Aotearoa / New Zealand

This is one of those ideas that sound good on paper but the way it's implemented will mean it's terrible for the common person.

It literally punishes people who buy fuel efficient cars and encourages people to buy ICE cars which weigh less than hybrids or electric cars.

Furthermore they will not implement a uniform per kilogram per kilometre prices. They will heavily discount commercial vehicles while shifting the cost almost entirely to you and me. The heavy trucks will do a thousand times more damage to the road while contributing less than you do.

No: Complicated location-based schemes would be awful. I used to live in an area with a number of time-based driving restrictions. The occasional “you got a fine because you drove down that road on the wrong day” sucked, and I lived in the area and knew the roads. I can’t imagine it was fun for visitors.

Yes: fairer charging. Move ACC levies to the usage not the rego. You can’t drive your work car and your personal car at the same time. Barely drive? You’re less likely to be in or cause an accident. Maybe even chuck in charges for general “harm” (ie polluters, massive American ‘trucks’, etc)

No: GPS tracking or even “magic technology device” can fuck right off. Who’s paying for ~6 million devices? Who’s managing all that data? Who’s overseeing all that data? What’s stopping the govt suddenly deciding “we’ll fine you immediately when you speed. Anywhere, any time”? I’d rather have the shitty prepaid paper system over GPS.

Yes: it is a good opportunity for innovation. But it’s also a good opportunity to funnel millions of not billions of money and data into the hands of a private overseas company to build, test, deploy and manage… Can we not?

I kind of, sort of like the idea of taking advantage of a new system. Not GPS, I don't like that idea at all. But there are some interesting thoughts with the ideas of different charges based on emissions or safety.

But I think this ignores what makes petrol tax so good and what will make it hard to replicate the system in RUC. It's simple. Dead simple. You don't even think about it.

Now with everyone moving to RUC, different private vehicles will probably have the same rate which makes it pretty simple if more annoying. You know how much you will pay without having to think about what kind of vehicle you own (so long as you don't need a new licence to drive it).

But how does this work with emissions? Now the system is more complicated. Every vehicle has a slightly different rate per km. Or maybe three groupings or something. But you've just made buying a vehicle more confusing. And how does this impact on people who are driving a 20 year old car and can't afford a new one?

Now this gets even more complicated if you try to bring in safety. In the US, Teslas got a 5 star crash rating then went on to have double the average fatality rate. At what point do you change the RUC rate? Or do you just go with the test results and subsidise the Tesla owners getting hurt at a higher rate than they pay for? This also ignores that we have an entirely separate tax that covers this already, ACC that is paid as part of your car registration.

Some will argue this is an invasion of privacy. But as Minister of Transport Chris Bishop indicated, the privacy commissioner will oversee it.

The minister dismissing concerns about privacy with "well, we have a privacy commissioner" doesn't really give me any confidence. I'm guessing GPS tracking everyone will be too overt even for the general public to accept, so if it comes it will (surely...) be optional for some benefit.