Taxation on Motoring

[presta]

From the London School of Economics:

"Passenger transport has significant externalities, including carbon emissions and air pollution. Public health research has identified additional social gains from active travel, due to the health benefits of physical exercise. Per mile, these benefits greatly exceed the external costs from car use. We introduce active travel into an optimal fuel taxation model and characterize analytically the second-best optimal fuel tax. We find that accounting for active travel benefits increases the optimal fuel tax by 44% in the USA and 38% in the UK. Fuel taxes should be implemented jointly with other policies aimed at increasing the uptake of active travel."

TLDR? Short blog here.

 

[Drago]

It don't work, at least not in the UK. People would go bankrupt or lose their houses through mortgage non-payment before walking half a mile each day.

It raises cash, but unless its so extreme it simply makes motoring unaffordable, it isn't much of a behavioural incentive in the lazy, self entitled, climate change denying UK.

 

[Moodyman]

Our local authority is increasingly making driving less appealing by closing many side roads through planters and building more cycle paths (Dutch style segregated). They’ve removed lots of free parking and reduced speed limit to 20 mph.

 

[albion]

It would work. Car tax is an easier route to take than taxing per mile.
Upping taxes is the way to go, especially in this current fossil fuel emergency.
Small electric 28mph quadricyles at zero tax would make for a near instant sea change them being suitable for much of travel to work transport.

I would go even further and also add car ownership to council tax.

 

[presta]

It don't work, at least not in the UK. People would go bankrupt or lose their houses through mortgage non-payment before walking half a mile each day.

It raises cash, but unless its so extreme it simply makes motoring unaffordable, it isn't much of a behavioural incentive in the lazy, self entitled, climate change denying UK.

The very least we can do is correct a dysfunctional transport market in which the sirloin costs more than the offal, and congestion is the only deterrent to more demand.

 

[Drago]

We can try. Nevertheless. We could have buses made by Rolls Royce with free champagne and caviar and the Daily Mail readers will still be driving their cars 400 yards to the shops for a scratchcard and a pack of Bensons. Little will change until change is forced upon them.

Carrots, for the most part, ain't gonna cut it, but big mofo sticks will.

 

[Bristolian]

We have to be careful when piling on taxes for motorists. There are many thousands of people in this country who are reliant on personal motorised transport for their day-to-day essential existence and they tend to be the less well off in society so taxation hits them the hardest.

"Carrots, for the most part, ain't gonna cut it, but big mofo sticks will" might be right, indeed it might be the only solution that will work, but you're never going to get a UK government to implement anything with a big enough stick to make a real change in society's relationship with the car. @Drago was right in post #2, people will bankrupt themselves and their families before they willingly give up their motorised living room. In fact, I don't think there is anything that will make them willingly give them up.

 

[albion]

Maybe you should change 'people will' to 'people are'.
I suspect many a person is in financial danger due to ownership that is near to or beyond their means.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

I have never understood people's reliance on cars. What really gets to me, is the ever increasing number of househoulds with multiple cars. I regularly see houses with 5+ cars on the drive. I get that with house prices and kids living at home longer, these are often intergenerational households, but every family member does not need their own car!

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

It would work. Car tax is an easier route to take than taxing per mile.

For me it's a complex question I don't know the answer to but I can appreciate different aspects of.

Trouble with car tax is it's fixed amount whether you drive 1000 miles a year or 50,000 miles a year so mo pressure to drive less and active travel more.

Taxing per mile is complex but I suspect being introduced as the only viable way for Treasury to start taxing EVs. EVs might be better than ICEs but they are still nowhere near the level of active travel.

I tend towards tax per mile for EVs and increasing fuel tax for ICE as that provides a pressure/incentive to cut unnecessary journeys and drive less/active travel more. But very open to other/better ideas.

 

[HMS_Dave]

I have never understood people's reliance on cars. What really gets to me, is the ever increasing number of househoulds with multiple cars. I regularly see houses with 5+ cars on the drive. I get that with house prices and kids living at home longer, these are often intergenerational households, but every family member does not need their own car!

Status or vanity, is an often overlooked metric. It is a very much prevalent part of out society and people need to show other people that they are dripping with King Charlie's papers. Cars are still very much part of ones "dressing up" and "look at me" day to day lives. Bicycles, although we know better, are seen as poverty class transport.