The 'cyclists should pay road tax' folks

[otolith]

Devil2575 said:

Aside from anything else, the difference between how fast a person can go on a full on racing bike compared to a cheap entry level road bike isn't anywhere near the performance difference of a person on a 1000cc bike compared to a Honda 50.

Also, if I was going to be hit by a bike I'd rather it was 7kg of carbon fibre than 18kg of Asda pig-iron. Not going to comment on the likely weights of riders...

[Hol]

otolith said:

There have already been incidents where cyclists have seriously injured or killed pedestrians without that happening - and there are countries with much higher use of cycling than ours where it has not happened. The third party risk just isn't high enough to justify it. In terms of private activities needing third party insurance, motoring is the risky exception, not the rule.

The biggest beneficiary from mandatory insurance would be the CTC, which would use the money from the boost in membership to lobby for greater restrictions on motoring - people should be careful what they wish for.

I get that you don't like the possibility.

What about the second point?
When the numbers reach a critical mass?

[Gandahar]

Devil2575 said:

Finlandia said:

Same with bicycles, you can buy a racing bicycle and pedal away in the traffic without any training or licencing.
Enjoy while it lasts, because it will not last forever.

I think you're wrong.

Aside from anything else, the difference between how fast a person can go on a full on racing bike compared to a cheap entry level road bike isn't anywhere near the performance difference of a person on a 1000cc bike compared to a Honda 50.

Going slightly off topic for the moment but this interesting

http://www.apparelyzed.com/statistics.html

If you look at the road traffic accidents motorbikers have a bigger percentage of spinal injuries than bicyclists. However you would have to factor in millions of km covered I guess also. Pedestrians have a horrible amount of injuries considering they are just going from one side of the road to the other or similar.

Also look at the percentage just from falling over. Almost 42% from falls compared to 39% from road traffic. Falling down the stairs is 12% of that. Blimey.

I was surprised to see horse riding less than diving also, I had always thought horse riding was the most dangerous sport for back injuries followed by rugby. Mind you some of those diving ones might be off the pier into 1 foot of water after a few beers.

From personal experience at Stanmore after breaking my back on a motorbike

Me - motorbike, gearbox locked up
Another - cycling, went round a downhill corner too quick
Another - rolled his SUV. Wife died in accident
Another - rolled XR3i on bald tyres
Another - dived into the shallow end of pool on first day of holiday
Another - tripped whilst watering the garden.
Another - lying in bed.

Sorry for the thread hijack, but I don't think cyclists should have to have insurance or charged for using the roads.

[Killboy]

I think the simple solution would be to ban cars from London.

[Pixelpeep7r]

Got hit by a cyclist when i was working in london. On an emergency callout. Parked up, got out of the van, went to the back, got tools and steps. It was a one way street, so quickly checked the direction of oncoming traffic, nothing. Stepped out BANG. Cyclist going the wrong way down the street and had just came right out of a side turning without even looking

Knocked me to the ground, shattered the screen on my phone and had a pain in my chest that lasted a month! - evening in A&E being x-rayed and the following day off work.

I would have at least liked to claim the money back for the screen as through no fault of my own i had to pay out £40 and lost a days wages.

Did he stop, did he bks, he picked himself up off the ground, rode off and didn't even check to see if i was ok!

[otolith]

Hol said:

I get that you don't like the possibility.

What about the second point?
When the numbers reach a critical mass?

Not seeing it. Other countries have much higher participation in cycling than we do, they don't do it. What if we got rid of bikes too, would you expect us to start insure people for walking or getting on the tube? There isn't a basic requirement for the primary mode of transport to be insured, whatever it happens to be. There is a requirement for modes of transport which create a lot of third party risk to be insured. Bikes don't do that, because they are about 1%-2% of the mass of a car and travel relatively slowly. Nor are the insurers owed a living, we don't have car insurance for their benefit. So I don't see how higher take-up necessitates mandatory insurance.

[Gavin0478]

Why don't they add a tax into the cost of all new bikes that is put into improving the cycle paths?

