The debate about road tax on historic vehicles is obviously not relevant to RM owners but is relevant to those of us that own other vehicles sometimes discussed on here. Regardless of where such decisions originate it is the DVLA that enforce it so in a totally non political stance I have the following thoughts and have shared them with the DVLA via one of there feedback pages.

“I am an owner of several preserved, buses. One falls into the historic vehicle tax exempt slot. Now there are petitions that are trying to force a debate for having the time period extended to thirty years. May I make a suggestion. On 1st January 2013, the historic age will then be at least 40 years old. Would it not be a good idea to start the rolling age again from that point. Those currently complaining are probably, in the main, those that have vehicles that were built in the 1970's. It would not be a massive cost as 40 year old vehicles are pretty rare. This way the owners will see light at the end of a 40 year tunnel rather than never being tax exempt.
The simple solutions are often the most effective”

Bus owners

I wonder if, in a non political way, we could hear the thoughts of other owners of vehicles this would affect. By that I mean would this be enough to satisfy you?


David

My bus number (if any): Free to tax RML2276, Not Free to tax M1001 and T806

One of the problems I face as a commercial operator of historic buses is that of the new continuous insurance requirements. In the last couple of years, we have managed to keep costs down by insuring fire and theft annually, but road use on a daily basis as required.

Bear in mind "wedding" buses only go out about 30 days a year (unless we are very lucky) for hire, so it saved quite a lot. However, we now have to declare SORN every time, we have to wait 8 weeks for the tax refund, and we can't get a new tax disc while one is waiting to be refunded.

I have contacted my MP regarding this and the Confederation of Passenger Transport where I have suggested allowing all historic commercials, whether used commercially or not, to take advantage of the "historic" tax disc. This would go some way to offsetting the additional insurance premiums we have to pay, and the inconvenience of SORN every few days.

I would suggest the correct line of approach to this matter would be via the Federation of Historic Commercial Vehicle Clubs rather than a disparate number of individual petitions. I know the FHVC is aware of the problem, especially for those not used commercially.

In the case of commercial historic psv's, I reckon from research I done in connection with the LEZ proposals a few years ago, there are about 50 such buses in London and probably about 200 nationwide.,so onyl a small number of operators are affected, but these are significant inasmuch as they provide quite a few part-time jobs and keep the illegal operation of historic buses at bay. But that's another matter!

My bus number (if any): RML2532