http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1004/Economie/artic...op-3-cent.dhtml

http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1004/Economie/artic...erheffing.dhtml

http://www.nos.nl/nosjournaal/artikelen/20...ningrijden.html

The Dutch are going to go ahead with plans to introduce a charge for using the roads (kilometerheffing). Starting in 2012, it will cost an average of 3 cents a kilometre to drive on a Dutch road. By 2018 that will rise to 6.7 cents. It is thought that this will reduce the distance driven on Dutch roads by 15% and traffic congestion by 50%.

[So let's say you drive 10,000 km a year. For you, the annual tax will amount to 670 euros in 2018. It will also be possible to charge motorists who drive during peak hours a higher rate, but they haven't introduced that yet.]

[They'll know how much a motorist drives because of a device that will be installed in every vehicle. The information from the device will go straight to a government office. From this they will be able to tell when you drive, where you drive and how far you drive.]

There are already taxes on ownership of a vehicle. The first is called motorrijtuigenbelasting or wegenbelasting. The second is called aanschafbelasting or bpm. These will be eliminated in the new system.

According to the Minister of Traffic and Water Management (Camiel Eurlings) 59% of people will pay less. 25% will pay about the same. 16% will pay more.

The ANWB supports the plan in general, but wants to calculate first how much it will actually cost motorits. Heavy transport companies support the plan. Employers are generally positive, but say that it must not lead to higher costs for businesses.

The Tweede Kamer is divided on this issue. The governing coalition parties agree with it. 'Most people will pay less and face fewer traffic jams, so that is good news. And those who use the roads for business will be compensated by the fact they're stuck less in traffic congestion', says MP Ger Koopmans (CDA). MP Lia Roefs (PvdA) says that 'an important hurdle' has now been crossed. Steps taken by Eurlings are now 'irreversible', she said with satisfaction. Even the CU is happy. 'This law is one of the most important reforms of this cabinet', says MP Ernst Cramer (CU), who also called law fair and right for the environment.

But the opposition parties of all stripes (VVD, SP, PVV) are critical. Even GroenLinks sees problems with it.

The VVD says that is a 'scandalous gouging' of motorists. According to VVD MP Charlie Aptroot, the tax paid by someone who drives 12,500 per year will rise from 800 euros now to 900 euros in 2018. 'It's yet another tax increase gouging motorists, certainly those who have to face traffic congestion when they drive to work. It's the builders, the teachers, who will be gouged.'

Aptroot also says the introduction of the new system will cost 4 billion euros and is not going to work anyway. 'Soon 9 million tax invoices will have to be sent out every month. Also, the government will know exactly where you've driven your car. Not even the Soviet Union did that.'

The SP calls it a 'traffic congestion tax'. They think the whole project is too expensive and too complicated.

GroenLinks MP Kees Vendrick is in favour of it in principle, but thinks that the tax is not high enough for heavy goods vehicles. He also wants the extra tax for peak hours introduced sooner. Natuur en Mileu (a prominent environmental organisation) say the same: they want it all to come sooner.

I believe number of issues is going to come up with having device like this, like: "Big Brother is watching You even more". I don't think I will this way, but some changes are imminent.

I hope my employer pays that Euro atleast for the distance I drive to reach office.

Yet another expensive failure on the way for NL.

I don't know why they don't do something simple, like just adding it to and raising the fuel charges.

Seems like a prison for me... no freedom at all.

If you are already paying for your vehicle tax already, why the bloody hell people should pay for something else like this...

another way to get the money

Highway-robbery but worse.

Vehicle tax will be abolished when this new system will be introduced.

makes sense but there is a hidden reef. I bet!

Yes, if you drive a lot then you'll be a hell of a lot worse off...

The hidden reef is that the road tax will be abolished. The revenues of which didn't go to the National government, but to the Provincial governments. The Provincial governments will probably introduce a different tax to compensate. Possibly a poll tax, making non-motorists pay for the maintenance of roads.

The sharp cliff on the horizon is the fact that the National government is required to raise about 35 billion in the next few years, either through spending cuts or taxation. They're not in a position to reduce the tax load on a substantial portion of the population.

They should use road tax to improve and stimulate public transportation.

Why? To give to the European coffers?

I have an assumption that its not only a pollution issue but also soft force to use public transportation.. I may be mistaken

Hard to do without major investments. The railway infrastructure in the Netherlands is one of the most outdated in Europe. And, especially in the Randstad, it is also one of the most heavily used.



to get back to a balanced budget. Which is required by the Stability and Growth pact of the EU.

There are people that need to drive for different reasons and they may not have income high enough to cover increased costs of driving. There are also people who want to drive out somewhere in the weekend and will be deprived of weekend pleasures because they cannot afford weekend in Rome for example.

If the government want to chase people off the road they should provide alternative which is public transportation.

Otherwise some people will have to stay home.

Really? I always thought that the UK rail network was far worse... I find the rail network here to be far better.

