Perhaps middle-aged blokes SHOULDN'T try 34-hour-long road trips As the result of a so far successful, but probably not worth it, piece of tax avoidance I can tell you three things. First, something that should be blindingly obvious: middle-aged men can't do long road trips with quite the ease that their younger selves could. The second is not so much to tell you but ask you: what's the …
Most tolls have lanes for credit cards, lanes for vehicles with badges, and a few lanes with real people who will take cash.
The really stupid thing is that you have to pay for a badge, despite them reducing the staffing costs. Any sensible country would offer a toll discount for badge users as an incentive, but not France.
You pay for the badge, but not in the way you presented it - the badge is free and if you don't use it, you pay nothing. The month you use it, you are charged €2 for that month (plus the toll fees you pass through of course).
If you've ever travelled les autoroutes on a black weekend (major holiday times), you'd be like me and happily pay the €2 for that month - cuts at least 15 minutes off your waiting time at each major toll - just sail through the toll at 30km/h while the others join the 1-2km queues.
If you've ever travelled les autoroutes on a black weekend (major holiday times),
I avoid those Saturdays like the plague, last weekend they broke records with over 950km of total jams on the network! You don't save any time if you can't get close enough to the toll to get into a badge-only lane!
Agreed it's worth having the badge for convenience, I have two, but it still makes little sense to charge extra to use the badge, given that both users and operators win when the badges are used.
... is speed through the toll gates, mostly there is no queue and no waiting for the driver in front to find his credit card/cash and wait for a receipt.
The new Dartford crossing toll system in the UK forced me into a tedious, slow and utterly stupid process involving a long detour to a village shop, a long wait while the shopkeeper found the right instructions for the terminal and a three pound fee instead of the two pound fee I was expecting. What are this government’s economists smoking/sniffing?
"The new Dartford crossing toll system in the UK forced me into a tedious, slow and utterly stupid process involving a long detour to a village shop, a long wait while the shopkeeper found the right instructions for the terminal and a three pound fee instead of the two pound fee I was expecting. What are this government’s economists smoking/sniffing?"
What ? You can either pay one-off on-line (before or after the event) or have an account for frequent use when it becomes similar to the telepeage scheme but with different vehicle recognition mechanism and with a useful discount
2. You'd have to be stupid* to drive for 34 hours to dodge tax
You'd have to be stupid to think this! To normal people, it depends on how much tax you'd be liable for if you didn't drive. Everybody does things to save time, effort or money, and to achieve a balance between the three, and that's universally accepted as a good thing. So to call out someone because they money they're saving is imposed by a government is stupid.
As a hypothetical, what if there were 2 roads and one had a compulsory vehicle check which took 1 hour. The trip would be 2 hours on this road, because of the check, and 1.5 hours on the other road. You would save time by dodging the vehicle check, and it's only the vehicle check that makes the slow road the better option. This is the same decision as before, but it's about time rather than money, and the state benefits from having compliant vehicles rather than having money to spend. The logical extension of your belief is that it would be stupid to save time.
This is why people support Jeremy Corbyn.
There is another option - no saving on Earth is enough to compensate sharing the road with Germans driving along the Autobahn in Audis approaching light speed or Southern Europeans who are taught your breaking distance is the space where they put their car after overtaking you while someone else tailgates you.
"2. You'd have to be stupid* to drive for 34 hours to dodge tax"
"You'd have to be stupid to think this!"
Stupid people do stupid things. I heard someone say they drive to the local (to me) shops because the Milk is cheaper - did I mention it's a 45 minute drive from their place?!
Their defence was, "That's not the only stuff we get". What *I* don't get, is how they justify in their heads their time, fuel and maintenance costs to save mere bucks.
I heard someone say they drive to the local (to me) shops because the Milk is cheaper - did I mention it's a 45 minute drive from their place?!
Yes, my wife's grandfather used to drive from Archway to Haringay Sainsbury's petrol station to save 1p a gallon on fuel for his rover 213, total savings about 6p per fill (he didn't shop at Sains, only Jones Brothers in Holloway)
On a shopping Saturday the journey took him roughly an hour each way
Serving n a branch of the military in the early 80s and based in the south of England, it was not unknown for four people to get into a car late friday and drive for two days skiing (rotating drivers) in order to be back in time (just) for parade on the monday morning. One does silly things occasionally.
"3. There are no slow/fast lanes
Yes there are in the context Tim was talking about. There lanes on hill climbs in the UK specifically marked as "Slow Vehicle Lane" Or whatever the wording is they use.
