My comment is that motorists need to understand that driving has a cost and that they can reduce those costs by choosing fuel efficient vehciles and amending their driving habits..
Until motorists are forced to change their vehicle then most of them simply won't bother. The best way to change habits is, it would seem, to hit people in the pocket.
Reg, I doubt any motorist who pays for their own car/fuel/VED/insurance is in
any doubt that driving has a cost!!! I suspect a high proportion of them wouldn't mind so much if they could see all the extra tax revenue going into major improvements for public transport, or cycle routes or whatever. With £60 billion tax revenue from vehicles and their owners, you'd think a bit more could be spared for making the infrastructure improvements that are needed to precipitate a change in transportation use. But no, that's a step too far for Government...
The fact is, unless radical changes are made to transport provision*, people will go on using oil-driven cars until their pips squeak because they have very little choice. And, again unless those radical changes are made, the car industry will provide the vehicles that avoid all that taxation and people will happily buy them - and the Government of the day will be without a substantial proportion of that £60 billion. Oh, they'll eventually think of a way to get it back, but my point is that the tax leverage is not being used intelligently and has not done, and will not do, what its proponents hope. The fact that we pay around twice the price for fuel - and for the car in the first place - that a US citizen does, and more than almost anyone else in the world, should be sufficient to persuade the doubters that, given no real choice, people will go on using cars.
*Those of you who only see what goes on in London may be surprised to learn that most of the rest of the country is very sparsely provided with rail or bus services, has never heard of cycle provision, and relies on its workers commuting relatively long distances because they can't afford to live where the work is.