'True Costs of Automobility' study says that motoring taxes are significantly outweighed by external costs
Thu 27 December 2012
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A study by transport academics at the Dresden Technical University in Germany calculates that the road accidents, pollution and noise connected to cars costs every EU citizen more than £600 a year. The idea, it says, that the car sector is over-taxed is wrong; on the contrary, car traffic in the EU is highly subsidised by other people and other regions and by future generations.
The report recommends that such so-called externalities be factored into the cost of driving, noting that even the €373bn tally does not include costs from congestion or ill health caused by lack of exercise.
The study, The True Costs of Automobility, accepts that such calculations necessarily have an element of approximation but give an important overall picture. In a national breakdown it says UK drivers accounted for £48bn of costs, second only to Germany, or about £815 per person per year.
Even if UK motoring taxes were taken into account, the report says, there remains a significant shortfall in this country. Fuel duty and its associated VAT along with Vehicle Excise Duty contribute around £38bn a year to the Treasury's coffers, £10bn less than the estimated cost.
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