Revenue needed - so why not tax selfish motorists?

EMISSIONS:Those caught parking without consideration, in disabled spaces or using fog lights unnecessarily – pay up

UNLESS YOU’VE been hiding under a rock hoping it’ll all go away, you will be aware that Minister for Belt-Tightening Brian Lenihan delivered his emergency Budget yesterday, to yelps from the ruddy-faced halfwits poured onto the benches behind him.

Only the most deluded of souls could have expected motorists to escape unscathed. It didn’t take a genius to predict that fuel was going to take a hit . It was an inescapable fact – like death and, erm, taxes – that we would be paying more excise duty from today. At least it was only five cents on diesel.

I’ve been resigned to it for weeks. While it’ll cause annoyance for most, and pain for some, we have to face facts. We’re up to our ears in financial trouble and the reality is that fuel is cheaper now than it has been for years.

While the changes will see and extra €100 million in loot rolling in during a full year, there is always scope for more ways of gathering much-needed revenue. Unsurprisingly, I have a few proposals myself.

How about a selfishness tax? That’d raise wealth untold in this land of cretins.

For example, following my recent tale of being forced to slither into my car through the tailgate due to the inconsiderate parking of a pair of SUV-driving orcs, I received a letter from a reader who experienced a similar fate outside a supermarket.

Wedged in by a selfish, ignorant mé-féiner, this unfortunate soul eventually had to climb in the passenger door and clamber inelegantly over the gearstick to get to the driver’s seat.

“What’s the big deal?” you may ask. Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal for you or me. But the reader in question is 84. So, for them, it was.

Therefore, I propose anyone caught parking without due consideration gets fined in proportion to the inconvenience caused to their victim. Park a foot away, requiring a tight squeeze by a svelte young thing? €50. An inch away, requiring a pensioner’s entry through the sunroof? €500. Etc, etc. You’re clever folk. You get the idea.

Then there’s the abuse of disabled parking spaces, a heinous crime that raises genocidal urges in me whenever I witness it. I suggest any boorish sociopath caught at this should be hit with a €1,000 fine. And if they complain? Make it €2,000. I reckon the Government would easily pull in €30,000 a day in my local shopping centre alone. Being a civic-minded chap, I’d gladly volunteer to do the policing for a token 10 per cent cut.

Another reader wrote in suggesting those hordes of numpties who use fog lights unnecessarily should be targeted. This practice has been illegal since long before the first Subaru Impreza emerged from the mist. But how many people have been busted for it? While there are no precise figures available, I imagine it’s about two.

He reels off who he sees as the main offenders to bolster his case: people in Micras and SUVs, boy racers and taxi-drivers. I wouldn’t normally allow such sweeping, unempirical generalisations to sully this column, but I’ll let it slide this time for the sake of illumination.

It’s disappointing that none of the above measures, brilliant though they are, were droned out by the minister yesterday. Maybe next time, eh? I may not be waiting too long. Budgets are like buses these days. None for ages and then a rake of them all at once.

While on the subject of selfishness, I was going to suggest the imposition of a prohibitive tax to deter people from buying new SUVs. But what would be the point? The suburban SUV is officially dead. They may as well introduce a tax on people buying clutches of Dodo chicks.

I will shed not a tear for SUVs. As vulgar and crass as a panda-skin overcoat, they were difficult to justify even in those halcyon days of conspicuous consumption. In these penurious times, they’re indefensible.