THE MOTOR BILL

Progress, Volume X, Issue 1, 1 September 1914, Page 25

THE MOTOR BILL

By BOBT. WHITSON, Engineer

Is the Proposed Taxation Basis Wrong ?

The Motor Bill is at last with us in.its preliminary stages, and motorists throughout the whole Dominion have expressed, decided approval of the introduction of a measure that is at least an honest endeavour to procure funds for the all-important purpose of road repair, from those who are partly responsible for the wear and tear. Of course on broad lines it may be said that a universal wheel tax is the only fair method by which revenue for road work should be obtained, and there is no gainsaying this view of the question, but on the other hand the enormous amount of work invol-

motor owners of the Dominion are now so.well organised and so numerous that their eventual cry for equality of taxation would have to be heard. Many have expressed surprise that the motor owners, (who are in the minority of road users) should be the first section to be forced to contribute to the necessary revenue,,but the reason of this move is of course evident. % ■' First, all motor vehicles are already registered, therefore the various authorities are more or less in touch with the individuals; secondly, disintregation of the country roads has undoubtedly been far more rapid since the advent of the motor, and thirdly, the motorists themselves have, been mostly responsible for the present legislation by their insistent demands

ved in preparing a schedule of taxes that would cover any road vehicle from a farmers' milk cart to a touring pleasure car, would be so great if tackled in the shape of a single "Bill," that the only possible method of giving satisfaction' to all road, users, must be by dividing the ; traffic up into classes and units that can be handled economically and efficiently. ■.- •*' ' There would seem to be not the slightest doubt that the "Motor Bill" is only the forerunner of other legislation controlling road upkeep, for it is not. to -be imagined for a moment that the intention of the government is to penalise one class of vehicle, and let others pass scot free, while all will share alike in the improved state of things. Even if such a state of things were contemplated,

for better roads, and their bitter complaints about existing ones. t:: :"'■. As motorists, we are riot of course very immediately concerned as to what shape the general tax shall take, when we arrive at the time when all users of roads shall pay their fair proportion of upkeep, but what we are concerned about, is, seeing that one class of traffic has been selected for taxation, that the division of the tax among the individuals of that class, shall bear as fair a proportion to the amount of damage done by each unit as possible. The "Motor Bill" as at present framed does not take care of the individual. It makes a graded tax on the basis of horse power of cars, and disregards in a wholesale manner factors that are considerably more important in relation to road upkeep. '

Horsepower of course has an important bearing on the question, for it has a direct influence on the speed of the car, but to show the injustice of a horsepower basis as at present provided for, it needs only to be pointed out that while a twenty h.p. car is taxed £4 by the new bill a forty-five h.p. car is taxed £ls, and yet on our average touring country roads the twenty h.p. car will probably make better time on a given run than the heavier horse power, simply because the car with the bigger power cannot in the present state of the roads use more than a fraction of the power possessed, so that the owner is being taxed for the possession of horse power that is not being expended in doing damage to the roads. In selecting h.p. as a basis of taxation, one can only believe that the framers of the bill have made an earnest endeavour to arrive at an equable basis, but in its present form, the bill certainly does not show the amount of forethought, or grip of the subject that it should.

Most of the Motor Clubs, where this Bill has come up for discussion have unanimously, and certainly unthinkingly endorsed a tire tax, arguing by the rule of thumb method that the more a car runs, the more tires it will use and the more damage it will do to the roads.

To appreciate how far from just this proposed tire tax would be it has to be realised that not 25 per cent, of the average membership of our motor clubs are genuine touring members. - The average motorist is the owner who uses his car about the cities for six days a week with perhaps a country run once a month and possibly an annual tour.

This division of town and touring users, (and it is approximately correct), gives us then 75 per cent, of town users, and 25 per cent, of touring owners. Now the touring owner who gets abroad over the countryside, damaging the soft country roads, wears out and pays for perhaps one set of tires per annum, (for nobody can afford to tour all the time), and the revenue for roads derived from him would be equal to the tax on one set of tires.

Then the town motorist, or 75 per cent of the owners, use their cars every day that it is possible to take a car out throughout the year, and in the course of that time will probably run through at least two sets of tires, and so contribute the tax on two sets to the road revenue.

Now the injustice would be, that in the first instance, the car doing the damage to the country roads, would be only taxed to the extent of one set of tires, while the car running on city pavements, asphalt, blocks etc., and doing no damage to the road surface would be taxed to the extent of two sets of tires.

This per individual would be bad enough, for the town user Would be contributing twice the tax of the touring user, but when one sees that the town users outnumber the touring users by three to one it will be realised that the stay-at-home motorist who does particularly no damage to the road surface is paying £6 to the revenue, to the tourists' £1 although the man who pays the smaller sum is most benefitted and does the most damage.

To be absolutely fair in the matter of taxation to all motorists, there would of course be only one method of apportioning the tax in order that the professed principle of "most damage most pay" should be carried out. This would be by taxing speed, weight, and distance travelled. This would of course be ideal if it could be arranged; but unfortunately there are many difficulties in the way at present. What can be done however, is to introduce a system of taxation on horse power and weight that will much more nearly apportionate a fair division of the burden as between individual users. Horse power should certainly be taxed, as this has a direct influence on speed which is a most destroying factor in a road problem, but to tax horse power without penalizing weight is manifestly absurd, for the amount of damage done to a roadway, is in direct proportion to the speed and weight of the moving bodies upon it. The Motor Bill before the House at present makes no difference whatever in the taxes imposed on various cars of different weights. For instance a car of 20 h.p. weighing say ten cwt., is taxed at £4, while a car of the same h.p. but weighing twenty-five cwt., carries only the same tax. Where is the equity in this from the road users point of view? Take these two cars and put them over a given hundred miles of soft country road, and even the framers of the bill will not need to leave their chairs to decide which car should be responsible for the greater damage. The h.p. and weight system is absolutely sensible from a road upkeep point of view and it has the advantage of being easily arrived at, for a weighbridge ticket is all that is needed for the inspector, over and above the proposed requirements. The exact proportion as to the amount that should be contributed to the tax by h.p. and weight respectively, would of course be a matter for expert consideration, but to illustrate the theory, the following examples could be quoted on a basis of taxation of say 2/6 per h.p., and 5/- per cwt., per annum. Horse-Power Weight Total Tax 14h.p. at 2/6 10 cwt. at 5/- £4/5/0 ■2O „ „ „ 10 „ „ „ £5/0/0 20 „ „ „ 30 „ „ „ £lO/0/0 60 „ „ „ 35 „ „ „ £l6/5/0 These are not imaginary horse powers and weights, but represent well known makers of cars in actual commission, and from the difference on the tax collectable from the two twenty h.p. cars one weighing ten cwt. and the other thirty cwt., it will be seen that some such scheme of proportional taxation that covers both factors, will give a much fairer basis of calculation than any other method so far suggested. The mere fact that our "Motor Bill" has been framed on the English Act, is not sufficient excuse for the very palpable injustice that would be done to a large section of motorists, by allowing it to become law in its present form.