«Καλά», θα πεις. «Τι δουλειά έχει η φορολογία στα ΙΧ με τα τροχαία δυστυχήματα»; Γιατί δεν ασχολείσαι λίγο με την ανύπαρκτη οδηγική παιδεία των Ελλήνων; Με τους δρόμους- ανέκδοτα, με τα διπλώματα οδήγησης που στέλνονται με… συστημένο μετά το λάδωμα; Τα έχω πει και θα τα ξαναπώ αυτά. Αλλά είναι ώρα να κάνουμε την ανατομία ενός πολλαπλού εγκλήματος το οποίο κάνουν διαχρονικά, όλες οι κυβερνήσεις.
Yes, the policy that has been followed in Greece in recent years with the over-taxation of cars is tantamount to a crime. Watch out: In the country with the highest number of road accident deaths in Europe, governments are essentially forcing people to have the smallest and oldest car possible.
Proof of this is the fact that the "fleet" of private vehicles is "ageing" rapidly - which means that values are also falling dramatically - as only one in 10 cars are less than five years old, while 56 out of 100 are 10 years old or more.
Cars up to five years old barely account for 9% of all cars on Greek roads, while at the beginning of 2014, their share exceeded 14%. The reason is obvious: Since 2010, the replacement rate of old cars with new ones has plummeted.
Our cars, well, unfortunately they are old, because of the stupid mentality of governments (well, what can we do, they all have the same mentality) that car owners should be... punished. Instead of giving (real) incentives to buy new cars (usually, the newer, the safer and the less polluting), taxes, taxes, taxes are imposed on a people whose income has shrunk by 25% -according to Eurostat-. And, on the issue of the maintenance Greeks do on their cars, since there is no official data to draw safe conclusions, let me skip it.
Πρόχειρο συμπέρασμα: Οι “εθνοπατέρες” μας, οι πολιτικοί, δε νοιάζονται για το αν κυκλοφορούμε με σαπάκια σε επικίνδυνους δρόμους. Νοιάζονται μόνο να αρπάξουν φόρους σήμερα, όσους μπορούν, όσους γίνεται, για να “παρουσιάσουν έργο” σήμερα και, αύριο, ποιος ζει ποιος πεθαίνει (πάντως όχι αυτοί).
The motorways
If "we travel with Harons cars" is considered an exaggeration (even though most Greek drivers are Harontes in person), we proved in a small way that we travel with old cars. Now let's look at where we travel, leaving aside the ridiculous goat roads of urban centers that have a coefficient of friction lower than oiled glass.
Greece has been building new national roads (for the last century). They are not yet completed, but, curiously, the citizens who use them have a world first: they pay tolls to pay a down payment for a road that WILL be built. And expensive tolls at that.
The 60 euros that a driver needs to pay only in tolls to go from Athens to Thessaloniki and... well, it's cheaper than an airline ticket and, in many cases, more than the amount of fuel a modern car needs. Thus, a huge percentage of professional and not only professional drivers are 'driven' to the old highway, where road safety is at a ridiculous level. The authorities have decided to take measures by banning certain types of vehicles and maintaining the road network, but it is too late.
Ας πάμε τώρα στους αριθμούς: Σωρευτικά, η κυκλοφορία στη νέα εθνική οδό έχει μειωθεί άνω του 40% την τελευταία πενταετία. Με δεδομένο ότι ένα μεγάλο μέρος των οχημάτων που «χάθηκαν» ανήκουν σε επαγγελματίες –τα δρομολόγια δεν σταματούν να εκτελούνται- είναι εύκολο να καταλάβει κανείς για ποιο λόγο αυξήθηκαν, τα τελευταία χρόνια με γεωμετρική πρόοδο τα τροχαία στην παλιά εθνική οδό… Ούτε είναι τυχαίο ότι η μείωση των τροχαίων (6,9% στη δεκαετία) στην Ελλάδα, είναι δυσανάλογα μικρή σε σχέση με τη μείωση του κυκλοφοριακού φόρτου. Και, κρατήστε και αυτό: Από την άνοιξη του 2008, οπότε και παραδόθηκε στους εργολάβους το εθνικό οδικό δίκτυο, οι τιμές των διοδίων που πληρώνουμε, αυξήθηκαν έως και 180%, για να εξασφαλιστούν έσοδα για την κατασκευή των δρόμων, που έπρεπε να έχουν ολοκληρωθεί ώς το 2012, αλλά με το πιο αισιόδοξο σενάριο η παράδοση δεν αναμένεται πριν από τα μέσα του 2017.
