Blood on the streets

Private motoring receives huge subsidies, motorists aren't cash cows, they're freeloaders.

The report by transport academics at the Dresden Technical University in Germany calculated that even with drivers' insurance contributions discounted these factors amounted to an annual total of €373bn (£303bn) across the 27 EU member states, or around 3% of the bloc's entire yearly GDP. This breaks down as €750 per man, woman and child.

The report recommends that such so-called externalities be factored into the cost of driving, noting that even the €373bn tally does not include costs from congestion or ill health caused by lack of exercise.

The idea that drivers are "the cash cows of our society" is wrong, the authors write:

• "On the contrary, it must be stated that car traffic in the EU is highly subsidised by other people and other regions and will be by future generations: residents along an arterial road, taxpayers, elderly people who do not own cars, neighbouring countries, and children, grandchildren and all future generations subsidise today's traffic."*