LETTER: No reason to change system

I can’t have been the only person back in 2014 to have raised an incredulous eyebrow at the decision to scrap the necessity of having a clearly visible piece of paper on your vehicle’s windscreen indicating that you have paid the necessary road tax duty for your runabout to be legally on the road.

It shows a complete lack of understanding of the wily nature of humans for some pen-pushing civil servant to decide that it is now superfluous to have such a visible indicator now that the world has been taken over by computerised gadgetry, and a car’s legality can be checked at the touch of a few buttons.

So what? We can all check cars at the roadside in a millisecond with an even better computer, our brain, linked to our eyes, and so can a policeman.

The chickens are now coming home to roost, with over 700,000 untaxed vehicles on the road and a revenue loss, almost certainly never to be recovered, of £113 million to the Department for Transport.

Sometimes perceived progress needs double checking, something which parliament clearly overlooked here, though I doubt if anyone in a position to do so will have the common sense and good grace to admit to such a monumental error and put wheels in motion to reintroduce the old well tested system.

Clive Potts, Bilston

Send us your letters for publication:

Email us at letters@expressandstar.co.uk or write to: Letters, Express & Star, 51-53 Queen Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1ES. Letters MUST include the writer’s name, address and telephone number. Letters will only be published anonymously in exceptional circumstances. The editor reserves the right to condense or amend letters.