Motor Industry News
10th September, 2006
If you put together everyone who’s gardening, fishing, watching football, collecting antiques, going to the gym or taking a train on a typical day, they’d be massively outnumbered by people travelling in cars.
The impression is often given that the self-reliant citizens who opt for personal, four-wheeled mobility machines represent only about half the population of Britain, on the grounds that there are 60 million residents and only around 32 million of us have driving licences.
But what about those car occupants who are too old or too young to drive or choose not to because, for example, their partners or other loved ones are happy to chauffeur them around? Honestly, it’s no exaggeration to say that, daily, there are about 18 million of these non-drivers choosing to travel in cars.
Therefore it’s my contention that approximately 50 million men, women and children have already volunteered to join what can loosely be described as the Car Users’ Club. So why, when they represent the vast majority of the public, are they treated so atrociously?
Whether it’s the male driver of the car who’s being taxed till the pips squeak, or his wife on the front passenger seat who’s repeatedly late for work (or, worse still, a hospital appointment) thanks to deliberately inefficient roadworks or madcap traffic mismanagement schemes, such car occupants are being ripped off, roughed up and given the runaround by bullying and greedy national and local politicians.
What other perfectly legal, 50 million-strong group has to put up with the sort of hatred, intolerance, victimisation and massively rising, state-inspired fees and fines that we suffer?
Nationally, the Government extracts well over £40bn per annum from us in road user taxes alone and hands back only about a quarter of that heinously large sum by way of better, safer roads and other motoring-related improvements. In addition to that, the essential items we must exclusively buy via the Government or its agents – from driving licences to new car registration documents to MOT certificates – have risen way, way ahead of inflation.
Cynical, revenue-generating roadside cameras have also been widely introduced, primarily to lift extra money from the pockets and purses of drivers.
For every £1 you spend at the pumps, the Government currently snatches around 65 pence in fuel tax. Depending on which car you drive, you pay between about 10p and 50p a mile in general motoring taxation. In addition to all this, the Government has already expressed a desire to introduce road tolls of up to £1.34 per mile. Sorry, but it's just another, barely legal, tax to use roads we've already paid for several times over.
What’s more, Parliament has provided local politicians with the right to give car users a comprehensive kicking, and that’s why places such as Durham and London have already resorted to legalised theft by charging motorists to use roads that were previously free at the point of use.
The cost of parking has risen to more than £30 a day in some areas. People who accidentally overrun their time on a meter by a few minutes or park an inch or two outside designated areas receive fines that are grossly disproportionate to the severity of the alleged misdemeanours.
The latest scam is for council employees in Nazi-like uniforms to invite fear and civil unrest by lurking around some dark car parks late at night, fining unsuspecting motorists who genuinely don’t know that pay and display tickets must now be bought up until 10pm.
As car users, we're not scum, we're decent people. We’re not on the margins, we’re in the mainstream. We’re not elitist, we’re ordinary, working class folk. We’re not criminals, we’re partaking in the thoroughly legal and respectable activity of car travel as we go to work or school. We’re not looking for the subsidies that bus, coach, train, tram and airline passengers enjoy. We always pay our own way - and then some.
We don't plan to go away, but if Britain's 50 million car users were to somehow disappear, so too would Britain's domestic car industry, which directly or indirectly employs getting on for one million tax-paying workers.
More important, Britain Plc would collapse. The harsh fact is that the Brits who design, make, sell, service and use cars can be thanked for propping up the British economy. Without us, and the scores of billions we contribute to the central kitty annually, HM Treasury would become insolvent. Remember all that when next you hear or see somebody in authority giving us a hard time and looking for devious ways to fleece us yet again.
AOL Article by Mike Rutherford
The impression is often given that the self-reliant citizens who opt for personal, four-wheeled mobility machines represent only about half the population of Britain, on the grounds that there are 60 million residents and only around 32 million of us have driving licences.
But what about those car occupants who are too old or too young to drive or choose not to because, for example, their partners or other loved ones are happy to chauffeur them around? Honestly, it’s no exaggeration to say that, daily, there are about 18 million of these non-drivers choosing to travel in cars.
Therefore it’s my contention that approximately 50 million men, women and children have already volunteered to join what can loosely be described as the Car Users’ Club. So why, when they represent the vast majority of the public, are they treated so atrociously?
Whether it’s the male driver of the car who’s being taxed till the pips squeak, or his wife on the front passenger seat who’s repeatedly late for work (or, worse still, a hospital appointment) thanks to deliberately inefficient roadworks or madcap traffic mismanagement schemes, such car occupants are being ripped off, roughed up and given the runaround by bullying and greedy national and local politicians.
What other perfectly legal, 50 million-strong group has to put up with the sort of hatred, intolerance, victimisation and massively rising, state-inspired fees and fines that we suffer?
Nationally, the Government extracts well over £40bn per annum from us in road user taxes alone and hands back only about a quarter of that heinously large sum by way of better, safer roads and other motoring-related improvements. In addition to that, the essential items we must exclusively buy via the Government or its agents – from driving licences to new car registration documents to MOT certificates – have risen way, way ahead of inflation.
Cynical, revenue-generating roadside cameras have also been widely introduced, primarily to lift extra money from the pockets and purses of drivers.
For every £1 you spend at the pumps, the Government currently snatches around 65 pence in fuel tax. Depending on which car you drive, you pay between about 10p and 50p a mile in general motoring taxation. In addition to all this, the Government has already expressed a desire to introduce road tolls of up to £1.34 per mile. Sorry, but it's just another, barely legal, tax to use roads we've already paid for several times over.
What’s more, Parliament has provided local politicians with the right to give car users a comprehensive kicking, and that’s why places such as Durham and London have already resorted to legalised theft by charging motorists to use roads that were previously free at the point of use.
The cost of parking has risen to more than £30 a day in some areas. People who accidentally overrun their time on a meter by a few minutes or park an inch or two outside designated areas receive fines that are grossly disproportionate to the severity of the alleged misdemeanours.
The latest scam is for council employees in Nazi-like uniforms to invite fear and civil unrest by lurking around some dark car parks late at night, fining unsuspecting motorists who genuinely don’t know that pay and display tickets must now be bought up until 10pm.
As car users, we're not scum, we're decent people. We’re not on the margins, we’re in the mainstream. We’re not elitist, we’re ordinary, working class folk. We’re not criminals, we’re partaking in the thoroughly legal and respectable activity of car travel as we go to work or school. We’re not looking for the subsidies that bus, coach, train, tram and airline passengers enjoy. We always pay our own way - and then some.
We don't plan to go away, but if Britain's 50 million car users were to somehow disappear, so too would Britain's domestic car industry, which directly or indirectly employs getting on for one million tax-paying workers.
More important, Britain Plc would collapse. The harsh fact is that the Brits who design, make, sell, service and use cars can be thanked for propping up the British economy. Without us, and the scores of billions we contribute to the central kitty annually, HM Treasury would become insolvent. Remember all that when next you hear or see somebody in authority giving us a hard time and looking for devious ways to fleece us yet again.
AOL Article by Mike Rutherford