Things that annoy you...

[Gavin Scott]

At the risk of sounding really quite straight; you are a beautiful lass, Lorna.

I can't imagine what kind of trodlodyte would offend you on a dinner date by eating with their mouth full.

You, I can plainly see, deserve much much better.

Thankyou

I love the word trodlodyte. I'll interpret that as 'moron' . I'm going to being using that word alot now

It should have read troglodyte, but I miss-spelled in my haste to compliment you.

It's a good word. It means "person who lives in a cave".

[Pete]

Every smoker I've encountered goes through great hoops to defend their habit... just shows how powerful the drug is. That said, smokers who started during the cigarette companies' propaganda and document-destroying deserve sympathy.

Mind you, smokers are useful at bus stops because the moment they light one, a bus arrives!

I find the smell of poor smokers much worse than rich smokers. The smell of the working class mixed with tobacco is horrid. The richer smokers I can stand next to quite easily whilst they are smoking.

[Spencer For Hire]

My big pet hate at the moment is unneccessarily large vehicles. If you live in the middle of the countryside at the end of a dirt track or get snowed in regularly, fine, get a 4x4, but not if you're just a posey tosser living in the middle of a town or city.

Aside from the extra damage these things are doing to the environment, why do those who drive them seem completely unable to use just one space in a car park?

I'd really like to see these pretentious gas-guzzlers taxed to buggery.

[Jamez]

I came up with a sliding scale of car tax, which I think is a lot fairer:

Per year...

100-1000cc = £30 (Motorbikes & SMART cars)
1000-1399cc = £60 (Ford fiestas, Corsas & other small cars etc.)
1400-1599cc = £100 (Ford Focus, Corsa & other small/medium cars)
1600-1799cc = £150 (Ford Mondeo, Vectra, BMW 318 & other family cars)
1800-1999cc =£200 (Peugeot 406, BMW 320 & VW Golf)
2000-2499cc = £300 (BMW 325 & other executive cars)
2500-2999cc = £400 (Jags, Mercs, High-spec Vectra etc.)
3000cc plus = £550 (Porsche & other ridiculously fast cars)

At the moment you get cheaper car tax if your car is under 1595cc, but I think it should be a sliding scale, to deter people from buying cars with such big engines.

Lorries & Commercial vehicles would have a slightly different scale, but along the same lines as a car.

[Spencer For Hire]

That sounds far too sensible for any government to introduce. There'd have to be some kind of nonsensical compromise involving an exclusion for cars in which food is eaten or something equally random.

I often wonder though what the point in road tax is at the current rate. I currently spend about £2,000 per year on petrol, of which about £1,600 goes to the government in tax. So why bother charging me an extra £100 or so per year? It seems like a drop in the ocean compared to total amount of tax I spend whilst driving.

[Dr Lobster*]

I came up with a sliding scale of car tax, which I think is a lot fairer:

this is very sensible, failing that lump road tax and fuel duty together. no more tax discs, you pay for what you use (therefore how far/much you drive) and no more road tax evasion to deal with.

if we had to stick with a road tax system, i'd modify your chart thusly:

100-1000cc = £30 (Motorbikes & SMART cars)
1000-1399cc = £100 (Ford fiestas, Corsas & other small cars etc.)
1400-1599cc = £400 (Ford Focus, Corsa & other small/medium cars)
1600-1799cc = £650 (Ford Mondeo, Vectra, BMW 318 & other family cars)
1800-1999cc =£900 (Peugeot 406, BMW 320 & VW Golf)
2000-2499cc = £1200 (BMW 325 & other executive cars)
2500-2999cc = £1500 (Jags, Mercs, High-spec Vectra etc.)
3000cc plus = £2000 (Porsche & other ridiculously fast cars)

how many people do you know, *NEED* a car with an engine bigger than 1.2litre?

not many.

[tvmercia]

this is very sensible, failing that lump road tax and fuel duty together. no more tax discs, you pay for what you use (therefore how far/much you drive) and no more road tax evasion to deal with.

i agree - all that getting to a post office with their archaic opening hours no more than a week or so before your tax is up, oh and making sure you go to a main post office is irritating.

although maybe because tax disks are seen as a way of an easy way of illustrating that the car has MOT and insurance. who knows. there must be a reason for retaining the system.

[Lorns]

I came up with a sliding scale of car tax, which I think is a lot fairer:

this is very sensible, failing that lump road tax and fuel duty together. no more tax discs, you pay for what you use (therefore how far/much you drive) and no more road tax evasion to deal with.

if we had to stick with a road tax system, i'd modify your chart thusly:

100-1000cc = £30 (Motorbikes & SMART cars)
1000-1399cc = £100 (Ford fiestas, Corsas & other small cars etc.)
1400-1599cc = £400 (Ford Focus, Corsa & other small/medium cars)
1600-1799cc = £650 (Ford Mondeo, Vectra, BMW 318 & other family cars)
1800-1999cc =£900 (Peugeot 406, BMW 320 & VW Golf)
2000-2499cc = £1200 (BMW 325 & other executive cars)
2500-2999cc = £1500 (Jags, Mercs, High-spec Vectra etc.)
3000cc plus = £2000 (Porsche & other ridiculously fast cars)

how many people do you know, *NEED* a car with an engine bigger than 1.2litre?

not many.

I much prefer jamez' chart. I'd be saving myself over a grand

[Dr Lobster*]

I much prefer jamez' chart. I'd be saving myself over a grand

my theory though, if you did a life cycle analysis of a bigger engined car, i reckon they put out a significant amount of pollution, which is in the most part totally unnecessary.

like i have said, i very much doubt anybody with a engine capacity over and above 1600 is able to logically justify it.

i currently have a car with a big engine and i don't need it, it doesn't do anything more than my 1 litre saxo. this is surely the case for all cars.

i think people who buy bigger engined cars as some sort of status symbol should pay significantly more than those who stick with the bare minimum engine sizes simple because it is a luxuary.

[Pete]

I have a Zafira, bigish car, it has a 1.6 which is described as "economical" in the brosure. It's shit. You really do need a 1.8 or a 2.0 to get that thing moving around with decent acceleration and without the revs being up at 3500 all the time.

Our old 2.0 TDi Zafira was much nicer to drive. The 2.0 of the new 2005 model (with the sunroofs) is on my lottery winnings shopping list. Just gotta win Euromillions first.

[Cheese Head]

The smell of the working class mixed with tobacco is horrid.

That is a really arrogant pretentious thing to say. Not only is it single minded, looking down your nose like that at other people when you dont know them... well, sorry, I forgot, arnt you so fucking great?