The government's plan to raise the vehicle import duty and annual vehicle registration fee to make cars more expensive has met public opposition. With good reasons. The car has revolutionised the way Bhutanese live. It has allowed hundreds to travel where they will, in comfort and security, at a time of their own choosing. Owning a car remains a goal for hundreds of others. To have to pay more now for something that has long been at lesser cost is unfair. At the same time, clogged traffic does impose costs on society, like air and noise pollution, and the government is right in trying to reduce it. Those who argue that vehicle duty is unfair because it discriminates against the poor ignore the fact that people too poor to own a vehicle, together with the young and the very old, suffer the ill effects of traffic congestion without the benefit of personal mobility. The point is whether physical restrictions on car access is the right way out. Countries, where car ownership was heavily charged, soon found out that traffic moved no faster, but the higher price of new cars meant that drivers held on to their old ones instead of replacing them. It encouraged drivers to buy and use their cars more because the perceived marginal costs of motoring were so small. What our government could look at instead is to make car use costly, so that the marginal cost - the tab for fuel, parking and congestion charges each time the car is driven in downtown Thimphu, for instance - weighs more heavily in drivers' minds. The way forward is to make car use expensive rather than increase its fixed cost. Studies confirm that people respond much more strongly to costs that confront them directly than to hidden charges. Caution should be exercised though while increasing the price of fuel for all motorists because it will makes no sense to penalise a rural motorist driving along empty farm roads when the problem lies in Thimphu. What is required is a broader long-term policy to control traffic in Bhutan. One of the things the government could decide is on a ceiling for the number of cars it can accommodate at a time. The traffic, for now though, is concentrated mainly in Thimphu and Phuentsholing. Increased car tax may reduce the volume of cars in the country. But the benefits of doing this must be weighed against economic costs for other regions in the country. The most significant of these is that, across the country, people have shown by their actions and their choices that they cherish the opportunity to drive. Restricting that opportunity amounts to a real reduction in their wellbeing. Perhaps what is needed in the cities are bicycle paths, good (not pot-holed) roads, more pedestrian lanes, and safer routes for children to walk to school. Perhaps the government needs to look at the wisdom of a car quota to senior civil servants, who sell it to others anyway, helping buyers bypass duty. What is needed is also a good public transport system. All the same, the government's reason for the planned increase in car duty is not because it is urgently concerned about rising vehicle population in the country. Rather it wants to limit the outflow of foreign exchange reserves. But it hardly makes a case when the real reason for the stagnant reserves is the absence of real reserve earning industry in Bhutan. Opening up the economy might be an answer. By Kencho Wangdi kencho@kuensel.com.bt