My initial reaction to the VW crisis was not so much surprise but admiration for the technical ingenuity of the VW boffins who can design an intelligent car capable of detecting when it is being tested ("UK cars to face emission re-test", The Herald, September 25). The crisis poses interesting behavioural questions such as: why would any owner of the vehicles affected comply with the manufacturer recall request to remove the "defeat device" when the immediate and painful consequence will be materially adverse fuel economy? I suspect in the vast majority of vehicle purchases emissions considerations are a long way down the list of priorities, except for the arbitrary impact on road tax, whilst fuel economy is arguably the most important.
VW clearly has the best interests of consumers at heart. As for the regulators, they will no doubt relish the opportunity to yet again gorge themselves at shareholders' expense with eye watering fines, following in the wake of similar successes against the banks and oil companies.
It is becoming increasingly evident that governments have woken up to the fact that regulators can bring in more revenues from fines than they can collect from corporate taxes. Corporations invest considerable resources to minimise tax bills, to obvious effect, but remain defenceless against the rampant regulator. Which Industry is next in the line of fire?
Raymond Hall,
The Firs,
Gartness Road,
Killearn.
Not wishing in any way to denigrate the revelations of VW’s misleading car emission results, it does seem more than a little hypocritical of the Americans to be apparently enthusiastic about prosecuting for billions of dollars in regard to this offence when they at G8 and other conferences are the world’s worst offenders and show no intention whatsoever of attending to reducing their own extensive emissions.
The same sort of principles seemed to apply to British Petroleum for the unfortunate spillages in US waters a few years ago. It was subjected to unreasonable and in many cases fraudulent loss claims. I doubt this would have been the case with American owned companies. Double standards? You bet.
David J Samuels,
54 Newtonlea Avenue,
Newton Mearns,
Glasgow.
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