As anyone reading this from the UK will know, road tax is set to take a sharp rise for all of us who drive an older car. While those of you driving nice shiny new cars get to pay less, because they are kinder to the environment. In much the same way, if your car has a smaller engine, you will pay less tax.

Now I for one can understand that if your car has a smaller engine, it should (and I do mean should) spew out less toxic fumes. So to me this seems like a pretty good idea, my car has a one litre engine, and does a lot less damage to the environment than my Dads 1.9ltr engine. So on that point I do agree, for once, with the government.

Which brings me to the other point in the pricing of road tax, a new car is more economical than an old car. This is where I would like to ask, “what set of chimps researched this?” it really has left me gob smacked at the failures of the government!

Let me put it this way, the cold hard on the road facts show a new car is more efficient, more Green, if you like. But how do these new cars come about? Are they grown on a car farm? Does the car fairy make them appear at a dealership? No! They are made, in big industrial factories. That spew fumes into the atmosphere, and use precious resources to get the color grey, just that little bit more grey. The companies point to the fact that they have started using recycled metal, and I suppose this magically melts itself and resets into a car shape? No of course not, it’s heated to hundreds of thousands of degrees until it’s molten and can be reset. Using our old friend the fossil fuel! It also takes an awful lot of transportation to produce a new car, and when it is produced, it’s loaded onto more Lorries, ships, and even on the odd occasion planes, and taken to your local dealer. Now if you’re still with me, you’ll have realized that all this pollution is before the engine is even turned over.

Now I’m sure some boffin out there will tell you the exact amount of pollution each car produced is making, I’m not a boffin but I’m going to guess a lot? Now it may be just a guess, but I bet I’m not far off. All the while my little N reg is happily chugging along, it’s regularly serviced, and all is it by me. Yes when put side by side with your 08 reg it may spew out a little more carbon or what have you, but it hasn’t used as many natural resources to get to me. I thought that it was Reduce,Reuse,Recycle ? As in the first two don’t a) cost so much and b) cause pollution to do good?