Tax motorcycles and motor scooters off the road
[From the Australian Financial Review, Editorial, 1 December 2004]
[Be afraid. This is also how bureaucrats think. In a few years' time when you're sitting at home eating your fat-free, GM-free, organic tofu burger, and sipping your alcohol-free beer, "carefully" manufactured in New Zealand by unionised labour, remember that you were warned!]
In NSW, the Carr government is bravely trying to cut the road toll, even at the risk of alienating young motorists. However, its discussion paper has overlooked one simple measure that could result in a significant reduction in the road toll, including among young road users.
NSW and the other states should tax motorcycles and motor scooters off the road.
At the moment, the NSW road authorities encourage the use of motorcycles and scooters by allowing riders to use express and transit lanes.
The authorities may be acting under the impression that bikes and scooters are a socially desirable form of transport: they use little petrol, cause no congestion, take up hardly any parking space, and generally make few demands on the environment.
But of course that kind of calculus grossly understates the true cost imposed by motorcycle riders on the community.
Statistics from studies in NSW and Victoria show that motorcycle riders and their pillion passengers are many times more likely to be killed or injured than other motorists.
The risk of being killed or injured (per distance travelled) is 16 to 18 times that of a car driver or passenger. If in an accident in Victoria, riders are 33 times more likely to be killed and 31 times more likely to suffer a serious injury.
Motorcycle fatalities have declined dramatically in the past decade and a half as the use of motorcycles has declined. Motorcycles were aggressively marketed to young men and women in the 1970s and 1980s. But everyone, including governments, soon learned about their dangers.
The number of people in NSW with motorcycle licences fell by about 40per cent in the 1990s, possibly because of more stringent training and licensing requirements introduced in the mid 1980s. As a result, the number of fatalities was halved.
Unfortunately, people forget, and motorcycles and motor scooters have come back into fashion, including among middle-aged men, who should know better.
Nationally, registrations increased by almost 20 per cent in the five years to 2004. This compares with a 10 per cent increase in the number of passenger cars. The number of fatalities has also started to rise again.
The big increase has been in the number of older riders. The proportion of motorcycles registered to people aged 40 or over is up by about 60 per cent.
Older owners tend to ride bigger American and European bikes. And while they are much less likely than younger riders to have an accident, the number of crashes involving older drivers has been rising faster than the number of licence holders.
In general, the severity of injuries suffered in motorcycle accidents tends to rise with the engine capacity of the motorcycle. The average size of third-party insurance claims for motorcycle accidents injuries is higher for riders and pillion passengers aged over 25.
In the United States, the average total cost (including medical costs, lost earnings, lost quality of life) of motorcycle accidents is about 11 times that for motor vehicles as a whole. A similar ratio is likely in Australia.
It is possible that people attracted to the speed and excitement of motorcycle riding will be accident prone in any form of transport. But their risks of serious injury, permanent disability and death would be lower in a car, and so would the cost to the community.
A registration tax high enough to deter people from riding motorcycles will be opposed on the grounds of equity. Young riders are disproportionately low-paid or unemployed. Motorcycles are a "cheap" form of transport.
For those young riders who live in the outer suburbs of the major cities, where public transport is poor, a bike may be essential to get to work or to look for a job.
A heavy tax on motorcycles would be regressive, in the sense that it would fall more heavily on those with low incomes.
However, like the heavy taxation of tobacco products, the equity consequences have to judged against their health outcomes.
History has shown that governments can save people's lives simply by deterring them from getting on motorcycles. A compromise solution may be to phase in the higher tax, to give existing bike and scooter owners time to buy a car in the normal course of replacing their bikes. At least with lower tariffs and the rise of the Korean car industry, the choices for those looking for an alternative means of cheap transport have widened.
Korean cars may be less exciting, but they last longer and, more importantly, so do both their drivers and their passengers.
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Originally Posted by TonyB
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