The RAC Foundation has called for the winners of Thursday’s election to make the ring-fencing of Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) a binding statutory scheme, as part of plans to support 'safe and sustainable' motoring.
The transport policy and research organisation set out six points it would make if asked to write Day One briefs for new ministers at the Department for Transport.
Arguing that ring-fencing VED income for strategic roads should become a statutory scheme, the Foundation said: ‘All too often in the past we’ve seen commitments to ambitious investment programmes disappear as other deserving causes steal their place in the queue for Treasury funding.’
Other asks of the new government include the development of basic data showing the importance of roads and motoring to the economy and for funding certainty to be extended beyond the strategic road network.
'What price a concerted attempt to improve the potholed routes managed by cash-strapped local authorities, after-all these are the roads – the ones outside our homes - on which all our journeys begin and end?'
The Foundation also raised the issue of road safety statistics - highlighting that 'we’re killing five people each and every day' - and suggested it was time to set up 'a road accident investigation branch that brought the same rigour to learning the lessons of road crashes that we apply to the aviation, rail and maritime sectors'.
It also advocated 'concerted action to promote the take-up of ultra-low emission vehicles’ and suggested a tightening of the rules on release of DVLA’s keeper details to promote better practice among parking contractors.
Other specific asks from the Foundation included maintaining the freeze on fuel duty and ‘thinking again about the hike in motor insurance tax’.
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