Driving A Pre-2005 Car In London Is About To Get Seriously Expensive
Like many big cities, London isn’t exactly a car-friendly place. The capital’s motorists already face chronic traffic problems and an £11.50 a day Congestion Charge fee, with the recent £10 ‘T-Charge’ (Toxicity-Charge) introduction merely adding to the pain. And in the next few years it’s set to get worse.
Currently, the T-Charge covers all vehicles that comply with Euro III standards or earlier, but by 8 April 2019, the Ultra Low Emission Zone will be established, meaning motorbikes will need to be at least Euro 3 compliant or better, petrol cars at least Euro 4, and diesels Euro 6 or newer. Unlike T-Charge, which operates from 7am-6pm Monday to Friday, ULEZ will be a 24 hours a day, seven days a week kinda deal. If your car doesn’t comply, it’s a £12.50 fee, on top of the £11.50 Congestion Charge (which covers the same area of central London) if you travel at the ‘wrong’ time.
“Ah,” you’re probably thinking, “I’ll just avoid central London. It’s a nightmare to drive in anyway.” You’d have a point, but the current proposal is to expand the ULEZ in 2021, up to the North and South Circular roads.
This would mean driving a pre-2005 petrol car anywhere at any time in this huge area is going to cost £12. It’s worse for diesel owners - any pre-2014 model won’t be Euro 6, so it’ll be liable for the charge. So it’s not just cool, modern classics that’ll become prohibitively expensive to run in London, but hundreds of thousands of regular motors.
This week Autocar obtained new figures from the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) that point to over 1.6 million drivers being affected by the extended zone. Specifically, 782,439 diesel cars and 858,018 petrols currently in the capital fall foul of the proposed changes, far more than the 576,000 total figure which Transport For London has touted.
A public consultation on the expansion is running is running until 28 February 2018.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Well I guess I’ll just be staying here in the U.S. then. My only complaint with over here right now is backup cameras are mandatory on all new cars.
Complete and utter stupidity…
Glad I live up north then 😂
I REALLY hope this does not inspire other big cities to do the same.
The government’s logic: make people who can’t afford newer more economical cars, pay even more.
^^ this is why we broke up with England 250 years ago…. a long standing habit of wrongfully extorting money from the poor by ridiculous means of taxation… used to be Tea but this is the same I suppose… I love England, I’m actually half English, son of an immigrant, but live there I most certainly never will…
Taxation like this is theft (though taxation itself is necessary) they have ideas of corruption to extort profit from the working poor.
Eviscerate the proletariat and tax him to his grave! Smh lol
Tax the poor basically
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY X5!?!??!
Everyone should all do the survey and vote against it
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In sweden, if you drive a car that older than 30 years you don’t have to pay tax on it. This is to encourage people to keep their cars instead of scrapping them because SCRAPPING CARS IS ENVIROMENTALY DAMAGING.