Get the 10% worst polluting vehicles off the road and you eliminate 90% of the the emissions. The problem is most people don’t drive old cars because they want to, so any incentives are going to have to be fairly substantial.

I like the approach used in Japan: taxes on cars increase as the cars get older.

Hey European brusselcrat commies, here is a way to incent car pruchases:

. . . . . . . . STOP CHARGING 20% VAT ON CAR PURCHASES.

Freakin A, man. European cars are overpriced as it is, and then the governments tack on about 20% to that and make those poor people pay thru the butt. Idiot politicians.

Curse Japan and Europe to HELL.

Older cars have cheap insurance and no payments and a dare on the fender to hit me.

^^funny, but true. Reminds me of that classic bumper sticker,”my other car is a piece of sh*t to”.

That 20% VAT and the engine displacement taxes on personal vehicles actually pays for the finest public transport systems in the world. In most large European cities 60-70% commute by public transport. Except for NYC, the U.S. urban population which uses public transport to commute is a paltry 10%. The high fuel taxes in Europe subsidize public transport too, as well as urban zone fees, which NYC were considering last year.

Similar incentives were offered to get Europeans out of leaded fuel burners into new cars with Catalytic Converters in the late 1980s and it worked. European were given up to $5000 (1990 dollars) towards new cars, which typically represented half the cost of the new car.

athens, you are 100% correct. we are f*king spoiled.

athens, eurosheeple ride around in their crappy public transport because their oppresive governments compel it thru a draconian taxation system. I dont care if it’s the finest public transport with dank underground dungeons lined with gold, or a New Delhi chicken & goat & people train, it’s still a massive extortion.

Now the best part is that this fine public transport wont work too well if the private transport market, from which public owes its artificilly supported existence collapses. I lived in Europe quite a long time, sat on the subways and did all that. It is an unhappy experience with trains full of unhappy-looking people going about their sheep-like existence and heading to the shoebox apartments they call home. Your trains have stinking bums on them like all trains. You cant glorify this euro-crap with someone who knows it very well and was happy to get the hell away from it.

Mayer_ray:

I’m not glorifying anything.

I ride the Chicago CTA Blue Line from O’Hare into the Loop 3 days a week so I speak of experience.

You come and show me a happy commuter here in Chicago.

You need to come aboard our trains to see people urinating on the car floors and defecating their pants. And that is the train line that is supposed to bring the visitors from the rest of the planet to the 2016 Olympic Games. At least London has the spotless Heathrow Express to Paddington and Athens had a brand new subway line and Suburban Commuter train (Proastiakos) where you can actually stow your luggage.

Seeing “unhappy” commuters is part of urban life all over the planet.

It’s just that the urbanites in Europe, who already have less space to begin with… I know as I have owned a home outside Athens, Greece for the past 15 years, so they tend to mind the space of others a little more.

I don’t claim that life in Europe has no drawbacks… extremely high social security taxes which burden employers are no picnic.

Nothing is artificial by taxing private vehicle use in congested urban areas to fund public transport. It is a means of allocating the burden on those who put a disproportionate burden on the entire transport system – whether public or private.

You want to talk about artificially supporting public services all you have to do is look at how we pay for local public education in Illinois. You want a larger home on a larger piece of real estate in the U.S? You cough up significantly greater Real Estate taxes than those who have smaller pieces of real estate. The real estate taxes support local public schools and basic public services such as police and fire. Does having a larger home necessarily mean you will send more kids to public school or call the police or fire departments more often than those with smaller homes? Of course not.

But the only alternative to fund those public systems is to raise income taxes – a heresy to all Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck- or increasing consumption taxes or VAT.

Tell you what, Athens. You want to pay higher taxes? Who is stopping you? Get out your checkbook right now and send the government more of your money. I freakin hate governments all over the world, including everywhere in the USA, and oh yes, I live in a large home on a relatively large piece of property and pay a disproportionately high share of taxes (soon to be way worse with that dipsh*t obama assuming office, no doubt) andI see what I pay for schools and I dont even have a bratty little brood to send there, so dont lecture me about it.

And yes, Chicago public transport is a pigsty. So is Munich’s.

I’m just saying that if the idiots in government everywhere want to encourage a behavior, then levying large taxes on that behavior is counterproductive. Other than the fact that you come off as a wealth-resdistribution-automaton, you otherwise dont sound like a complete idiot, so I am certain you get that point. If Europe wants to stimulate a private transport goods market (i.e. new car purchases), then maybe they retards ought to understand that they themselves have a depressing effect on that market. As I said, I lived and worked in the general populace there, and I heard the comments and also reacted to the stimuli. Taxes depress sales – it’s that easy.

“10/31, 4:45 PMposted by:howsmydriving
I like the approach used in Japan: taxes on cars increase as the cars get older.”

Yeah, that does make some sense. Ironically, in California, where they do have serious air pollution problems, the opposite tax scheme is in place: Taxes are based on the value of the car, and go down as the car depreciates. So it encourages people to keep old cars longer, polluting more as they age. Stupid politicians can’t see that.