Time for some necessarily brutal honesty: Government, local councils, public transport operators, ecomentalists and other car loathers have long been identified to bludgeon motorists out of their personal, four-wheeled machines.
The haters don’t mind us purchasing cars, then parking them. After all, this results in profitable gross annual profits of scores of billions for HM Treasury and those close to it. how can even stationary cars be so lucrative for the state? think 20 per cent VAT (punishing purchase tax is much more honest), car excise duty, insurance taxes, local authority parking fees/fines/rip-offs, and other mostly unavoidable costs.
‘SUV haters might as well tie a hand behind the back of every JLR employee’
These are nice, not-so-little earners for the numerous anti-motoring ‘leaders’ and ‘advisers’ in politics, never mind the massively subsidised ecomental and public transport industries, who often flourish on big hand-outs from national and local governments.
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Trouble is, the car/driver-loathers can’t stomach the idea of tens of millions of citizens having the temerity to drive their taxed and insured cars – even to essential destinations like places of work or education, shops, homes of relatives, or hospitals. For decades the cynics have searched for undemocratic, discriminatory methods to encourage or force chauffeurs to leave their cars at home before resorting to other modes of travel – walking, bicycling, hailing taxis, or taking undoubtedly dirty buses, coaches, trains or trams.
