My conspiracy theory.

Motoring is addictive, like alcohol and tobacco.
Not physically addictive, but most motorists have got themselves in to the situation where they couldn’t imagine living there lives without their car.
The government recognise this, and take advantage of it by taxing motoring highly, just like they do with legal drugs.

However, to get the maximum revenue, they have to encourage motoring in preference to all other forms of transport.
Some methods are obvious, the priority given to cars in town centres, for example.
Some are more subtle, like the failure to disqualify drivers from driving for even some serious offences.
A driver can pay several thousand pounds a year in tax. The odd dead pedestrian or cyclist here and there is a small price to pay for that revenue to keep rolling in. Better to have dangerous drivers continuing to drive dangerously and pay tax, than to take their licence away turn them in to freeloading pedestrians.

The even more subtle effect of this is that everyone knows it, so that potential pedestrians and cyclists are discouraged from walking or cycling and are more likely to drive a car themselves.

You’re attributing intent and intelligence to a bureacratic system often peopled by idiots (or you’re mistaking incompetance for malicious intelligence).

Nah. I guess most politicians are aware of the societal problems caused by our reliance on personalised motor transport. However, these issues have built up over decades and will, similarly, take decades to undo. Politicians are elected for 5-year terms, as are governments. The sort of long-term planning needed (and the resultant discontent as fuel prices went up etc) cannot be undertaken in the sort of adversarial political atmosphere we have in this country.

MidlandTrailquestsGraham – Member

The government recognise this, and take advantage of it by taxing motoring highly, just like they do with legal drugs.

isn’t it massively subsidised?

Despite the expense of the motor car, it’s still cheaper than public transport.

Recent cost of a hire car & fuel for Fort William trip – £350 travel time approx 12hrs each way.

Same journey on a train – £1000, approx 24hrs 51m there, 21hrs 53m return…

EDIT – plus £1.50 booking fee.

Despite the expense of the motor car, it’s still cheaper than public transport.

On the basis that most already have a car, in a sense yes but as usual you’re not really considering all the other costs like servicing, depreciation, insurance, etc.

People love their cars because they’re convenient and you don’t have to sit next to people you don’t know.

To the OP, you’re crediting ‘the government’ with too much capacity to manage this. People like their cars and being ‘anti-car’ is a vote-loser. People’s behaviour will only be changed by car use becoming much more expensive and incovenient or by public transport/bikes/etc becoming much more convenient. The latter requires investment (public transport) which just isn’t happening.

I think it’s more to do with pressure on space and lack of room (even if there was the funding and will) for the infrastructure needed to change things. That and a privatised public transport network.

The big disincentive to leaving the car at home and finding alternatives is the cost of simply keeping a car road legal. Once you have it taxed, insured, depreciating, you may as well use it as primary transport when the A-B journey cost in fuel is similar to a train ticket, and more flexible. People simply look at individual journey time and cost and the car still wins since actual ownership cost of the car isn’t considered, it’s seen as a ‘must have’ expense by most. Only a slowing of journey times due to mass congestion will change things – hence why you see higher bike use in London.

The way it is certainly suits the govt and there’s no pressure to change it, it’s a vote-loser to challenge it. It’s evolved into this situation since the car boom of the 50-60s rather than been recently engineered.

isn’t it massively subsidised?

I think that depends on how it’s calculated.
On the simplest level, fuel is taxed at around the same level as alcohol and tobacco.
If you start taking in to account the cost of hospital treatment for road accident victims and the 30000 early deaths from air pollution from cars, it gets a bit more complicated.

Recent cost of a hire car & fuel for Fort William trip – £350 travel time approx 12hrs each way.
Same journey on a train – £1000, approx 24hrs 51m there, 21hrs 53m return…

£1000 for how many? Can be done for £160 ea off peak over a long weekend from London in ~10hrs if booked ~4 weeks in advance. Trains are too expensive generally I think but in that case, not such bad vfm. Some ticket prices take the p55 though, easy to spend £500 on the same journey – business travel expenses inflating the prices.
As soon as there’s 2-4 of you going though, you’d take a car.

£1000 for how many?

That was for 2…

^ It’s too variable based on where you are but that is top-whack costs, it can be done a fair bit cheaper usually, 25-30% of that. Silly money tho, should never get to £500 each in the first place.

As roads come out of general taxation, motoring is subsidised, but so is public transport

£1000 for how many? Can be done for £160 ea off peak over a long weekend from London in ~10hrs

Annnnddddd your back to hidden costs again, travelling off peak over long weekend may be inconvenient or not possible, might not have had all that planning time, and often train journey prices don’t change on popular routes. I have to go Newcastle often once a month, train journey price is same whether i book now or months in advance is twice the cost of car ( yes I know) and takes the same time.

As others have said the situation we find ourselves in hasn’t happened overnight and will take decades to resolve. And look his hard it is (HS2) to get more train capacity

nemesis – Member

Despite the expense of the motor car, it’s still cheaper than public transport.

On the basis that most already have a car, in a sense yes but as usual you’re not really considering all the other costs like servicing, depreciation, insurance, etc.

The OP said ‘hire car’ so it does include all of that.

The problem is that using public transport means mingling with other people. Other people are vile! And stupid! And they smell! Therefore whatever cost associated with avoiding them is a price worth paying

You can’t expect me to read the OP! 😉

nemesis – Member

You can’t expect me to read the OP!

Good point this is STW after all!

Well isn’t the tide turning a bit against some of the “Legalized Drugs” you compare motoring with OP?

Advertising bans and restrictions, minimum pricing, health warnings, Proposed De-branding of packaging to make them less visually appealing, and of course ever increasing rates of taxation to deter consumption on the basis of cost. If it were just about generating tax revenue these measures would never have gotten very far…

As for Cars I think we’ll see a similar “Carrot and Stick” approach increasing over the next few decades, its already started with reduced or Zero VED on the least polluting cars*, fuel tax creeping up as a financial deterrent, Insurance companies wanting to put GPS “Spy” boxes in cars to help adjust premiums, and TBH UK town and city-centre infrastructure might be primarily based on accommodating motor vehicles, but it is still crap…

*(in operation, not always “whole life cycle”)

The fact is motor vehicles are Great, they allow just one operator move people and goods, hundreds or thousands of miles with barely any effort, more or less to your own schedule, our lives and expectations have changed immeasurably as a result of having relatively cheap and easy access to motor vehicles. A century ago mass, private ownership of such enabling machines for most would be unthinkable, a century from now? who knows, Our great grandchildren will probably have very different means of personal and public transport, ideally with fewer pollution and people squashing side-effects….

I think you credit the government too much. People drive because it’s easy. The car is on their drive, they get in it and go straight to where they need to. It takes no physical effort and very little mental effort either. The government doesn’t want to upset these people too much as they are large proportion of the voting populous but I don’t see it as anything more than that.

Interestingly, even as a cyclist, until very recently I was heavily tied to my car. It took a real concious decision to cut that tie, I now take the train to work (cheaper but longer journey time), I use a cargo bike instead of a car for the shopping (generally more of a pain) and I walk to places a lot more (longer, less lazy). It’s slower, more effort and I get soaked if it rains, but I do feel better for it (and a little bit more smug!)

.

The Treasury admitted as far back as 2009 that congestion means higher fuel duty revenues…The Treasury is also keen to find new ways of taxing road use if low/zero emission vehicles become the norm, which is why successive governments are keenly promoting Road Pricing.

There is something in this that annoys me greatly…we do need to get people out of cars for a great many reasons, yet governments have come to depend on taxation to the extent that they’re disincentivized to ensure public transport is an affordable alternative.