Never mind what the EU want, what does the Netherlands want?

They have to provide carrots as well as sticks to get people on public transit. This government, however, knows little else but how to beat the public with sticks.

For example, my Dutchie owns a car because it takes him 20 minutes to drive to work from Haarlem to Schiphol-Rijk. His employer tried to encourage him to take public transit, but it would take one hour.

And when we were living in Halfweg, he was given advice at work as to the optimum route to take if he switched to public transit...a route which would have required him to get off a bus in Amsterdam and walk for half an hour! And when he tried to figure out a route himself, he couldn't find one that took less than 90 minutes one way. Needless to say, he kept his car...

So?



So?



There's quite a bit of public transportation around already. By its very nature, it's not the right choice for everyone.



Or ride a bicycle. Or walk. Or find a job somewhere else. Or any of the million ways people can cope with changing situations. Don't get me wrong, I think this plan is an expensive disaster waiting to happen, but "waah, this doesn't improve my specific situation" has never struck me as a valid reason to be for or against something.

It's mostly in the things you don't see. The signalling system used (which matters for safety), and the method used to heat railroad track switches (not very good, which is why they freeze over whenever it snows), the low-voltage overhead lines, which incur huge losses. But yeah, Britain's infrastructure is old, too. It's the one other country where "autumn leaves" and "the wrong kind of snow" are valid excuses to cancel trains.



Well, now that the credit crisis is over, we have to pay the piper, and we'll be doing that for the next decade, if not longer. Not sure whether sanitizing the government budget will be enough, but it's a good place to start.

Yes, I heard they still use gas to keep the points warm, where invariably the flame goes out. In the UK they use electric, stopped using gas years ago.
How come the overheard lines cause huge losses? Is it DC instead of AC? Ah, yes, I see it is. Just looked on Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transpor...erlands#Network
As I understand it, DC electricity needs many more booster power points to keep the power equal along the distance where as AC is able to travel further without so much loss. (I was a train driver in the UK driving DC and AC trains and trains that could use both, not at the same time of course!)
Apparently, it's planned in the future to make all the old lines in the Netherlands AC, the new high speed lines already are. (25Kv AC as opposed to 1.5Kv DC) That'll be incredibly expensive but well worth it in the long run.

Yes, the jokes that would come out during autumn and winter! But, it was no joke I tell you! Driving the trains during the autumn when there were leaves on the line was a complete nightmare. Travelling at speeds of 100mph (160kmh) and not being able to stop because the leaves on the line made it so greasy that the wheels couldn't grip is as bad as driving a car on black ice, actually, worse! Especially if there's another train in the distance that's being held at a red signal. Normal breaking distance for a 100mph train is over 1 mile if the conditions are good so you can imagine how bad things were when it wasn't. I can't tell you how many times I got caught out slipping on the way into a station trying to stop, slipping through the station looking at the bemused passengers faces as I passed through at speed with the train wheels hissing & spitting as they tried to grip to no avail, right out the other end and still carrying on further down the line before you were able to eventually stop. Sometimes you'd even slip to the next station if it was really bad! And there were instances, where the line ended, where you'd just hit the 'stops', indicating it was the end of the line, with lots of damage. Of course, driving in the thick fog could be just as bad, you can't really see anything then! S'truth, white knuckle rides for sure! I'm really glad I'm out of it now... I'm sure the job knocked years off my natural life.


How about just sanitising the government...

Perhaps not...except if you discover a pattern developing when you talk to others. I really don't think my Dutchie is "unique" by any means...and since the Netherlands has never had the same "car culture" as North America, I'm quite sure many have rejected public transit simply because it worked for fewer and fewer of them.

Make public transit better, then you can "blame" the public.

Move people with less money of the road, so people with more money will be able to comfortably enjoy their rides in BMWs, Audis and Lexuses. No problems for them paying little extra for road taxes.
In the meantime people with less money will still pay the same price for (crowded) public transportation.

Whatever you know, it is your country and your people.

What you describe isn't really "not working", though, it's "not worth it". Your husband decided that the time he saved taking the car was worth more to him than the additional cost of the car. If you tweak that financial equation a little, he may decide that public transport is worthwhile.

Yes, there are people in the sticks who don't have public transport available. But under the new plans, they'll probably be paying less.



Dutch people congregate in vast numbers every day to attend what can only be described as a slow, religious ceremony for motorized vehicles. They love their cars so much that they seem to want to maximize the time they spend driving in them, even if it's only for a short stretch.



'Blaming' people has nothing to do with it. It's taxation. It doesn't have to make any moral sense as long as it achieves its goals. And in this case, the goals are to 1) collect more money 2) make driving less attractive.

Like it not masochistic enough to drive around here ?

They can make it different way: Put something really annoying along congested roads, that would make people drive less.

For example create some bad smell around these roads.

Very cheap and cost effective solution .

No. Tried it and it wasn't.

The point is that many people would opt for public transportation if it is less costly and/or if the commute time competitive.

