A ROAD TAX

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2935, 22 November 1916, Page 3

A ROAD TAX

SUGGESTED FOR MOTOR ■' VEHICLES. ■ In comparison -with tho damage done to macadamised roads in the city and country, owners of motor vehicles pay comparatively little or nothing, except through the rates. . A' correspondent,, "Civis," points ont that it is very doubtful if everybody'in general should be taxed to pay tho upkeep on mads tliat are destroyed by the ownefs of motor vehicles. "The City Engineer, with every other engineer in the world," he writes, "knows perfectly well how motor traffic pulls a roadsurface, to pieces, yet the man with tho severi-seater car in commission every day. pays no more towards the upkeep of the road ho helps to destroy than the man who has no car, not even a push-bike. Here is the readiest and most justifiable source of revenue a, municipality has ever left untouched. No motorist with a love for the game, and knowing the effect of such traffic on tho roads, would object to paying an annual road-tax of £3 3s. for a big car, £2 2s. for a runabout, and £1 Is. for a motor-bike. I throw out tho suggestion to the. City Council, .with the addition that, if' adopted, all moneys should be ear-marked for expenditure on the improvement of roads within the City's boundaries.