Anorak

Anorak News | Reaching The Limit

Reaching The Limit

by | 14th, November 2005

‘IF all cars came with a commode and a set of optics on the dashboard, there’d be no need to get out of them.

Stop Schumacher or we all die!

The Government could tax them like any other home. Given its height, a 4×4 could be a converted barn. That hot hatch is something of the docklands apartment. A Volvo is sheltered accommodation.

As it is, cars are just tin boxes on rubbery wheels. Although, as with homes, they are heavily taxed.

Road File 05, a report by the Road Users’ Alliance lobby group, says that motorists in this country already pay £43.5 billion a year in tax, of which just £6.58 billion is reinvested in roads.

Tim Green, the alliance’s director, tells the Times: “Despite paying the highest fuel taxes in Europe, we have one of the worst road networks.”

This is not good enough. And the Government agrees. So, as the Guardian reports, the powers that be are going to do something about it. They are thinking about introducing a new tax.

And it’s not to save the roads. This tax will save the planet. You see, engine efficiency falls quickly beyond 70 mph. And the country’s 15 million speeding motorists are destroying the world. They must be stopped.

The Guardian says that ministers are struggling to meet their vow to reduce UK emissions of carbon dioxide by 20% by 2010. And since speeding motorists create extra greenhouse gases, they are being looked at.

The paper has seen a review document, produced by Elliot Morley, minister for climate change at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It says: “The Government needs to strengthen its domestic credibility on climate change… We must not underestimate the scale of the challenge.’

It certainly is a radical plan – penalising drivers for damaging the environment, rather than not driving safely.

‘They would have to win a lot of hearts and minds to convince the public that this wasn’t just a revenue generating exercise,” says Andrew Howard of the AA Motoring Trust.

Indeed they would. But it is just one of 58 proposals being examined.

The others being, taxing people who breathe out too much carbon dioxide (joggers, asthmatics, perverts etc.), smokers, French rioters…’



Posted: 14th, November 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink