Lib Dems plan £2,000 road tax

I am sure there have been papers galore written on this subject but I find it curious that there is a natural assumption that higher tax will lead to less usage. Surely we would be better encouraging the motor manufacturer to produce greener fuel effcicient cars so that people have an option to have cheaper motoring that is fuel efficient rather than clobbering the motorist and not really encourganing them to change anything.

I accept that under this scheme fuel efficient cars will pay less road tax but actually we should be giving them a choice to also have a cheaper car that uses less energy. I drive a Smart car (although I admit I had to to move on from the two seater version). The real incentive for me was not that the road fund was only £60 but that the car did 70 miles to the gallon and had a very low insurance rate (£150 fully comprehensive) because it was made of recyclable plastic. Even if you had taxed it £2,000 road fund it would have still been a cheaper option than other cars to run. I accept that the Lib Dem proposal is not to do this but I merely use it as an example.

Is this not one area where we should be challenging the supply side and not taxing demand?