Road Tax Prorated

 With recent news that the latest in transport taxation is to charge per mile with varying costs to dissuade the public from travelling at peak times, I am concerned for the health of the nation and the spiralling costs for the NHS. As a junior doctor training in the NHS I am sure that leaving work early to avoid the weighty tax fine will be frowned upon and so will be staying late to stay in the black. My on call colleagues will be quite happy for an extra pair of hands for another hour or two each evening, but at what cost?

Hours monitoring will undoubtedly prove that my rota is no longer compliant with EWTD, and I shall involuntarily drain the NHS coffers at Band 3. So we all do this and the Trust becomes badly hurt.

Now I’m not getting home to my wife and son until after his bedtime and he gets abandonment issues, perhaps sparking some child psychiatric issues, so we take him to the Trust psychiatrist and drain some more resources. I’m getting pretty tired and run down so I’m taking more sick days. I’m covered by expensive locums and the NHS becomes almost bankrupted.

But it’s not just my job, my career, my colleagues. What if everyone stays at work an hour later, or makes a habit of stopping at the pub waiting for the peak time to be over. We all go home at seven o’clock and roads are jammed. We all get detached from our home lives and stay late at work. Depression and ill health rockets, the pub-goers have more accidents. Where will our over stretched NHS be then? Can we fund the deficit from the people who are still going home to see their families? Are they the richer folk who can afford the luxury of spending less time at work and more time at home? Is the government making a judgement that the poorer working classes ought to be at work longer and not making lasting relationships with their children, helping them to fight off the temptation of becoming ‘hoodies’?

After spending a half hour pondering the effects of altering road tax, I can foresee a nation of maladjusted youths who grow into a life of crime or workaholism, never see their kids, get depressed about it, resort to bad habits that make them unwell and bankrupt our health service. Perhaps altruism has its place after all.