Portuguese motorways are brilliant - unless you have a Portuguese bank account (linked to the toll system), or have realised that you can go to a post office and buy credit, you have to wait 48 hours after using it, then go to the post office within the next 3 days and pay the toll fees - in my case four quid. Now if we had this system in the UK, post offices would be opening, not closing, and the government would be extremely rich. :biggrin:
Here's a link that tries to explain it - really looks like a complete cock-up, as locals won't use it and flood the N125 instead (otherwise known as the road of death), and once tourists realise the costs, they tend to stay around the local resort area, ignoring areas they might otherwise visit by using the motorway. The Portugal News - View Page
I would definitely be using the motorways normally and then waiting for the Portugese letter at home. Is that the best they can do? You should be able to pay be smartphone, but frankly, the Swiss system of a one-off payment for the year then use the motorways as much as you like has got to be a whole lot simpler. I assume the Portuguese system has been devised to keep people in jobs who would otherwise be on the dole. Quite clever. Introduce a motorway toll, the entirety of which is eaten up in jobs to service it. Increase employment until tolls match expenditure.
Sounds a bit like Cohn's Law - The more time you spend in reporting on what you are doing, the less time you have to do anything. Stability is achieved when you spend all your time doing nothing but reporting on the nothing you are doing.
I always use the N125 instead, it's fine and there's more to see along the way. You're on holiday, what's the rush?!
I was in Portimao last year and hired a car and drove the motorways everyday from hotel to track, i was told by a local forget paying the toll they will never chade you for it nor charge you. s i did and stil heard nothing, we'll see what happens when i return one day??
On those rare occasions I go south of Kendal to visit the inlaws in Lichfield I do use the M6 Toll but it won't be for much longer given the way in which the prices regularly go up, it is utterly deserted though and the alternatives are pretty grim.
The Swiss system sounds a lot like the UK system then....a one-off payment gets you something to stick on the motor then use the motorways as much as you like.... Frankly,the bloody road-tax system is a nightmare in Europe,which is why I detest the bloody EU,as it's one of the few things that could quite easily be harmonised if the self-serving parasites could agree... Check this out: To get a truck over 12 tonnes from Here to Budapest. Uk road tax payable anually Dartford bridge toll France peage tolls,(Ecotaxe for RN roads about to be introduced) Benelux pay the Eurovignette either daily/weekly/annually Germany Maut tax,have to prepay your journey before entering the country or just before,stating when and where you'll be leaving the motorway network,(and God help you if you don't take the route they tell you to).Overhead gantries Austrian Go box,buy/register the box and prepay for your motorway use,enforced by overhead gantries Hungarian vignette And then the same again to come back Cost me approx £300 quid each way... It's an absolute blooody shambles
That is because the EU in a collection of Member States each with their own treasuries and tax raising powers. I can't believe you are suggesting giving the unelected Commissioners in Europe even more power to set EU wide taxation, that would be a further step on the slide to a European Superstate.
Yes, you'd probably find that if you had a Common Roads Policy all the tolls and taxes collected on the great roads of France would be sent to finance the upgrading of donkey tracks in Bulgaria. But some sort of harmonisation on road tax collection would seem to be a good idea - at least the methodology employed.
Glidd, you see the chaos as a reason for further integration, I see it as a price worth paying to avoid the European Superstate. I do like the Swiss idea of the vignette, a simple one off payment. But big business wouldn't get to make millions by building a charge per mile infrastructure network so it would never be adopted here, it just isn't sexy.
The Swiss are quite odd about all sorts of things. Although they are as in thrall to big business for many things as other countries - ie big pharma and banks are hugely integrated into the political system - for other things, there is no way that they will allow business to get much involved. You'd never have private companies owning roads, I reckon, although there are small private companies who own little railways, or steamships. It's all cantonal here anyway.
