Charge by the mile?

I must not have been paying attention, because I hadn't heard of this, so I had to look it up.

The Observer says the proposal is: Drivers to pay £1.30 per mile.

A fairly recent "conversion" to US equivalents put petrol at about £3 US per gallon. This is probably off a bit, but the exact amount is irrelevant.

One can get a minimotor conveyance that gets perhaps 60 mpg. (miles per US gallon)
Petrol cost = £0.05 per mile

I can also get a monster SUV that gets a bare 10 mpg.
Petrol cost = £0.30 per mile.

Penalty for driving the SUV – per mile expense 6 times as much per mile.

Add a £1.30 per mile tax?

Minimotor = £1.35 per mile
SUV = $1.60 per mile

Penalty for driving the SUV – per mile expense 1.19 times as much instead of 6 times as much.

If an "offset" to the per mile tax is made by reducing petrol taxes, the "penalty" for driving a HumVee becomes proportionately even less.

As the obvious intent is to impose a much larger proportional increment on small, fuel-efficient vehicles, than on large inefficient ones, this is quite obviously intended to get all you annoying "little people" off the main roads so the "fat cats" who already drive around in stretch limos will have it all to themselves.

My numbers are of course pretty sloppy and perhaps a bit extreme; but in the US there is a noticeable tendency for people who commute on toll roads (per mile "fee" added) to use notably larger and heavier (less efficient) vehicles than people who commute similar distances where there are fewer tolls.

An obvious solution to a flat per mile fee is to take a few passengers and share the cost. The £1.30 per mile fee added to a per mile operating cost of £0.05 means it costs 27 times as much to drive your mini as before, so just stuff 26 passengers in and you break even. Passenger weight may increase fuel consumption, so make it 28 passengers(?).

The guy with the 10 mpg tank only has to add 4 passengers to break even (in the absence of any fuel tax reduction.)

In some parts of the US they've created MOV lanes, (Multi-Occupant Vehicles) that may only be used by vehicles carrying more than one person. This provides an additional argument for lots of people to get a slightly larger vehicle than otherwise needed, so that they can car-pool. They may attempt to organize a "pool," but a fair percentage of the pools end up with the members finding that someone "smells bad" in close quarters, so many with now larger cars still end up driving alone – but they had a good "reason" for their lunker when they got it.

All in favor of getting rid of all those pesky little cars say £££££££££££ah ££££££ah HA HA HA.

It might be a justification for working up crews to travel together to festivals in fewer vehicles, which folkers may be able to manage in the UK? In my area the folk density is so low that everybody I know comes from different directions, so it's really hard for us to arrange group trips.

John