Rising prices are forcing us into older cars, don't tax them as well
Mike Rutherford argues that the tougher emissions rules must reflect that millions of Brits rely on older cars every day
The dream for most of Britain’s 50 million drivers is that their cars are new or at least new-ish examples built in the last 12-36 months and thus nicely run in. But the reality is very different.
According to the SMMT, only 16 per cent of motorists are blessed with cars that have yet to reach their third birthdays. Around 13 per cent have three to six-year-old models, almost 19 per cent settle for seven to nine-year-old motors and 19 per cent end up with vehicles in the 10 to 12 years age group. The most startling fact of all? No fewer than 33 per cent of cars on the road are more than 12 years old.
The economic realities of modern motoring life are such that the vast majority of car drivers now potter around in models which are either getting on a bit, old or – in the nicest possible way – ancient. Talking of which, I recently bumped into someone I last saw at school. He instantly laid into me for not hanging on to the Mk1 VW Golf I bought new in the early eighties. Then he reminded me that he still has the one he bought during the same decade, and drives it daily.
Such stats and anecdotes over the popularity of ageing vehicles have not escaped the attention of the Department for Transport. This summer, it quietly announced that it would consult on its “proposals” to heavily crack down on emissions “throughout a vehicle’s life”. Breaches “can result in fines of between £1,000 and an unlimited amount”, it added.
This is game-changing stuff. Right now, vehicles that meet Euro 5, Euro 6 and Euro VI emissions targets are under no obligation to keep the emission kit they were fitted with at the factory intact, or indeed in situ. This means newer, supposedly cleaner stuff get a free pass to have their DPFs ripped out, AdBlue systems bypassed, cats binned or their software tweaked, potentially resulting in them producing more muck, all perfectly legally. Daft, isn’t it? Older, cheaper vehicles get hammered by the current rules while newer, pricier ones dodge them. The fix on the table is that every vehicle sold after 2001 would have to keep any factory-fitted emissions gear and software exactly as it left the factory, meaning it pollutes no more on the road today than it did the day it was built.
The big problem with this crucially important public consultation period ‘launched’ with a whimper weeks ago: it ended on 6 September. I’ve politely pointed out to the DfT that the summer season – when millions of drivers, industry folk and others struggled to cope with the UK’s chaotic road and public transport networks, bored kids were on school holidays, there were record heatwaves and families were trying to get away from it all on vacation – was an inappropriate time to consult.
So for these and other reasons I’ve formally requested that the deadline be extended – to 6 October, perhaps. When the DfT gets back to me with an answer, I’ll pass it on to you.
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