Oral blanc de préparation à l'épreuve de SES au bac européen
Classe de première ES
Preparation : 20 minutes
Oral exam : 10 minutes, 6-7 minutes to answer the question, and 3-4 minutes for discussion.Using the document and your knowledge, make a structured answer to the following question, you must use examples studied in class.
Subject :
Public support for last month's Europe-wide fuel blockades shows that popular attachment to the car is undiminished. Tolerance for higher fuel taxes has reached breaking point, long before the goal of reduced car use bas been achieved.
(…) Higher fuel taxes neither discouraged car use nor reduced emissions. Car dependence is so great that the motorist simply pays up rather than driving less. The escalator bas become a big source of government revenue, but a sham as an instrument of environmental policy. This is the problem with the green's encouragement of taxing "bads." Governments rely on the revenue to such an extent that they depend on us continuing to be bad.
An even more serious problem for social democrats is the unfairness of high fuel tax. The very poorest in society do not have cars. That is usually a reflection of their low income, not their aspirations. But within the car-owning population, high fuel taxes fall hardest on the poorest. In rural areas, low-income car owners are spectacularly penalised. They are the most car-dependent of all, with the least access to public transport, and they travel the longest distances.
(…) Part of the solution will involve road user tolls. Unlike fuel duties, which are an inefficient way of changing driver behaviour, road tolls can be varied during the day to discourage rush hour car use. But they would still allow all income groups to benefit from car use at the time most affordable to them-and there is no need for road tolls at all in rural areas. The revenue raised from road pricing in cities should be used to invest in public transport, to increase choice and reduce car dependence.
(…)
High fuel taxes do not meet the green goal of reducing car use. They don't work, because levels of disposable income are much higher today than in the 1970s, while in real terms motoring costs are about the same. That is why people pay up rather than drive less.
(…)
David Ward
Secretary-general of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
In Prospect, November 2000