SUVs could be charged based on the weight of vehicles (Image: Getty)
Motorists could be based on the weight of their vehicles outlined by a top expert.
Nick Molden, a specialist at , stressed road users should pay the charge due to the “environmental damage” of
Fees would see the heaviest models on the roads, such as and SUVs, hit with the highest charges while smaller cars paid less, reports The Telegraph.
Under his proposals, drivers would pay £100 less annually if their car was 150kg lighter than average.
Meanwhile, charges would also be reduced if motorists travelled around 620 fewer miles (1,000km) per year than the national average.
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Heavy vehicles could have an environmental impact (Image: Getty)
Nick said: “No longer will governments have to force a chosen golden technology on everyone. Rather, drivers will be able to freely choose what car to buy and how many miles they drive, but will have to pay the right amount for the environmental damage.”
Nick has argued that the weight of a car multiplied by the distance it is driven would calculate a model’s impact on the environment.
He has suggested that the new system could replace existing VED taxation and may be easy to implement.
Vehicle weight is already publicly available data making charges easy to calculate while overall distance is recorded by vehicle odometers and at MOT tests.
It’s not the first time that charging road users based on weight has been considered with European countries already embracing the system. Last year, Norway introduced an extra tax on heavy cars weighing more than 500kg in a tough crackdown.
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Meanwhile, France charges an extra €10 (£8) tax on petrol and diesel cars for every kilogram over the 1,800kg threshold.
Earlier this year, locals in Paris voted to triple parking fees for larger vehicles such as SUVs in a major rule change.
This was in a bid to reduce the number of models in the city centre but the update means owners can pay up to €18 euros (£14.94) per hour.
The success of similar schemes in Europe could push decision-makers to consider a charge in the UK sooner rather than later.
Mr Molden previously added: “Taxing a car on a combination of its weight and mileage offers a simple, potentially universal approach to pricing-in the environmental impact of cars while at the same time overcoming the objections to the current mishmash of incentives and penalties.”