75ZT Community

Not only is there fairly reliable ( that is to say, NOT reported by the Guardian ) news that the government is going to take away the zero rate of road tax for disabled drivers who use diesel cars.

Here's another way in which disabled drivers get a kick in the teeth.

I've just bought another car, in fact a petrol engined Jaguar to replace my diesel engined Jaguar to forestall the consequences of my first comment above. I can't tax it at disabled rate until I get a new Certificate of Entitlement from DWP, which I now have.

I have elected not to trade in my present car but to sell it privately to a friend.

Here's the rub. Being disabled I can't walk or catch a bus to the Post Office and I HAVE to go to the Post Office to obtain zero rate tax on my new car. So, to be within the law, I'll have to drive my present car to the Post Office to tax my new one. The trouble is, when I leave the Post Office, all legal obligations met, I can't drive my car home, to where my new car sits (which I can now drive) as the instant I tax the new car, the old car is neither taxed or SORNed and in doing so I'd be committing a criminal offence.

It didn't help when the blockhead at DVLA told me that the only solution was to "Walk or catch a bus", after I'd explained my level of disability to him.

THERE IS however, another solution, which is to tax my old car for a month for the 10 minute drive home. Now isn't that an enlightened and helpful attitude.

Perhaps I should be an MP, then I could claim taxi fare there and back on my expenses.

I'm rapidly developing the opinion that a great deal of "law" in this country these days is purely to gain, fiscally, from those of us who would generally consider ourselves to be law abiding motorists.

To put this into context, a commercial entity, my insurers, allow me to drive either of the cars within the 24 hour period of the day of changeover.

Perhaps as well, the rule makers do not have disabled people involved in the decision making process. I have served on a committee where there were disabled members who could give an insight in to the problems of the disabled which might not have occurred to anyone that is not disabled.

However, it does sound as though you were talking to a non interested jobsworth who gave a scripted answer.

You could always sue under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Interesting article on the BBC News website(just a small point that the author, in returning to the UK with his French registered car was required to register it in the UK which he clearly has not):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... ar_exhaust