[Finlandia]

otolith said:

Finlandia said:

One very good argument is revenue.

Can't see that flying, any more than introducing a salad tax.

I bet many said that about council tax too.

yonex said:

Well considering that since 1889 motorised vehicles have been taxed wouldn't you have thought if there was a good reason to push it through one of the many Governments wouldn't have done so?

Wait and see when most cars run on electric, no one smokes or drinks, the state wallet needs filling.

[HertsBiker]

Gandahar said:

dooosuk said:

Gandahar said:

...but bicyclists are not paying their way ...

Did you miss the post about how road and road repairs are funded? It's not from VED!

Please post where I have said it was. Have you read any of my posts?

However the motorist is paying a lot more into society than a cyclist who has no motor vehicle, surely?

[IroningMan]

Pixelpeep7r said:

Got hit by a cyclist when i was working in london. On an emergency callout. Parked up, got out of the van, went to the back, got tools and steps. It was a one way street, so quickly checked the direction of oncoming traffic, nothing. Stepped out BANG. Cyclist going the wrong way down the street and had just came right out of a side turning without even looking

Knocked me to the ground, shattered the screen on my phone and had a pain in my chest that lasted a month! - evening in A&E being x-rayed and the following day off work.

I would have at least liked to claim the money back for the screen as through no fault of my own i had to pay out £40 and lost a days wages.

Did he stop, did he bks, he picked himself up off the ground, rode off and didn't even check to see if i was ok!

I have four cars outside my house. Every one of them bears the scars left by drivers who clobbered them in car parks and either didn't notice or chose to just drive off. It's about time drivers had to have some kind of insurance and some kind of training before they are allowed to use the roads that I pay for through my taxes - and about time their cars had some kind of identification mark on them - then they'd have to stop and leave their details when they damaged my cars, wouldn't they!

[mybrainhurts]

As the bicyclists get so wound up about this, let's forget "road tax"...

Make them pay an inconvenience tax.

Then give it to me for every time I use a particular B road, on which the presence of one bicyclist creates a 1.5 mile queue when traffic is flowing from the other direction and no one can pass the sweaty beast for the full 1.5 miles.

I'd call that fair...

[Pixelpeep7r]

IroningMan said:

Pixelpeep7r said:

Got hit by a cyclist when i was working in london. On an emergency callout. Parked up, got out of the van, went to the back, got tools and steps. It was a one way street, so quickly checked the direction of oncoming traffic, nothing. Stepped out BANG. Cyclist going the wrong way down the street and had just came right out of a side turning without even looking

Knocked me to the ground, shattered the screen on my phone and had a pain in my chest that lasted a month! - evening in A&E being x-rayed and the following day off work.

I would have at least liked to claim the money back for the screen as through no fault of my own i had to pay out £40 and lost a days wages.

Did he stop, did he bks, he picked himself up off the ground, rode off and didn't even check to see if i was ok!

I have four cars outside my house. Every one of them bears the scars left by drivers who clobbered them in car parks and either didn't notice or chose to just drive off. It's about time drivers had to have some kind of insurance and some kind of training before they are allowed to use the roads that I pay for through my taxes - and about time their cars had some kind of identification mark on them - then they'd have to stop and leave their details when they damaged my cars, wouldn't they!

But if there was CCTV in place there would at least be a chance of catching them, because they have identification. Yes, some hide it, yes some clone plates and yes some don't register cars to them etc etc (yawn) etc but for the vast majority who play by the rules the system works.

You can't discredit a suggestion just because 'some might not play by the rules' - if we lived by that we wouldn't bother with laws in the first place.

[Finlandia]

Devil2575 said:

Finlandia said:

Same with bicycles, you can buy a racing bicycle and pedal away in the traffic without any training or licencing.
Enjoy while it lasts, because it will not last forever.

I think you're wrong.

Aside from anything else, the difference between how fast a person can go on a full on racing bike compared to a cheap entry level road bike isn't anywhere near the performance difference of a person on a 1000cc bike compared to a Honda 50.

