Discussion
Just last week, I let out an audible gasp, loud enough for a few strangers to turn and look at me quizzically, as I watched a cyclist nearly collide with a motorbike. Why? The cyclist didn’t stop when the light turned red, instead choosing to push his luck on one of London’s busiest crossroads.
I expect most people have a similar story – especially those who live in a city. As a fair-weather cyclist (I cycle to work in summer, tube it in winter), I probably have more than most but, as I’m not the fastest cyclist in the world, I don’t generally race through traffic lights in a bid to shave seconds off my journey.
I can see how tempting it is to ignore road rules, though – especially if you cycle for miles into work and have picked up a decent speed – but the reality is that roads are dangerous. Last year, more than 17,000 road accidents involved cyclists – 75% at, or near, a road junction, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
Still, my initial reaction to today’s headline, ’25% of drivers want road tax for cyclists’, was one of horror. What about encouraging people to ditch their cars and get fitter? As Gareth Berry sarcastically (but sensibly) pointed out on Twitter this morning:
‘Good thinking, let’s raise the barrier to entry for sustainable, cheap transport as high as possible.’
The story was based on a survey by Confused.com, which asked motorists and cyclists their views about one another, with results showing both groups could brush up on their safety skills.
While drivers complained about cyclists skipping red lights and cycling on pavements, 65% of cyclists said that they felt less safe on roads than they did a year ago and 24% have been sworn at or beeped at by a motorist on the road.
In an attempt to find a solution to these problems, the survey asked drivers how misbehaving cyclists should make amends. Of those who were annoyed by cyclists, 25% said cyclists should pay road tax (12% of the total asked), 44% thought they should pass a formal test before being allowed to ride and 43% wanted to see compulsory insurance for cyclists. The winning idea with motorists, however, was punishing cyclists caught running red lights.
But hang on a minute, haven’t we been here before? A quick Google search shows that the police have been handing out on-the-spot fines to cyclists in the capital for a good few years now. So, while this would personally be my preferred method out of all those mentioned above, perhaps it’s not working?
Any ideas?
I expect most people have a similar story – especially those who live in a city. As a fair-weather cyclist (I cycle to work in summer, tube it in winter), I probably have more than most but, as I’m not the fastest cyclist in the world, I don’t generally race through traffic lights in a bid to shave seconds off my journey.
I can see how tempting it is to ignore road rules, though – especially if you cycle for miles into work and have picked up a decent speed – but the reality is that roads are dangerous. Last year, more than 17,000 road accidents involved cyclists – 75% at, or near, a road junction, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
Still, my initial reaction to today’s headline, ’25% of drivers want road tax for cyclists’, was one of horror. What about encouraging people to ditch their cars and get fitter? As Gareth Berry sarcastically (but sensibly) pointed out on Twitter this morning:
‘Good thinking, let’s raise the barrier to entry for sustainable, cheap transport as high as possible.’
The story was based on a survey by Confused.com, which asked motorists and cyclists their views about one another, with results showing both groups could brush up on their safety skills.
While drivers complained about cyclists skipping red lights and cycling on pavements, 65% of cyclists said that they felt less safe on roads than they did a year ago and 24% have been sworn at or beeped at by a motorist on the road.
In an attempt to find a solution to these problems, the survey asked drivers how misbehaving cyclists should make amends. Of those who were annoyed by cyclists, 25% said cyclists should pay road tax (12% of the total asked), 44% thought they should pass a formal test before being allowed to ride and 43% wanted to see compulsory insurance for cyclists. The winning idea with motorists, however, was punishing cyclists caught running red lights.
But hang on a minute, haven’t we been here before? A quick Google search shows that the police have been handing out on-the-spot fines to cyclists in the capital for a good few years now. So, while this would personally be my preferred method out of all those mentioned above, perhaps it’s not working?
Any ideas?
Have you seen the way everyone else acts in London too?
As a law-abiding (and I'd like to think pretty considerate) cyclist I was embarrassed to see the way some people ride in the capital. Then I noticed the way people drive. And the way pedestrians leap into the road without looking. And the way that stressed out city dwellers in general seem to act towards each other.
A few months back I was in Leicester Square trying to cross the road. The traffic lights were red, but the traffic - taxis mostly - was still streaming through. The lights had actually gone green again before someone found a gap in the traffic to cross, whereupon all the pedestrians followed, bringing the traffic to a halt. It was totally and utterly arse about face. I've also lost count of the number of times I've seen drivers trying to create an extra lane to filter past other cars.