Or, primarily, if it was more convenient...

I don't know. Lots of people manage to be perfectly happy with a one-hour commute. Don't get me wrong, I'd make the same choice if I were in your husband's position. But it'd be a choice.



Two ways to go about that. Either make public transport better and cheaper, or make travelling by car more annoying and expensive.

Its also about getting used to a different routine.
I've never owned a car,I'll never want one and I can't say I've ever NEEDED one.
I'd rather take the train and read a book than sit in a traffic jam.
For me,to and from work,its actually quicker with the train anyhoos.

And it leaves me more money to spend on belgian beer and dinners out.

There's a big difference between sitting on a train for an hour, and transfering two or three times with a 15 to 20 minute wait between each transfer! Or having to connect with a bus that arrives once every half hour, five minutes before your train gets to the station, if the bus decides to arrive at all (my big fun when I lived in Halfweg). Or watching that same bus leave as you frantically run for it because the train was a minute late...

If ONLY commuting an hour was a matter of a short ride to a station, following by a train ride where you could read, listen to music, etc. It rarely is...

Why take the negative approach? (I know, it's cheaper... )

There are many young families with small children, going into the bus with two small kids and two strollers is not really a good idea.

End result is going to be like this:

driving personal car will become privilege of the people that have plenty of money.

People who have plenty of money never, it seems, have much to worry about...

But some people with plenty of money have more to worry about cos they've got more to lose and are less equipped to deal with difficult financial circumstances.

Depends on where they put their money... not sure why they would be less equipped to deal with difficult financial circumstances, when they have all that money.

I meant that if people have always been used to having lots of money and they lose it all it will be tougher for them to make ends meet.

I'm sorry, but on this planet, and in this country, it already is, and always has been. A little more than 30% of the population doesn't have the kind of income (say, 140% of minimum wage) on which they can readily afford to drive a car. Now some of those people do, and some of them don't ,regardless of income. But it's definitely what I'd call a privilege.

Looks like this country is turning into third world country then.

Third world planet then. To my knowledge, there's not a country in the world that has made car ownership a human right (although I gather Dubai goes very far in the privileges it allows the Emiratis)

Not human right, many things are necessity and driving a personal car in many countries, which are far worse than Swamp, is not priviliege, necessity rather. Does not have to be expensive, but driving should be affordable to most of the people in country like Nederland.
It is 17 million people here, you will always have traffic jams, but there are better ways to reduce them. This tax system will not work.

Agreed.
There is absolutely no way car ownership should be a necessity.
It should be a luxury and stay that way.
Personally I can think of loads of things I'd rather spend my money on.

The problem is we have become spoilt.
Sadly,many of us have become fckin house-cats and thats why we are not so eager to complain or protest about issues...because many of us have everything we need as far as materials are concerned....and we don't want to lose them.
Many of us have accepted the 'blood money' (ie cheap electronic gadgets to make us go 'geewhiz-gollygosh-wowwee')
IMO - People have been looking for happiness or satisfaction in material goods rather than...erm...love,friendship,companionship...yer know,all those nice old-fashioned hippy-dippy things :o)

Why 'most' rather than 'many' or 'all'?



The tax system won't work because it taxes too little. Most traffic jams are caused by commuters, and for businesses, the increased cost is a negligable and partially untaxed business expense. Business don't get to 'see' the extra half-hour traffic jams cost their employees, let alone feel the expense. It's not their time, it's not their frustration, it's not their money.

A more effective (but unfeasible) system would be to require businesses to pay their employees by the hour while they're stuck in traffic.

OK many, still plenty.


Business need to keep going keeps people busy.
I suggest the following, make public transport more efficient and cost effective. I was driving to work fro Alkmaar to Den Helder, now I take train from Alkmaar to Den Haag. Taking train is making me more relaxed, but I had to drive to Den Helder when I worked there; necessity, not luxury.

They also need to build extra highway between Amsterdam Rotterdam Den Haag and Utrecht and make it a pay road. Thos would be efficient, if you want to get faster you would have a choice to pay for it. Rest of the people could still drive on the other (old) road.

Perhaps they should try building double decker motorways, like they've done in Thailand, where you pay on the top floor to drive on quieter and quicker while those driving on the ground floor take their chances...

And if that doesn't solve the problem, make triple decker, quadridecker, etc. highways.

Higher up you drive more you pay and drive faster.

Well, I don't think that it would be necessary to go quite as far as that but anyway, it works in Thailand, why not here... of course it would never be done here as it's not within keeping of the Dutch style of doing things. Though they're seem quite happy to build monstrosities such as the revolting building that's going to be the gemeente of Zaanstad just outside Zaandam railway station. Revolting I tell you! Reminds me of something that should be kept in Disneyland...

Aye, there's the rub. That bucket of rust that gets my Dutchie home from work in a third of the time allows us to actually enjoy that love, friendship and companionship for a couple of hours per evening!