And when a cyclist causes a bus full of school kids to swerve and crash? It's not about the damage you do as a cyclist, but what you can cause for doing silly stuff.

Devil2575 said:

No it isn't.

At some point it will.

[IroningMan]

Pixelpeep7r said:

But if there was CCTV in place there would at least be a chance of catching them, because they have identification. Yes, some hide it, yes some clone plates and yes some don't register cars to them etc etc (yawn) etc but for the vast majority who play by the rules the system works.

You can't discredit a suggestion just because 'some might not play by the rules' - if we lived by that we wouldn't bother with laws in the first place.

You can discredit a suggestion any way you like when you know that the cost - in the broadest sense - of creating, imposing and enforcing the rules outweighs any benefits that they might confer.

[otolith]

Finlandia said:

otolith said:

Finlandia said:

One very good argument is revenue.

Can't see that flying, any more than introducing a salad tax.

I bet many said that about council tax too.

If they did, it was several hundred years ago - we've had the council tax and its predecessors for a very long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rates_in_the_United_K...

Finlandia said:

Wait and see when most cars run on electric, no one smokes or drinks, the state wallet needs filling.

It will be necessary to raise funds from other sources. Cycling will never be a particularly appealing target for taxation - it's not seen as a "sin", like drinking, smoking, motoring. It doesn't lend itself easily to gathering significant revenue - you can't tax fuel it doesn't use, a bicycle is a relatively small, inexpensive object compared to a new car or a house, easy to conceal. You could try to impose some sort of annual levy, but it would be hard to justify and harder to enforce. You may as well suggest walking will be taxed.

The obvious thing to tax to replace income lost to electric cars is electricity, or more likely, road charging.

Much as you may like the idea, I simply don't see it happening. It will take a long time for governments to get cycling participation up to acceptable levels for the policy targets that pretty much all politicians agree are in the "apple pie & motherhood" class of ideas, after which it will be very hard to turn round and impose punitive taxes on it.

[anonymous-user]

Finlandia said:

Wait and see when most cars run on electric, no one smokes or drinks, the state wallet needs filling.

Bundle of joy aren't we? If new cars are sold there will be a way to tax them. Bicycles won't be taxed for all the reasons already given.

[heebeegeetee]

Pixelpeep7r said:

But if there was CCTV in place there would at least be a chance of catching them, because they have identification. Yes, some hide it, yes some clone plates and yes some don't register cars to them etc etc (yawn) etc but for the vast majority who play by the rules the system works.

You can't discredit a suggestion just because 'some might not play by the rules' - if we lived by that we wouldn't bother with laws in the first place.

Pixelpeep7r said:

But if there was CCTV in place there would at least be a chance of catching them, because they have identification. Yes, some hide it, yes some clone plates and yes some don't register cars to them etc etc (yawn) etc but for the vast majority who play by the rules the system works.

You can't discredit a suggestion just because 'some might not play by the rules' - if we lived by that we wouldn't bother with laws in the first place.

Seven pages since half past two? You lazy bds!

;-)

I've missed out on another good cycling thread, due to spending the day stuck in traffic, none of which was treaders.

To reply to the above: A bloke dings your car with his door (you want to see the state of the wife's flanks), you take his number... then what?

[anonymous-user]

Sunday morning Sports cycling by middle aged Lycra clad Bradley wannabes (riding bikes Sir Bradley would have dreamt about a few years ago, bike makers must love it!!) is a passing fad. Cycling for commuting or basic transport is here to stay. Generally the latter are not a problem .

[otolith]

Finlandia said:

And when a cyclist causes a bus full of school kids to swerve and crash? It's not about the damage you do as a cyclist, but what you can cause for doing silly stuff.

Yes, 80kg of man and aluminium can cause a bus full of school kids to go out of control without the driver doing anything fking stupid...

[heebeegeetee]

I still say it absolutely beggars belief that a) some still genuinely think there is such a thing as road tax, and b) that the ownership of a bicycle could make any material difference one way or another to one's taxation liabilities.

If ownership of a bicycle was a genuine method of avoiding tax, we'd become Holland overnight.