So, frankly, it's all a bit manic once you venture inward of the North Circular. I can imagine there are a fair few 'urban warrior' types in London hopping off kerbs and running red lights, but I'm sure people of that mindset would do it in cars too if they could get away with it. The rest of us just try and keep our heads down and avoid getting driven into by idiots.
As for 'road tax'. Well, personally I tax three different cars and I'm still paying that when I'm on my bike. It just so happens they're all eligible for vehicle excise duty, but of course if they were one of the growing band of ordinary four-wheeled internal combustion engined cars that produce less than 100g/km of CO2 I wouldn’t need to pay it anyway...
A lot of it comes down to the fact that a cyclist weighs about as much as a jogger and largely travels at about the same pace as one. Hence their environmental impact, their damage to the road network (which you might argue road tax is needed to repair and improve) and even the amount of damage they can cause if they hit something is pretty close to, well, a jogger. I know in the case of third party insurance there’s a bit more to it than that, but basically the proportional amount to charge for any of those things is tiny. I’d certainly object to paying road tax on a bike and not on a Fiat 500!
So what can you do? Education is a good idea, but I’m not sure funding a bicycle test initiative with government money or charging the voting public to do it themselves would go down well in the current political environment. Basic third party insurance might not be a bad thing, but I think it would have to be proportional to individual risk. I’d also quite happily see cycling clubs and ‘pelotons’ banned, in theory, but at the end of the day it comes down to live and let live: As drivers we do things that people object to as well and we don’t have the right to ban mass outings for cycle clubs any more than they can object to noisy V8s going past their house.
And generally I think drivers and cyclists in the city should be aware of what happens when the two (literally) collide. London drivers can’t all be homicidal maniacs – although it sometimes feels that way on two wheels – so if they actually saw kids being told that Dad wasn’t coming back from his bike ride today it might make them think a bit more about cutting up cyclists. Likewise if the less responsible cyclists knew how easy it was to get hurt they might take a bit more care.
As a law-abiding (and I'd like to think pretty considerate) cyclist I was embarrassed to see the way some people ride in the capital. Then I noticed the way people drive. And the way pedestrians leap into the road without looking. And the way that stressed out city dwellers in general seem to act towards each other.
A few months back I was in Leicester Square trying to cross the road. The traffic lights were red, but the traffic - taxis mostly - was still streaming through. The lights had actually gone green again before someone found a gap in the traffic to cross, whereupon all the pedestrians followed, bringing the traffic to a halt. It was totally and utterly arse about face. I've also lost count of the number of times I've seen drivers trying to create an extra lane to filter past other cars.
So, frankly, it's all a bit manic once you venture inward of the North Circular. I can imagine there are a fair few 'urban warrior' types in London hopping off kerbs and running red lights, but I'm sure people of that mindset would do it in cars too if they could get away with it. The rest of us just try and keep our heads down and avoid getting driven into by idiots.
As for 'road tax'. Well, personally I tax three different cars and I'm still paying that when I'm on my bike. It just so happens they're all eligible for vehicle excise duty, but of course if they were one of the growing band of ordinary four-wheeled internal combustion engined cars that produce less than 100g/km of CO2 I wouldn’t need to pay it anyway...
A lot of it comes down to the fact that a cyclist weighs about as much as a jogger and largely travels at about the same pace as one. Hence their environmental impact, their damage to the road network (which you might argue road tax is needed to repair and improve) and even the amount of damage they can cause if they hit something is pretty close to, well, a jogger. I know in the case of third party insurance there’s a bit more to it than that, but basically the proportional amount to charge for any of those things is tiny. I’d certainly object to paying road tax on a bike and not on a Fiat 500!
So what can you do? Education is a good idea, but I’m not sure funding a bicycle test initiative with government money or charging the voting public to do it themselves would go down well in the current political environment. Basic third party insurance might not be a bad thing, but I think it would have to be proportional to individual risk. I’d also quite happily see cycling clubs and ‘pelotons’ banned, in theory, but at the end of the day it comes down to live and let live: As drivers we do things that people object to as well and we don’t have the right to ban mass outings for cycle clubs any more than they can object to noisy V8s going past their house.
