RAC calls for colour-coded tax discs

Back in 2007, I saw a marketing presentation that made a lot of sense. I was at the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership annual conference, and the subject was ‘how can we use marketing to encourage consumers to know their carbon, and buy lower-carbon vehicles?’ One agency, Intelligent Marketing, introduced the idea to produce colour-coded tax discs according to their VED band. The idea was that car owners would start to more readily recognise their VED tax band on their regstration and cars could more easily be identified as low, medium or high-CO2 emitting models.

Well, now the RAC, the UK’s second biggest motorists’ association, is calling for model-specific CO2 emissions to be more effectively communicated to all motorists, including on MOT certificates and, yep,  tax discs.

The RAC’s support for key environmental information to be included on tax discs is wholly consistent with the King Review recommendation that tax discs should be colour-coded to reflect the CO2 emissions of the vehicle. (In fact, Prof. Julia King had attended the same LCVP conference. She knew a good idea when she saw it.)

Unfortunately, the Government is at odds with this idea. According to the DfT’s recent report on King’s recommendations, the Government stated that someone who had made a conscious effort to purchase a ‘best in class’ vehicle could quite easily find themselves with the same-coloured tax disc as someone who purchased a less fuel efficient vehicle. The Government also quoted its focus group findings which said that colour-coding tax discs on emissions grounds ’stigmatised those with the least fuel efficient cars’.

I happen to know from a meeting with the DfT on this very subject, they weren’t really interested in the idea in the first place, and dismissed her suggestion as an add-on. So how wil the Government respond now that the RAC is calling for the measure?

Amongst other proposals, the RAC report calls for:

• An overhaul of the motoring tax system to include a review of the long-tem challenges; a permanent solution rather than ’sticking a plaster’ over the problem
• Driver training and re-education courses on ‘how to be green’
• Fuel efficiency calculators to be built as standard in all new cars
• Clear direction from Government on greener motoring. Solutions need to be simple and affordable and messaging needs to hook motorists by showing them the money they can save and in the process reduce their CO2 emissions
• Increased parking provision at rail stations and more incentives for uptake of park-and-ride schemes

The RAC report, based on the findings from survey of 1040 British motorists,  found that of those drivers who have adopted more “eco-friendly” approaches to driving, 77% have changed due to increases in the cost of fuel, with 6% reportedly changing behaviour because of concerns about the environment.

The survey suggests, however that drivers are not very aware about how to eco-drive. It also suggests that motorists are keen to see environmental incentives on car price tags, with 77% of drivers indicating they would purchase a more environmentally friendly car if there were tax incentives to do so.

Adrian Tink of the RAC commented: “It’s clear there is a willingness from motorists to be more eco-friendly, but times are tough and despite fuel prices decreasing in recent weeks, looking after the family budget is still their first priority. Many motorists also don’t know how to be greener, it’s a complex issue that even the experts sometimes can’t agree on. For now, what motorists can be sure of, is if they concentrate on saving fuel, they’ll not only be saving their hard earned money - they’ll be doing their bit by cutting emissions too.”

Blake, from We Are Futureproof