This morning's Chicago Tribune reported that London mayor Ken Livingstone has levied a $50 a day charge on large suv vehicles that travel the streets of central London. People are up in arms. I think I like the idea, especially when I imagine all of those fools who drive Land Rovers scowling as they write those big checks out to the mayor. Sweet. Only because I think that Land Rovers are the biggest POS vehicle since the Yugo. Talk about resting on some 50-year old reputation as being THE vehicle to handle safaris. They probably haven't been relevant since the 60's. But people still buy them because they're shiek. Then realize they spend about 60 days a year in the repair shop. On second thought, maybe the tax checks they write out won't be so big, since they can't really drive them that often.
It will be interesting to see how this flies. I see problems with this "fee." You are going to tax SUVs and Minivans, but what if they are carrying 5 to 7 passengers? That seems to be a fairly responsible act. What, big transit buses don't pollute? What about taxis? What about the coal-fired electric plants that make other forms of mass-transit possible? How about ships? And Airplanes? Hello!! Air travel is mad dirty. I see concerns here that go beyond just taxing the privileged. I think everybody, to some extent, has to shoulder some of the responsibility, because daily, report after report is rolling in from scientists all over the world that this "climate change" (nice euphemism, by the way. Thanks, Dick Cheney) is getting crazy.
This place is about to blow up. So we better come up with some real solutions and get going on this.