A171 North of Scarborough, just checked on StreetView and it's marked "Crawler Lane".
A57 going SE from the A1 junction, is signed "Crawler Lane Ahead"
Crawler lanes are generally marked so the slow traffic merges into the "normal" lane.
Motorways tend to simply sign an increase in number of lanes the sign the decrease at the end of the wider stretch with lane 3 merging back to lane 2
@ Mahatma Coat
I don't know what your time is worth, but the figures mentioned are €30,000 for a 5.7 litre car. The two cars in my driveway are 4.5 litre twin turbo and a 7.6 litre normally aspirated. Disappointed as I am to have to say this, 34 hours of my time is worth far, far less than €30,000 at any hourly contract rate I can aspire to charging in my wettest wet dreams.
" the figures mentioned are €30,000 for a 5.7 litre car."
If you're living in a country (as in have been there more than 1 year) then trying the 6 month trick will land you in a world of serious hurt with the tax (and other) authorities - including a conviction for driving without insurance in the UK if you get caught.
The wording of that exemption is quite tight and only applies to residents of another country whilst travelling, people temporarily resident elsewhere (for less than a year), or those who are moving - to allow them enough time to get the vehicle registered under the new regime.
"I don't know what your time is worth, but the figures mentioned are €30,000 for a 5.7 litre car. The two cars in my driveway are 4.5 litre twin turbo and a 7.6 litre normally aspirated. Disappointed as I am to have to say this, 34 hours of my time is worth far, far less than €30,000 at any hourly contract rate I can aspire to charging in my wettest wet dreams."
Agreed. I live in the aforementionade country and it is a right pain in the you know what. I have four cars and it would cost me a lot to register them all. One of them that I did look at registering (called matriculating here) cost 5 grand to buy and would cost 24,000 to register.
It is madness and they have been taken to various European courts over the matter and have lost every time. It is however more financially beneficial to pay the subsequent fine and then keep on fleecing the people with foreign cars.
"3. There are no slow/fast lanes"
Sorry, speaking as a roadie, what Tim was described *are* slow/fast lanes. In UK road design the slow lane up a hill is called the crawler lane. Its specifically the lane for slow traffic to take to allow faster traffic to overtake it in the passing lane.
As to the merging, working from engineering and physics basics, you would have the faster traffic merging into the slower traffic, as otherwise you are stating that the slow traffic that is in the slow lane because it cannot go any faster is required to break the laws of physics and actually go faster to merge with the faster traffic when you've already stated that it's there because it can't go faster.
@Richard or racing on a motorbike to catch the ferry Friday night (7pm sailing from Holland was JUST about doable assuming they still let you check in at 6.30 on the dot on a GPZ900 from Paderborn at the drop of 16:00 parade. You needed to be fully wound out on the A2 though....
German roads were quite efficient even back in the early 90's and the dutch ones weren't too bad (but harder to "move rapidly" on)
As to the merging, working from engineering and physics basics, you would have the faster traffic merging into the slower traffic, as otherwise you are stating that the slow traffic that is in the slow lane because it cannot go any faster is required to break the laws of physics
It shouldn't matter which lane merges across if people are merging correctly. The correct way to do it is to zip merge (merge in turn) at the point the lanes meet, having offset the vehicles on the run up to that point.
As you say, both lanes will be doing the same reduced speed immediately after the merge, so there should be no need for excessive braking.
> It shouldn't matter which lane merges across if people are merging correctly.
Yes, zip merging is good - but try getting British drivers to do that !
Thje other way of looking at it is that these slow vehicles are generally the biggest - so regardless of what's marked, they have "right of weight".
(for the hard of understanding, that's a pun on "right of way")
Yes, zip merging is good - but try getting British drivers to do that !
Here in the US we're accidentally conducting a long-term study on zip (or "zipper") merging. Some states have implemented it; most haven't.
It's particularly noticeable in construction zones where one or more lanes are closed.
In states that encourage ("require", though enforcement is probably rare) zip merging, most people seem to report that it generally works well; drivers seem to understand the concept even if they haven't seen it before.
In other places, merging is a huge mess. Last summer we were stuck for half an hour in an insane jam on I-70 near Terre Haute until we finally reached an exit and could cut over to an alternate route, and it was all caused by poor merging behavior at a construction zone a few miles up the road.
