Reduced rego rates for seniors

soniaj, May 27, 9:48am
My mother in law is finding it hard to cope with the costs of car rego/warrents per year. She is retired. She goes out for the most part once or twice a fortnight, to get her groceries and any other odd jobs, doctors etc. She is having to pay the same as everybody else, alot whom do alot of driving on a daily basis. She is not ready to give up her licence yet and rely on another form of transport.

I think this seems highly unfair. I know buses for seniors are free, but a car is their independence, and besides she is only 66 and no where near needing to give up her independence.

I think some kind of scheme for seniors where every 6 months etc, the mileage could be read, and a fairer 'user pays' type system could be implemented.

Thoughts!

morrisman1, May 27, 9:51am
For me registration is one of the smaller costs of running the vehicle. To be perfectly honest, the government shouldn't waste their money on setting up a system like that and instead give them an extra $200 a year in their pension to pay for the rego. That would save millions in administration costs

snj11, May 27, 9:53am
not just seniors, what about people that only drive there toysa few times a month, people that work in the city and choose to bus etc to work and only drives their car weekends, my motor bike that gets taken out once a week at most and costs me $600 a year in rego.

Its not just the elderly this applies to and to offer it just to them would never work or be fair

franc123, May 27, 9:55am
Licensing needs to be abolished completely IMO, and an extra fuel tax applied instead, its totally unfair on the elderly/people that don't use their cars much and multiple vehicle owners who have "toys" that rarely see the road and there is far too much paperwork involved with these silly labels and forms and exemptions and crap.Car sits in the garage five days a week and you aren't burning fuel!You don't pay, simple as that.See the other threads discussing this issue, and don't be afraid to express your displeasure with the current system when public submissions on the reform open in September.The problem with introducing a distance based system is it simply encourages odometer fiddling.

ninja_man, May 27, 10:11am
the whole rego system is a joke. Seniors that drive very little have to pay the same rego as everyone else. Same for us motorcyclists, who only go on the occasional ride once in a while. And it sucks for people with multipal vehicles thats have to pay rego fee's for each and every one. Rego should become part of petrol

patiki1, May 27, 10:19am
If that happens my grandma will own(on paper) my Holden i drive only in the weekends.

soniaj, May 27, 10:32am
Lol well don't blame you, all of a sudden lots of grandmas will 'own' alot of recreational cars, and motorbikes etc.

skin1235, May 27, 10:36am
while I can see merit in pump tax V rego, are you willing to pop another 5 or 10c per lt, it would overcome the multi vehicle user and the low mileage user issue though
purchase approx 60 ltr week, diesel or petrol so say 3000 lt annum, govt won't do it for less than now so expect at least another 15c or even 20c per lt, and they whack more gst into the cup at the same time

could get to be a double edged sword, currently ACC are largely funded from rego, give them a payday every pump lt and they'll be even more out of control than they are now - reg on my 1500cc shopping trolly says $41 for the reg, and $311 for ACC

edit, nope thats for my 2.8 diesel laurel. and they want ruc on top

johnf_456, May 27, 10:44am
^ Well said but we do need a small fee to cover the costs of keeping the database upto date. I.e when people move house and don't tell NZTA. But other than that I totally agree, it is my pet hate to. I am a owner of multiple vehicles that do not get used daily yet I can only drive one at a time.

supernova2, May 27, 10:48am
In theroy attached to the fuel price should produce lots more revenue as it will then mean that EVERY person who is driving a car will be paying which will "catch" all the unregistered POS that are running about now.

franc123, May 27, 10:58am
Exactly, it eliminates that problem completely in one swoop.The other thing with using a fuel levy is that the even more silly practice of licensing light trailers and caravans could also be done away with. Hook up a towed vehicle and guess what! You use more fuel doing it, so costs covered there too.

intrade, May 27, 10:58am
if they would put rego cost on fuel what would diesel cost then 45$ a liter or something just immagin what a broccoli would cost in the supermarket after it has been on a truck that has to pay the tax, it would come back 10 folds . the whole system is wrong not just car registration food prices are skyhigh to for examplegermany thats where the biggest problem is

slarty45, May 27, 11:15am
wouldn't mind a reduction for my 125 scooter
$477 just aint right

barbuzz, May 27, 12:20pm
Maybe we could all put our car on exemption & all apply for dealer plates so we don't ever need to pay licensing. That way we just move our dealer plate to which ever car we own & want to take out.

icemans1, May 27, 12:47pm
that's cos of the ACC levy, a person with scooter tends to get injured more easily than a person in a car

sw20, May 27, 1:29pm
ACC already have a payday when you fill up. 9.9 cents per litre.

http://www.acc.co.nz/for-individuals/other-motorists/index.htm#P31_2302

elect70, May 28, 3:47am
By time retired should be able to afford it easywith . Freeholdproperty&pension .

hamishcookie, May 28, 3:51am
I think you should pay a rego based on the classes on your licence, that way if you had had your motorcycle license since they were handed out you might either A think about taking it off to save some money or B be putting extra money in the kitty for when you have a mid life crisis and crash. Industrial vehicles would obviously need to have the majority of their fee still attached to the vehicle itself but for private vehicles the driver should be the one licensed. Imagine the money they would lose though.

thewomble1, May 28, 4:00am
Register the driver not the car.

tigra, May 28, 4:40am
You are all missing the point. Its not meant to be fair- its revenue gathering

bwg11, May 28, 4:50am
Too easy and won't provide any employment in the bureaucracy the OP's scheme would require.

foxdonut, May 28, 4:58am
Divvying up the costs and applying them to petrol would see people getting raped even harder at the bowser. Some creative numbers from the governments of late (both National and Labour) would see you paying a fortune for gas. The minority with the low use vehicles would get a "fairer" deal, everyone else would get ripped off.

The current system is as good as it could be. If you can afford a vehicle purely for recreational use you should factor in the cost of registration when making the purchase decision.

Its not like its much anyway, a few hundred bucks a year isn't exactly crippling when you have a big Sunday cruiser that gets 20 litres per 100k's or some miserly gas sipping bike that you can fill a tank on for 30 bucks and ride all day.

Another tax on petrol just results in further inflation on everything you buy at the shops.

fryan1962, May 28, 6:58am
buy her a car her age and pay $140 a year