It comes at a time when motorists are already reeling at record fuel bills, new car sales are down, and ordinary people are feel the squeeze on their personal finances due to the Credit Crunch.

While government spin doctors claim that money raised through higher road taxes tackles environmental issues, revenues collected through "green taxation" are not directly ploughed back into environmental projects, but instead simply added to general revenues for the exchequer.

According to the Taxpayers Alliance (TPA), money raised through green taxes is at least more than double that actually spent on tackling carbon emissions, so the primary role of green taxation ends up simply as general revenue generation.

Despite ten years of booming economic conditions, the government has relatively little in cash reserves. This means they now have to find other ways to increase taxes to help pay for public spending programs, as well as pay for American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the meantime, motorists have been flocking to the Vehicle Certification Agency calculators at the VCA Car Fuel Data site to determine how they will be affected. The volume of internet traffic crashed the website earlier today.