Paper tax discs to be axed and fuel duty frozen

[RichardA]

Announced as part of the Chancellor's Autumn Statement:
 
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/paper-tax-discs-scrapped-and-fuel-duty-frozen-autumn-statement

Fuel duty also frozen.

[RichardA]

Road tax changes start on the 1st October:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes

[Eddie Honda]

Well I'll be clearing my windscreen even the disc on my UK car is valid until the end of December. 

Unfortunately over here in the RoI, I'll still have three paper "discs" to blocking the corner of the window. 

[chrisc]

Doing away with the paper disc is long overdue.  It is so easy to scan and print a fake one and that is what is happening in Johannesburg, where camera-activated highway road tolling was introduced earlier this year.  It was found that 20% of the number-plates were false.  With a simple computer program and a colour printer, matching the licence sticker to the number-plates is easy

Number-plate shops are required to ask you for the car's registration prior to making plates.  But they also make "signs" and making said sign show the same letters and numbers as the number plate does not break the law, does it?

[VicW]

The paper portion of the driving licence will soon follow suit apparently, which only leaves the MoT certificate, or 'receipt' as it is now called, isn't that also redundant in this electronic age.

That only leaves the 'certificate of insurance' cluttering up our wallets.

Vic.

[chrisc]

In many states in the US, the number plate QR code contains all the latest info about the car and can be looked up by any law-enforcement officer, even whist driving

[RichardA]

My seven year old tax disc holder with the faded logo of the supplying dealer is now in bin.

[Defender]

I feel sorry of all the tax disc holder makers that will be looking for a new career

[guest4871]

The paper portion of the driving licence will soon follow suit apparently, which only leaves the MoT certificate, or 'receipt' as it is now called, isn't that also redundant in this electronic age.

That only leaves the 'certificate of insurance' cluttering up our wallets.

Vic.

Money?

[Eddie Honda]

I feel sorry of all the tax disc holder makers that will be looking for a new career

Don't!

They'll be okay. Just re-brand them as "MOT disc holders" and they can flog 'em in Northern Ireland  . Down in the Republic, it's 2-4 roundels/squares depending on the age/class of vehicle.

[VicW]

I have noticed that the majority of vehicles still have their tax discs displayed.
I did mention it to one friend and his reply was "If I remove it how will I know if it's taxed ?"
Presumably he meant "How will I know when it runs out ?"

In passing, has anyone else noticed that Royal Mail vans have stickers on the back saying ' Maximum speed 70mph' ?
A nice little earner for whoever flogged Royal Mail all those stickers.

Vic.

[culzean]

The axing of tax discs falls into the same category as postal votes on demand for anyone (as opposed to when actually required by soldiers etc.) and leaves the system open to abuse (or massive abuse as happened in Leicester and Birmingham in particular during last general election) - how can any member of the public or anyone not equipped with access to DVLA database and / or number plate recognition camera equipment now tell if a vehicle is licenced or not ?.    In addition to bringing tax disc back,   a valid MOT disc should also be displayed on vehicles.

The Aussies have (or had ? ) the right idea where the 'road fund licence' (rego) disc also carries your third party insurance provider details - but we would never go for that in this country as it is much too sensible an idea. I believe German cars also carry these detail actually on the number plate - which is re-issued every year.

[Eddie Honda]

Quite a lot of members of the public have these devices in their pocket not much bigger than a packet of cigarettes which they can access the public database on.

https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/

The only thing that bothers me is the DVLA and the flakiness of their database. It isn't perfect, although to them, the computer is always right. Even if it was 99% accurate, which it isn't, they deal in around 70 millions records (for vehicles + drivers)

Discs are a pain. They get tatty, they get stolen (Had one stolen on a motorcycle before, when asked by Traffic plod about it - I told them I wasn't going to be paying £7 for a replacement when it's got less than £7 left to run). MOT discs, another waste of time, including the old certs, plenty of scope for abuse.

It's 2014.

So to flip the question back: "How can any member of the public or anyone not equipped with access to DVLA database and / or number plate recognition camera equipment tell if a "tax disc" is genuine or not ?"