I’M not sure why, but I received something of a shock when I filled up my car last week.

The petrol just kept coming and the pump dial kept on rising, until it read �90. �90! Add on to this rocketing cost of fuel the exorbitant price of insurance and road tax, and you can easily come to the conclusion that car ownership is no longer a pleasure and a convenience but has become nothing other than an unadulterated self-indulgence.

To sum up, those who govern this country extract as much money as possible from us beleaguered motorists because the vast majority of us are decent, hard working, reasonable, law-abiding citizens and if you fall into this category, then the chances are you are going to be used as an on-going cash-cow. As a minority of our population either manages to get away with living off the rest of us, courtesy of generous hand-outs, or avoids paying its just financial dues, so we ordinary folk are being steadily bled dry. What easier way to raise revenue than through those of us who are able to afford the ‘luxury’ of a motor car?

What makes me reach for the sick bowl is when I have to listen to holier-than-thou politicians claiming that they have a moral obligation to bleed dry car drivers because we all have to think about the environment. How come that even though diesel pollutes the atmosphere more than petrol there are far more diesel cars currently being manufactured than cleaner petrol ones?

Would we motorists mind so much if we were provided with a suitable alternative? It may not be so bad living in the middle of a city but anyone who lives in a rural environment will tell you that public transport is of meagre quality at best, and is getting worse. In some areas there is no alternative to driving a car. I don’t suppose anyone who has a second home in Westminster in the heart of London and is provided with a chauffeur-driven car can understand this last point. Have these ministers ever stopped to consider those who work anti-social hours, when no public transport is available? Or those who have very young children, who may well attend different schools? Or those who have to carry around heavy equipment as part of their job?

Every penny raised through road tax should go back into the maintenance of our pot-holed highways. At the moment that figure is a paltry �1 in every �5. Where is the other �4 going? What is happening to all the money being given to the treasury every time we fill up on the forecourt? It’s easy to answer these questions – some of it is being handed out to the underserving, while a tranche is being, quite simply, squandered on various initiatives, thought to be a good idea by one government, only for its successor to decide the whole project should be aborted. This has been going on for decades, as we ordinary citizens continue to be used as an unalloyed cash cow.

Why on earth did I give up hitch-hiking?