Nite Owl:
Franglais:
Nite Owl:
Franglais:
No.
Taxes are used to affect behaviour.
Discourage people from flying by making it more expensive.
No reason carbon rationing can’t be used too, but money is an easy tool to use.
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Ghost flights? They did exist. Maybe still do, and should be banned, but are small fry compared to the problem.I would imagine that’s the theory, but it doesnt work in practice. Take fuel price for cars as an example, granted it’s not just tax that affects the price. But fuel has constantly increased in price for as long as I can remember, yet the roads are more congested than ever. Vehicle exice duty is supposedly being used to affect peoples choice of vehicle, yet gas guzzling 4x4 are becoming more popular. It would be interesting to know what the effect the “sugar tax” is having on the sales of fizzy pop.
Going back to airplanes, even if the higher prices do put people off their summer holidays or business trips, the plane is still going to fly. A 75% full aircraft is going to emit as much pollution as a 100% full one.
4x4 new registrations are down on what they were 5 years ago. Many now come with smaller more fuel efficient engines.
The average UK mileage is decreasing.
IrnBru, Lucozade etc are now made with less sugar to avoid higher tax.
If airlines run under used routes they will cut the number of flights surely. 3 full planes instead of 4 part empty ones.
Taxes affect behaviour. It’s not a perfect linear relationship, but it’s there.theguardian.com/money/2019/ … rol-prices
Whilst the average miles per year has fallen, car ownership has risen. Would be interesting to see the difference in total mileage because by averaging the figures out, the data is being skewed.
Take an example of a household that buys a second car. The number of mile driven doesn’t change, but because the trips are shared, the average miles per car has halved. Expand that out on a national scale and you get a set of data that is completely misleading. A brutal example I know, but it’s the best I’ve got!
bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43308567
SUVs are still an incredibly popular car, whilst researching this reply I found that 3 of the top ten most popular cars sold were SUVs, a type of vehicle that ten years ago was barely seen outside of a farmyard.
Most of my opinions are based on my observations whilst driving. Granted not the most reliable or scientific way of collating data, but any driver on here will tell you the roads are more congested now than ten years ago. The fuel levy has not impacted vehicle use.
The sugar tax is an interesting one. The industry reacted in a way to minimise the impact it would have. Perhaps the best example of taxes influencing behaviour. Not exactly the ideal example to fight my cause!!! [emoji38] Maybe looking at a more specific section of that industry (like energy drinks) where avoiding the tax isnt as easy.
I’m still not convinced that people will forego their holidays and business people will cancel their trips simply because it costs a bit more. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll be proven wrong and less planes ARE flying because of this, but one thing is for certain, the governments will make an awful lot of money out of it.
Just on the last point: People forgoing holidays?
Maybe they will fly to Spain for guaranteed sunshine, rather than Egypt if fuel price increases? We aren’t talking of taking a train to digs in Skeggie necessarily![emoji5]