I think one of the problems we have is lots of fictional stories follow a single line of descent (sometimes with the same actors playing people generations apart) that can imply this stuff is more important and more concentrated than it actually is. We really don't grasp how many ancestors we have.

In fact China doesn't even come close. I've openly travelled to China multiple times as a Political Science editor and didn't give anywhere near this much info to get a visa.

And how many countries should the Russian federation be broken up into?

Would love a diagram to explain how it is even possible to "evolve a new breed of asexual men".

If that's the case it really is pathetic. Most children know that a navy captain - like a pirate captain - is in charge of at least a decent-sized ship.

What an absolute dweeb.

Doesn't seem like an issue to me. They'll reduce the nominal value of the car, much as they do now, but by a greater degree. Again, they could have the option of settling this up before selling.

I guess that brings us back to the questions of what we are trying to achieve and what the best mechanism is to achieve that. The appeal of the odometer method is its simplicity at the national scale, where I presume ANPR wouldn't currently work.

I'm not really arguing that we shouldn't, just that we don't strictly need to. I don't think the receipt would be a piece of paper, anymore than the MOT certificate currently is. The last mileage paid for could even be public info, the way last MOT date currently is.

Even that is more complication than is strictly necessary. The seller can show the buyer their last payment receipt (if any), so the buyer knows the arrears on the mileage. The cost is absorbed into the purchase price. That way transparency is in both parties' interests.

You could do that yes. You could also make congestion charging more dynamic based on time of day or volumes of traffic. I think it's simpler, more transparent, and less invasive to do this area by area using tolls and numberplate recognition, than using universal geo-tracking.

Most people are honest most of the time, and it is easy to identify cars that have not passed their MOT but are still on the road. It's harder to enforce than direct taxation on fuel, but still pretty easy. The practical costs for non-compliance would be high.

You don't even necessarily need to pay on change of ownership, the new owner just needs to know what (if anything) the previous owner has paid for and price that in accordingly. It's just a question of checking a receipt or DVSA record.

Provided it is difficult to fake odometer readings, it's pretty simple. Either have a direct payment system, where garage verifies the owner has paid correct mileage, or have the garage remit payment. Seems simpler than, say, consolidating VAT payments.

Yes, but they could still implement tolls or congestion charging using existing technology.

I think the assumption in the initial suggestion is that this should apply to all cars. Besides, even registering mileage on change of ownership need not be compulsory, it *could* just be treated as priced into the sale.

This is true but not very important. Most cars are more than 3 years old, and most cars that are under 3 years old will eventually be more than 3 years old.

We could easily account for these things if we wanted to, it would not be very complicated to have categories of vehicle paying differentiated amounts per mile.