Car-owners like myself, who are accustomed to buy petrol and
oil and other oddments when we have to and try not to calculate, what it is all costing, learn with something of a shock that according to the A.A. "it. costs 7.04 pence a mile to run a 12 h.p. car for 10,000 miles a year." (10,000 x 7d. = £291.) This is little less than appalling, even for those whose cars are something under 12 h.p., and there is singularly little that we can do about it short of giving up driving altogether. However, it is not quite as bad as it looks, for the figure of 7d. is reached by taking in not merely ordinary running Costs, but interest on capital, garaging (a good many people have their own garages), repairs, tax, insurance and other items. Most owners would not look at the thing in that way. They managed some- how to raise the mosey to buy a car some time in the past, and they have written that off and forgotten about it. Even so actual running costs come to something pretty formidable, and reflections on what has to be earned, with income tax at 9s. 6d. to raise what has to be paid suggest that a ban on driving for twelve months or longer is a sentence almost to be welcomed.
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