13 Dec 05
Andrew Frankel
I know I should be gushing about how wonderful life is on the road today, but as I look back at 2005 I can't find much that says it was a good year to be a car enthusiast.
The Government twigged long ago that the motorist was not only a sitting duck but also a golden goose, forced by the absence of any other option to tolerate being taxed outrageously at the fuel pumps and criminalised (and taxed once again) at ever more camera sites, only some of which are placed at genuine accident blackspots.
No control on aircraft emissions
Meanwhile, car manufacturers make cars that are cleaner than ever. I was told by a board-level engineer of one of the largest car companies in the world that our cars are now so clean and our towns so polluted that there will be cars in many big European cities on many days of the year which emit cleaner stuff than they intake. And yet there is little or no control on the emissions of aircraft engines nor tax on their fuel: the rise of the budget airlines may have brought parts of the world to people who hitherto would never have been able to afford to see them, but the ecological costs have been and will continue to be massive. However, I see no attempt among legislators in Westminster and Brussels to address this new and formidable environmental issue.
