Cutting the cost of motoring is expensive for communities

London Cycling Campaign’s Simon Munk challenges automotive expert's car-centric view of the world

It's rare I'm ever incensed enough to write in to the august pages of respected publications such as TransportXtra, but Stewart Masson's opinion piece on the budget and taxing driving and cars took the biscuit basically.

I'll use one quote from Masson (‘founder and editor at... The Car Expert’) to highlight the gist of the article. Masson demands that the budget “makes motoring fairer, reduces running costs for ordinary families, and supports the health of the new and used car markets”. 

Of course, just as I would say what I will say below as a member of the ‘sinister cycling lobby’, Masson naturally seems to articulate a very car-centric view of the world. The obvious point being that to make “motoring fairer” the very last thing that should happen is that the government “reduces running costs” for driving, particularly if the health of the nation is more important than the “health of the new and used car markets”.

To keep it brief, yes, some people do indeed need to use cars and some car journeys are very hard or impossible to do other ways – and that will remain the case for the forseeable future in many of our communities. But many also can and should be done other ways. The ‘cost’ of motoring is well known and documented in terms of climate emissions, pollution (including particulates), inactivity-related ill health, road danger and more. The high proportion of driven journeys that could be done other ways is also fairly clearly researched. 

But it seems we must act for the health of the car market, even when it's at the cost of our health, our communities, our transport networks, our productivity.

Where Masson and I agree is on the need for coherent reform of how we charge motorists for the externalities they cause to the public purse and people. Where we differ is on why we should charge people and I suspect, what level we should charge them at. We concern ourselves far too much on the ‘health’ of multinational automotive industries and fossil fuels and too little on the health of residents, families, people – many of whom are currently forced into leasing or owning cars because we haven't given them any viable alternatives. Solving that vicious cycle is far more important than if we need to charge folks who can afford to run cars a tiny bit more.

Simon Munk is head of campaigns and community development at the London Cycling Campaign