A huge part of this is very rich people bullying the lower and working classes for their own benefit or convenience. One thing you all don't see as much in the US but we see in the UK is special charges to drive into big cities. For example, London has a "congestion charge" of £15 (about $17) per day to drive into the city. They also have so-called low emission and ultra-low emission zones (LEZ and ULEZ) which tend to hit larger and older vehicles with another £12.50 per day.
Of course, if you raise this concern and how it affects the lower classes, the response is always that people should take public transit, and I get that. London in an old city, and it's not built for heavy vehicular traffic - nowhere near enough road space or parking. I'd never recommend driving in London, and I've literally not done it a single time. However, what if you're a tradesman who truly needs a large vehicle to haul equipment? You can't very well carry a ladder and paint buckets around on subways and buses. You're just going to get clobbered with thousands of pounds per year for an expense that does nothing for your business or your customers. It's a drain and nothing else, and that's just brutal.
So where do the wealthy Londoners fit into this? For starters, the wealthy in London are like the wealthy in New York City or Los Angeles. They're not just "comfortable." They're friggin' loaded (guys who make professional athlete money and more), so forking out a few grand per year to drive around in their Bentley's and Bugattis while they bounce between the office, Harrod's, and the Rolex shop isn't a big deal to them. It's chump change, and in exchange for it, they get improved traffic and less competition for the limited parking, because the "little people" can't afford to drive on the roads. Furthermore, they get to put it under a facade of righteousness (like cutting emissions), so they even get to virtue signal about it. It's a win-win for them.
