It seems only if you externalise the cost of the damage of your repugnant actions ? Many hundreds of thousands die a year from motoring (pollution etc), millions of animals are brutalised, vast quantities of toxins are spewed forth, the biosphere is being so changed by your actions it it looks likely to be unlivable to the vast majority

So no, you're not paying the cost,not even close.

This person obviously lives in a comparatively large city with many and varied transport options at his fingertips?

Not everyone is so privileged. Apart from very infrequent intercity buses, which for most rural and regional dweller are as useful as a hip pocket in a singlet!

We have a single taxi that doesn't run after dark as our only public transport. Even so still pay the same rego fees and fuel tax etc as those who live in cities?

That said, our city cousins need to take a good long hard look at themselves and the 2.5 times more carbon they and their lifestyles choices push into the biosphere, in comparison with their country cousins!

Every form of current transport produces a carbon pollution outcome as does high rise apartments with their elevators pumps, laundry practises and adjacent 24 hour entertainment etc.

Without overpopulated cities cramming our coastline and on our most arable land, there would be far less congestion and for everyday outcome like shopping, school and the commute, we'd spend far less time in cars and more quality time with our families or just doing far more productive stuff!

Yes there is a cost that is the child of planned big cities and their consequent congestion, some of which would be relieved along with what it costs us as hidden costs, by decentralization and the rollout of a fibre to the home NBN, the new highway!
Alan B.

Alan makes some interesting and plausible arguments, though I'd like to see some of his claims substantiated with evidence (eg "financial subsidies paid to public transport users are pretty well equal to the (unpaid) negative externalities imposed on others by motorists" seems unlikely to me).

You can't really achieve what he's proposing, though, without time-of-day and congestion-based road tolls. There's no way to link fuel excise to congestion except in a very crude and inefficient way.

I'd support time-of-day based charging as part of an integrated tax reform that simultaneously adjusted licence fees and fuel excise. If road charges changed through lower excise offset by targeted road tolls, you could not only get better environmental outcomes and economic efficiency, the switch could actually be progressive. Most peak hour traffic on major comprises commuters travelling to full-time jobs, who are comparatively able to pay. Pensioners and the unemployed could save money by making trips outside of peaks hours.

We have it all wrong as drivers should be registered, and the vehicles should only carry the likes of CTP insurance costs.

I say this because as a driver, one can only use one vehicle at a time so a much fairer system would be to have a levy on fuel which sees those who use the roads the most, pay the most.

Further support for this is in the fact that while four people may all be in one car, all could be paying rego while their car sits being un used.

Another is trucks, where say a Lynfox truck is on the road 356 days/24 hours, a timber log truck would be lucky to see 100 days work, yet they both pay the same rego. Why?

There could be no fairer system, but I often think it falls into the 'too easy' category so it get ignored

More support for such a system from a 'user pays' angle, is that the likes of electric cars would attract the CTP component only, along with the likes of tyres etc, as everything associated with road use should have a levy. Such a move would be more incentive for the use of such cars.

The fact is like many forms of revenue, governments can't manage money so while one sector may be over, or inappropriately charged, revenue is wasted elsewhere so changes can't be made.

The consolidated revenue system has many pitfalls.

The source of the 'problem' is planning failure. Having exclusive use zones separates uses, which requires vehicle use to allow people to undertake their daily activities. A far better practice would be to have 'living' zones which would permit people to live, work, shop, attend school and entertainment venues in the one walkable area.

Commercial and retail firms could be encouraged to move to the living zones by imposing a congestion tax on leasable floor areas in commercial and retail buildings located in CBDs. The building owners would then be encouraged to convert vacant floor areas for residential use, thus allowing people working in remaining businesses to live and work in the one area.