Thread: Drivers may pay per kilometre!

The issue is how to rise more money, I do not think for a minute that the government it is concerned about emissions or pollution.
If they are then invest money in improving the public transport by reducing the fares cost and introduce electric buses.

Just come back from NZ where we hired a Diesel campervan for 2 weeks. Diesel prices were between NZ$1.50 to $1.70 per litre but then we had to pay a RUC (road user charge) of $5.30 per 100km.
Petrol vehicles do not have a RUC it seems but at $2.22 a litre for petrol its lucky they don't!

Originally Posted by Discomark

Just come back from NZ where we hired a Diesel campervan for 2 weeks. Diesel prices were between NZ$1.50 to $1.70 per litre but then we had to pay a RUC (road user charge) of $5.30 per 100km.
Petrol vehicles do not have a RUC it seems but at $2.22 a litre for petrol its lucky they don't!

So how does it work? How does the government know how far you are traveling?

Originally Posted by d2dave

So how does it work? How does the government know how far you are traveling?

Hubometers.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

Hubometers.

So some one comes around every so often to read the meter, like power companies used to do. What if you are out with the vehicle.

I suppose the states that do annual RWC could have it read at that time and add the charge to your rego.

When we hired a campervan about 10 years ago in NZ it had a Hub meter fitted. However on this occasion there was none fitted (that I could see anyway).

EDIT,
Seems you now have a choice of hub meter or distance recorder such as one of these.
http://www.mobilesystems.co.nz/produ..._(eRUC)_System

All vehicles that operate with distance licences must be fitted with a distance recorder. The distance recorder must accurately provide a reliable record of the distance travelled.

Every motor vehicle requiring a road user charges distance licence, where the manufacturer's gross laden weight is more than 3.5 tonnes, must also be fitted with an approved hubodometer, or an approved electronic distance recorder.

This has all come about because people have reacted to the large rises in the price of oil by driving smaller , more economical cars.
AFAIR the consumption of petrol in Australia declined quite significantly from about 2010 onwards, an AFAIR the decline was about 7% from 2012 to 2013.
Tie this with the John Howard freezing of indexation of the fuel excise at 48.5 cents, and you have a tax that is not growing and actually declining in inflation adjusted terms.

Simple isn't it.

The other big factor of course is that fuel excise is not Hypothecated or reserved to road and infrastructure building and goes into general revenue.

Simple also that this increase in fuel price really was a large factor in the death of the Australian motor industry, along with the vastly overvalued $A which made an imported Mazda 3 a much cheaper proposition to own and run .

Tie this to the "User Chooser" legislation and tax concessional leases and you have most of the reason for the local industry dying.

Hmm the government didn't have anything to do with ALL of these things did it.LOL.
I reckon that the least that will have to happen is that excise will increase with CPI again. Motorists will be hit somehow as teh government need steh cash and motorists are a cash cow who cannot avoid paying the tax.

Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by d2dave

So how does it work? How does the government know how far you are traveling?

Trying to be as brief as possible, there was/is no road tax on Diesel in NZ, instead the vehicle owner pre buys KLM's baised on the vehicles weight, cars and light commercial vehicles use Speedo readings any thing heavier uses a hubo. When I last payed for K's it was about $300 for 10,000 K's on my 4x4.
When you first buy a Diesel vehicle you have to create a road user account(this account related to the owner, not the car and you can have multi vehicles registered on your account), including the current speedo/hubmeter reading. From then on the computer calculates the RUC from that start point(so really hard to cheat the system). They Police the hell out of RUC, with fines baised on how far over your paid distance you are and the fines climb REALLY steeply, also the heavier the vehicle, the bigger the fine.
Me, I like the idea as you only pay for the k's you actually travel. If you do alot of traveling off public roads then there is a logbook system you can apply for to enable a refund to be claimed on the non public road running. I like the idea that every thing under 4.5 tonne pays the same rate and everything above that pays by the vehicle GVM. This means that the bigger the vehicle is, the more ware an tear it places on the roads so the more RUC (Road User Charge) you pay.
It would be fairly easy to apply over all fuel types and as it is pre-paid there is not big brother sat tracking involved.....