You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

One way to solve the problem of congestion is to increase the tax on private vehicles. Do the advantages of this outweigh its disadvantages?

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own experience or knowledge.

Write at least 250 words.

It is suggested that a hike in the tax on private vehicles can ease the traffic congestion on roads, and hence it should be implemented. Although this is expected to cause some impact, in general, it would just be a burden for the vehicle owners rather than solving the issue.

 Firstly, one needs to understand that the issue of traffic congestion stems from numerous factors, and not just from the levying of lower tax from private vehicle owners. Poor infrastructure such as narrow roads and bridges, lax traffic enforcement and unavailability of separate lanes for vehicles can be pointed out as some of the numerous reasons for bottleneck congestion on roads. In such a situation, increasing the tax on the private vehicle owners who use such roads is illogical.

The second point which I would like to put forth is that even if the tax hike is imposed on the private vehicles, the congestion on roads would remain. This is because most private vehicle owners are not comfortable in changing their travel preference from their own vehicles to public transport. At this juncture, the effectiveness of such a move would be very poor than what was expected.

I admit that an increased tax can prevent some potential vehicle buyers to have a second thought before the purchase. This can definitely slow down the arrival of new private vehicles on the roads. However, this cannot be considered as a solution to ease the traffic.

To conclude, though raising the tax on private vehicles can be advantageous in some way, it cannot be considered as one of the practical solutions as it proves just an economic burden for the existing vehicle users.