should be, but this is 2012, we are going through a very bad patch, and everyone needs to hold onto their jobs, whether employed or self employed, and as theres a war going on with the major supermarkets, it would be foolhardy to increase costs to the consumer, but very easy to dump a greedy transporter and keep costs to a minimum, and the eastern bloc fits the bill.
The idea is to get UK haulage firms to be doing the work in the UK, Not europeans, and if it means £50 less then so be it, what is the charge going to be though… £20 a day per truck isn’t a bad idea, £100 fine for none-payers and a special tax like disc they need to put in screen so that vosa can scan it like ANPR ?
What you think ?
voodoo1:
The idea is to get UK haulage firms to be doing the work in the UK, Not europeans, and if it means £50 less then so be it, what is the charge going to be though… £20 a day per truck isn’t a bad idea, £100 fine for none-payers and a special tax like disc they need to put in screen so that vosa can scan it like ANPR ?What you think ?
£20 per day wouldn’t deter any eastern European from doing work within the UK or to and from the UK. I’m sure I read a while back that the charge will work out at even less than that any way. I cant remember the exact figure but it was something daft in the £7-10 range.
If i’m not mistaken, Cabotage [ur]Mobility and transport - European Commission used to be Illegal. But because we are in the EU we have to allow it now.
All well & good to improve efficiency, but we have to pay one of the highest rates of Duty/Legal Extortion on diesel & nearly a ‘million pounds’ a year per lorry on vehicle tax.
Then Johnny Foreigner comes Sanky Doodling over here for weeks at a time with 20,000 ltr belly tanks of cheap very low taxed diesel, left ■■■■■■/accident waiting to happen/cheap to tax trucks & nicks all our work.
I saw this coming years ago. A lot of the Bloody Politicians in this ‘Cu n t ry’ are on the take. If you think about it, most of 'em have interest’s in Industry & it’s in their own interest to employ cheap labour from overseas & transport their goods on cheap transport from overseas whilst ripping us off with their extortionate taxes, fines, congestion charges, tolls, licences, ‘Bloody DCPC’ & carpark fees.
Now they’re trying to make us feel better with a ‘Road Charging’ Tax, £7 a day.
Ahhhhhh That makes me feel soooo much better.
Rant over. 
It’s had a second reading and has gone through the committee stage with ALL party support so apart from technicalities it will come in in 2014.
At the moment it appears the charge will be around £10 per day but ,as usual, the politicians are making a mess of the details.
They are looking at prepay on the internet for the number of days the truck will be in the country with number plate recognition to keep check. Now as we all know trucking is not an exact business so you can imagine the chaos with hold ups eg loads not ready/unable to tip/motorway closures etc. making the journey over run. I believe things like operation stack has been discussed so we’ll see what happens??
Why can’t they just issue an electronic card then the driver can punch in on entry then pay on exit just as they do in car parks?? So simple
gilburton:
It’s had a second reading and has gone through the committee stage with ALL party support so apart from technicalities it will come in in 2014.
At the moment it appears the charge will be around £10 per day but ,as usual, the politicians are making a mess of the details.
They are looking at prepay on the internet for the number of days the truck will be in the country with number plate recognition to keep check. Now as we all know trucking is not an exact business so you can imagine the chaos with hold ups eg loads not ready/unable to tip/motorway closures etc. making the journey over run. I believe things like operation stack has been discussed so we’ll see what happens??
Why can’t they just issue an electronic card then the driver can punch in on entry then pay on exit just as they do in car parks?? So simple
Which is basically what they have in Switzerland. When you arrive there for the first time in the vehicle you are driving in you have to take your original V5 inside and register for a card which you then use on entry in to the country and this prints a ticket off with your milleage. When you leave again and write in by hand the milleage and this is often variefied by the border guard to make sure you’re not fibbing and then you’re charged for the miles driven, usually deducted from the fuel card which is connected to your Swiss road tax card, though you can pay cash on exit too. Its easy in Switzerland because its not a part of the EU so everything stops to clear customs and you need this printed ticket with your milleage on to even clear customs and be allowed through the gate.
This would be problematic with EU countries who share land borders where traffic doesn’t stop any more but would be perfect for the UK with our one train terminal and hand full of ports where all trucks have to stop to book on etc.
Then rather a pathetic low daily charge that will probably cost more to administer than it generates after its employed 10,000 university graduates on to the gravy train. £10 per day isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to a Pole or Romanian truck working in the UK, its just the equivillent to the small change we leave in the donation box in McDonalds instead of having a pocket full of shrapnel.
I believe they are basing the charge on a years road tax for trucks in the UK.
As usual we play the game. The story is the EU has said we can’t charge for others unless we charge ourselves■■? So what they are doing is bringing in the charge for everybody and lowering the UK road tax. Obviously we will pay a years charge up front just as we do now.
The government has said that no one will lose out
This is the reason for the low charge.
One point that made me smile is that during the reading of the bill it was stated that one of the reasons for bringing in the charge was that foreign trucks do not contribute to the upkeep of UK roads!
We all know that VED is just a tax and it’s not spent on the roads anyway 
Anyway it’s all there on line if anyone wants to trawl through what was said in parliament.
Just to add about trucks with large tanks full of cheap fuel. There was a suggestion to limit the amount that could be brought in? Don’t know if that could be done but it was brought up!
This would be a daily charge not mileage based so it should be easier to administrate.