And all it appears to take are a few signs telling people to 1) use all traffic lanes up until the merge, and 2) alternate lanes when merging, to get most people to zip-merge properly. And when most people are doing it, drivers unfamiliar with the process usually get the idea, and the occasional bastard who doesn't wait his turn won't cause so much disruption or get very much of an advantage (so there's less incentive to renege).
"Sorry, speaking as a roadie, what Tim was described *are* slow/fast lanes. In UK road design the slow lane up a hill is called the crawler lane. Its specifically the lane for slow traffic to take to allow faster traffic to overtake it in the passing lane."
But not universal. I can think of one hill climb in Staffordshire where the road hits the hill, and a second uphill lane is provided. In order to use it you have to cross a white-dashed line. At the top, the lane merges back into the "slow lane" and you will cross the dashed line on your way back across. The slower vehicle does not have to make any sort of adjustment or actively move into a "slow lane".
It effectively a short stretch of dual carriageway (without central reservation), and is as very much constitutes an overtaking lane, not a "fast lane". Having overtaken a truck you WILL merge back in, or else go head-to-head with oncoming traffic when the middle lane disappears!
+1
I do a longer road trip to dodge crazy summer airfares and ship some accumulated dross from the attic to my summer house 1600 miles away on an annual basis.
Rule no 1. Avoid France.
Rule no 2. If in doubt see rule No 1.
France is by far the worst country in Europe to travel through. Idiotic junction layout, nobody following rules, horrid tolled motorways, farmers and ferry workers burning barricades of tires across the road, migrants trying to unbolt your tailgate and get in even when you are moving, you name it.
Rule 3. Plan your trip from jacuzzi to jacuzzi.
I would have expected a person who lives in the country where Carlovy Vary and Teplice are located to have groked that one out.
Rule 4. Never drive more than 8h a day except on the last lap.
The winning formula is: "less than 8h drive, dad in the jacuzzi, kids on the water slide". There are plenty of spas in Europe and _ANY_ route can be altered slightly to follow the winning formula.
In any case, the original "tax dodge math" is wrong. The legal side of things is:
1. You can have a car from a foreign country locally for 6 months. This is now enforced. The car toll and viniette enforcement cameras in all Eu countries now have a secondary feed and cars that are in for more than 6 months without re-registration show up on police database.
2. You cannot realistically have it for more than 3. The insurance treaty says 3 months, not 6 and nobody will give you an insurance for 6 months abroad unless your car is a commercial (f.e. truck). So after the 3rd month you are uninsured and can be pulled over and your car impounded. The workaround is to get the temporary insurance used in the import process locally. This may sometimes cover you for an additional month, but pulling that to full 6 months is a very tall order. It is also a royal PITA (I have imported a car into a country with penile extender restrictions similar to Portugal so I know that first hand).
"and nobody will give you an insurance for 6 months abroad "
Nonsense. My motorhome has exactly that and it's the standard policy.
"France is by far the worst country in Europe to travel through. Idiotic junction layout, nobody following rules, horrid tolled motorways"
Many european countries have tolls, junctions are fairly standard, autoroutes although having tolls are mostly empty except at peak season. I drove back from Switzerland on 29/30th July. On the A26 between Troyes and the A4 (~60 miles) at morning peak period I saw ~20 cars/trucks on 'my' side of the motorway, on the A26 towards Calais things got busier with maybe 3 vehicles a mile density.
I admit the farmers, ferry workers and indeed migrants are a nuisance but the only delay on the journey was the UK Border Force at Calais using just 3 booths out of ~12 so what little traffic there was had to queue for 30 mins.
When driving my camper van in Europe I just tootle along at 60 and no-one bothers me. As long as I remember to allow lorries in from the right at a motorway junction
If I do have the misfortune to have to overtake two lorries in two lanes, going up a hill, I'm very thankful as people flash their lights into my tailgate, the added photon pressure makes me go just that little bit faster.
I do a longer road trip to dodge crazy summer airfares and ship some accumulated dross from the attic to my summer house 1600 miles away on an annual basis.
Your summer house is 1600 miles from your main house? That's insane. Mine is only 1500 miles, which is much more reasonable.
Seriously, I have to say that my wife and I have also chosen to make that drive rather than fly for 8 of the past 9 years. Air travel is just a dreadful experience these days, even if you want to pay unholy sums to upgrade to the less-awful seating. Waiting in airports, boarding and "deplaning", engine noise... It makes 23 hours in a car seem quite pleasant by comparison.