Incidentally, according to the conclusions of a conference on road safety organised by the Association of Traffic Engineers and the National Technical University, the places where most road fatalities occur, the provincial and the rest of the national road network of the country, were left unmaintained from 2008 to 2015.
But let's look at a random year. In it, the traffic police recorded 747 fatal accidents across the country. 192 of these, occurred on the "other national road network" (i.e. the old highway) and another 226 on the "other road network" (i.e. side roads, country roads, etc.). That's 56% of the total fatalities...
Rightly so in the Region of Magnesia make event entitled no more victims in PEO Volos-Larissa ". The vice-regional transport Argyris Kopanas, says that "The toll is a modern scourge. It is an open wound to road safety! They turn motorways into secondary roads and side and secondary roads into a main network, since traffic is channelled there"!
And the losses
But the crime is the overcharging of cars and the industry in general and against the economy. It is losing billions of euros in jobs that are being lost, in road and registration taxes from cars that are immobilised, and even in the valuable VAT on their spare parts.
In Greece, 1 in 4 cars is "temporarily immobilised", since it has not paid taxes. And it does not pay because, on the one hand, the owner cannot afford the absurd amounts demanded (often the registration fees are higher than the value of the car) and, on the other hand, because he does not trust the financial staff of each government. The reason is simple. It is therefore logical that this, combined with the crisis and the ... lack of money, has caused stagnation in the car market.
Τα προηγούμενα χρόνια, οι κυβερνήσεις είχαν δώσει άτυπα κίνητρα για την αγορά μεγάλου κυβισμού αυτοκινήτων και, όπως ήταν λογικό, η Ελλάδα γέμισε SUV (άλλωστε, με το… λακουβωτό οδόστρωμα που έχουμε, δεν είναι να κυκλοφορείς με άλλο αυτοκίνητο πέρα από τζιπ). Τα οποία όμως, μαζί με το «κερασάκι» της κρίσης, σχεδόν… ποινικοποιήθηκαν, με παράλογα τέλη κυκλοφορίας και φόρους πολυτελούς διαβίωσης! Η συνέχεια, ήταν μάλλον η αναμενόμενη: Αυτοκίνητα με κινητήρες άνω των 2.000 κυβικών εκατοστών (και όχι μόνο) είτε έβγαιναν προς πώληση έναντι πινακίου φακής (τα περισσότερα στο εξωτερικό) είτε έμεναν σε ακινησία. Έτσι, μια χρονιά της «φαεινής ιδέας» των τσουχτερών τελών, το 2013 κατατέθηκαν, σύμφωνα με στοιχεία του ΚΕΠΥΟ, 679.500 πινακίδες κυκλοφορίας οχημάτων, που αναλογούν σε ποσοστό υψηλότερο από το 12% του συνόλου των οχημάτων που κυκλοφορούν. Η κυβέρνηση, εκείνη τη χρονιά, «χαράτσωσε» τα αυτοκίνητα, με στόχο να αυξήσει τα έσοδα από τα τέλη κυκλοφορίας στα 258 εκατ. ευρώ, από 244, το 12μηνο του 2012. Το μόνο που κατάφερε αυτή η… επιστημονική κίνηση, ήταν να καταγραφεί υστέρηση εσόδων 132 εκατ. ευρώ, (τα έσοδα έπεσαν στα 126 εκατ. ευρώ).
And once they saw that this policy was... dragging on, they continued it. In 2014, the number of license plate deposits exceeded 400,000, while according to data from the General Directorate of Taxes, at the beginning of 2015, 560,485 cars were at a standstill, while in the last three years alone (2012-2014) more than 55,000 vehicles have been exported. Earlier, another 80,000 had been exported. For cars of 2,000 cc, the ratio of cars in circulation to those temporarily immobilised was 3.7 to 1, while for cars of over 2,000 cc the ratio was 2.6 to 1.
It is also estimated that the revenue foregone from circulation taxes on cars in temporary immobilisation was in the order of €77 million and those exported in the order of €18 million.
In total, over the last six years, at least 1.2 million car owners have permanently surrendered their car registration plates. Do the math and think: If those who set the country's economic policy worked for a multinational corporation and their plan resulted in such a loss of revenue and "loss of customers," what would happen to them? And, what would the multinational do?
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