Boffin says VED sums are wrong
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• Hauliers are paying unreasonable levels of Vehicle Excise Duty because the way the Government calculates the damage done to the roads by trucks is wrong, a Cambridge academic claims.
Dr David Cebon, reader in mechanical engineering at Cambridge University, says the damage inflicted by trucks when compared with cars is much less than the Government previously thought—especially on motorways.
Cebon's research invalidates the "Fourth Power Law" which is used by the Department of Transport to calculate the damage done to roads by vehicles, and therefore how much VED they should pay. It is also used for road pricing calculations.
Cebon says for "thick" roads, such as motorways, a more accurate figure is one, not four, which is correct for "thinner" local authority roads. Cebon's research, which was done on a road simulation program, shows that thick roads fail with longitudinal rutting and thin roads fail with cracking and potholing.
"On thick roads trucks don't do as much damage as the Fourth Power Law would have you believe and they do more on thin roads," he says.
"It's a question of economics," says Cebon. "Road user charges are based on the tax the Government likes to get in. There's a technical argument for taxation more closely related to road damage but whether there's a political will is debatable."
• The Fourth Power Law is used throughout the world in calculating the amount of road damage done by vehicles. It is based on US army tests that started in 1958. Cebon says the tests do not reflect modern road conditions: "Now we can do more realistic calculations of road performance and the damage vehicles do and what they shouldbe charged."