Originally posted by Y2KMondeoSVT: We have taxes on our fuel too , but I'm thinking about something pretty "important" . Isn't their national healthcare funded (or partly-funded) by fuel taxes ???
No, not really. The difference is that in Europe generally (don't know exactly about the UK) fuel taxes cover ALL the road construction/maintenance costs for public roads plus much of public transport subsidies plus they are a source of gov't income.
In the US the gas tax pays only for a portion of the road system maintenance, the rest comes straight from federal/state/local budget.
Don't quote me on the numbers, but IIRC in the US the tax content in consumer fuel prices used to be around 20-30% and in EU it was in the range of 60-80% (or even more).
I don't know how is it recently - I remember reading that in most EU countries the gov't actually lowered the fuel tax (percentage wise) in the past months to cushion the economy from the shock, and the gas prices didn't increase as sharply over there as they did in the US. The devaluation of the $ compared to the euro also made oil relatively cheaper (read caused less sharp rise) across the pond.
??? 