And driving lets us take a lot more stuff - including comfortable lawn chairs, a grill, a healthy collection of tools, various craft materials, plenty of books, etc. And when we arrive, we have our own, nice car, not some wretched fleet vehicle from a rental company.
Never drive more than 8h a day except on the last lap
We generally make the last day's drive the shortest, actually. That gives us plenty of time after arriving to unpack, shop for groceries, and generally settle in. We generally do about 8 1/2 hours the first two days, then 6 on the last. (The durations are somewhat constrained by available hotels; part of our drive takes us through the Oklahoma panhandle and similarly sparse areas.)
2. You'd have to be stupid* to drive for 34 hours to dodge tax
On the face of it, Tim is going about this wrong. If he purely wants a large engined car for power output, then he'd be better off gaming the system by purchasing something tunable but small engined, such as an EVO or WRX/STi. They come with 2 or 2.5 litre engines, which can be modified to output about 400 BHP, which is enough to match a typical yank tank.
To be fair, you don't know what he wants - practicality isn't always the goal.
My (old) Jag has a 4 litre engine, it's BHP is the same as my friends sporty 2 litre Mazda. His is a nice car, but I much prefer mine. His beats mine on every measure of practicality ( 5 doors hatchback vs 2 door coupe, folding rear seats vs not, fuel economy, etc ), but I'd still rather have mine.
"They come with 2 or 2.5 litre engines, which can be modified to output about 400 BHP, which is enough to match a typical yank tank."
I think you're missing the point of a large unstressed engine - V8 sound and longevity. I know for a fact that EVO engines (don't know about Imprezas) need very frequent maintenance and plus they sound like all 4 pots - ie shit - and the older ones had turbo lag in which you could make a cup of tea in while the engine got its act together.
Any engine can be boosted to stupid bhp, its not hard. The hard bit is making the engine reliable day to day and making it last. There are plenty of decades old V8s still rumbling about. I wonder how many of the current crop of small capacity high power 4 pots will still being going in 30 or 40 years time without having required a complete rebuild including new valves and pistons? Not many I suspect.
@Boltar
I think you're missing the point of a large unstressed engine - V8 sound and longevity
It is the engine configuration of the gods, no doubt.
I know for a fact that EVO engines (don't know about Imprezas) need very frequent maintenance
About 6k for an oil change... which is one bolt and a filter, so hardly taxing.
plus they sound like all 4 pots - ie shit
Thankfully the boxer configuration gives a great warble.... Not nearly so sweet as the V8, but hardly shit.
the older ones had turbo lag in which you could make a cup of tea in while the engine got its act together
Agreed, but new design turbos are almost linear in terms of power delivery, with exceptionally little lag - not as good as a supercharger, but certainly not what they were in the 80s and early 90s.
Any engine can be boosted to stupid bhp, its not hard. The hard bit is making the engine reliable day to day and making it last.
Again, agreed. That's why I stopped at 400 bhp, because after that reliability or cost start to creep in. Obviously a V8 can be boosted north of 1000 bhp, but I assumed Mr Worstall was a little too, erm, middle aged for that.
I wonder how many of the current crop of small capacity high power 4 pots will still being going in 30 or 40 years time without having required a complete rebuild including new valves and pistons? Not many I suspect
None, I'd venture. But then I'm assuming a globe trotting capitalist pig like the good Mr Worstall is unlikely to be ducking the tax man in the same juridiction for long enough to require such longevity...
Original plan was to drive another one down and swap.
Just find someone going on a driving holiday and swap cars for the duration. You drive theirs locally, they get your tank for the away run. Car has left the country, and there are likely no rules governing when it can return.
i'll lend you one if you want ;) I have multiples just for the hell of it.
The old bill over here have lightened up a bit of late. They don't seem to impound them any more but just levy a fine.
Be careful on the N125 at the moment, it is a veritable death trap and will be until the end of August.
The one about having already paid for European tolls - classic Clarkson, from likely over a decade ago.
That said, since you're a tax dodger, you haven't *actually* paid though, have you?
Have you always planned to rely on the charity of others to prevent your Libertarian utopia from falling into dystopian anarchy?
In his series "Jeremy Clarkson: Meets the Neighbours" (in which he toured Europe in an E-Type Jag), he had a debate with a very confused toll attendant, trying to argue that they should let him through toll-free since he was one of the lovely Northern-European taxpayers who had actually paid for Portugal's shiny motorway network to be built.
He also took said E-Type around the Arc de Triomphe, which makes him a braver man than I!
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