Is a motorbike a better option than a small car?

There is ever increasing pressure on vehicle owners caused by rapidly climbing motoring costs, road tax, up-coming congestion charges, insurance costs and of course fuel prices.

Well you could hope that those nice people over at OPEC decide to cut 50% off the price of a barrel of oil. Or your insurance company that is always advertising how friendly they are may decide that they made enough money last year so they slash your premiums. But is getting a smaller car, or out of the car and onto a bike an option.

Moving to a much smaller vehicle is one option; a smaller car will not only save on fuel each day it will also save huge amounts on vehicle excise duty, or VED. Governments around the world including the UK are moving towards heavy penalties for owners of the most polluting vehicles.

There are seven different bands of VOD which are about the be increased to thirteen and choosing a vehicle that is in a lower bracket can significantly reduce your VOD payments. If you choose a gas guzzling polluter you will pay £440 per year but is you opt for the most environmentally friendly vehicle your costs will be zero. There are of course several other lower range options where payments are comparatively less.

Cleaner cars also tend to be more fuel efficient, moving from a vehicle that can travel 10 extra MPG may cut a third off your fuel bills. You should also be far more concerned about the about town mileage figures of any car you are thinking of buying. A recent study showed that saving 1MPG on about town driving is the equivalent to saving 17MPG on motorway driving in terms over the amount of fuel used each year.

Many people are now shifting to motorbikes as an alternative to cars for daily transport; especially city commuting and many of those are making the move simply because of the huge savings in fuel, repairs, and taxes. As well as it being a more efficient way to maneuver through city streets and other perks such as cheaper and even free parking.

A smaller engined motorbike can cost £10 or £20 per month to fuel up for short daily commuting trips. Motorbikes obviously have their dangers something that has not escaped the eye of the insurance company’s and small motorcycle insurance can be equivalent to small car insurance.

A small car costs around 40p per mile to run in total, that is everything fuel, tax, depreciation, repairs and everything else. A 125cc motorbike costs around 26p per mile again covering all costs that’s a saving of only 14p per mile.

However, start to multiply that out and the savings become more obvious.
At 5000 miles the saving is £700, at 8000 miles that’s £1120 and 15,000 miles would cost £2100 less per year to run than a small car.