And generally I think drivers and cyclists in the city should be aware of what happens when the two (literally) collide. London drivers can’t all be homicidal maniacs – although it sometimes feels that way on two wheels – so if they actually saw kids being told that Dad wasn’t coming back from his bike ride today it might make them think a bit more about cutting up cyclists. Likewise if the less responsible cyclists knew how easy it was to get hurt they might take a bit more care.
Get rid of road tax/VED.
Seriously, what does it do?
If you want a tax to encourage people to burn less fuel, you've got fuel duty.
If you want people to buy an economic car, put taxes/incentives on car purchase.
If you want to raise money for road upkeep, use general taxation (as indeed, we do). The roads are a common good to all, even those who don't directly use them.
If you want people to use the car they have less... well, how is VED going to affect that?
If you want people to give up a car... they're more likely to do that based on the need for insurance/MOT anyway.
On the other hand, if you want to extract more revenue from people, letting them think that tax actually does something useful like pay for road upkeep might make the pill easier to swallow, with the unfortunate side effect of creating pointless resentment at those who don't pay it (and are small enough to bully out the way)...
?
I certainly wouldn't mind the police handing out penalties to RLJ-ing cyclists - people have put in hard work to convince parliament that people like you need protecting, and you repay them by riding like that? But then, I would be quite keen on the van driver on foreign plates who sailed through a light near mine whilst texting, nearly taking out a cyclist who had the light, having his licence torn up and given a good kicking frankly. (Actually, tbh I don't see why that junction needs lights at all... treating the junction as a normal T-junction would be fine, and all the near misses I've seen are the result of people on the minor road with the lights not checking for people on the major road jumping them). You can't have everything, so it's only sensible that fewer resources are dedicated to catching the idiot on a slow-moving, light thing than the idiot in a fast moving, heavy thing.
I do, oddly for a member of PH, have an issue with people using their cars for everything. I don't want to have to pay for your inevitable heart operation aged 50 because you never walked anywhere, I don't want to have to pay for the council to put in another flyover or set of traffic lights in an attempt to reduce congestion, I don't want to be in a country where scaring a complete stranger witless by hurtling past them with inches to spare even when you have a whole god-damn other lane to use is considered something other than 'what a psychopath does', or where communication is achieved by a series on monotonic beeps and rude gestures. But I don't think a silly tax, speed bumps, gatso's or even desultory little strips with a half-formed picture of a bicycle on the most crap-covered part of the road are going to be what's needed to change that.
Wow, sorry to dump, I guess the uglier side of car use has been getting me down lately. Anyone want to buy me a V8 to remind me what's fun about driving? A caterham would do
Seriously, what does it do?
If you want a tax to encourage people to burn less fuel, you've got fuel duty.
If you want people to buy an economic car, put taxes/incentives on car purchase.
If you want to raise money for road upkeep, use general taxation (as indeed, we do). The roads are a common good to all, even those who don't directly use them.
If you want people to use the car they have less... well, how is VED going to affect that?
If you want people to give up a car... they're more likely to do that based on the need for insurance/MOT anyway.
On the other hand, if you want to extract more revenue from people, letting them think that tax actually does something useful like pay for road upkeep might make the pill easier to swallow, with the unfortunate side effect of creating pointless resentment at those who don't pay it (and are small enough to bully out the way)...
?I certainly wouldn't mind the police handing out penalties to RLJ-ing cyclists - people have put in hard work to convince parliament that people like you need protecting, and you repay them by riding like that? But then, I would be quite keen on the van driver on foreign plates who sailed through a light near mine whilst texting, nearly taking out a cyclist who had the light, having his licence torn up and given a good kicking frankly. (Actually, tbh I don't see why that junction needs lights at all... treating the junction as a normal T-junction would be fine, and all the near misses I've seen are the result of people on the minor road with the lights not checking for people on the major road jumping them). You can't have everything, so it's only sensible that fewer resources are dedicated to catching the idiot on a slow-moving, light thing than the idiot in a fast moving, heavy thing.
I do, oddly for a member of PH, have an issue with people using their cars for everything. I don't want to have to pay for your inevitable heart operation aged 50 because you never walked anywhere, I don't want to have to pay for the council to put in another flyover or set of traffic lights in an attempt to reduce congestion, I don't want to be in a country where scaring a complete stranger witless by hurtling past them with inches to spare even when you have a whole god-damn other lane to use is considered something other than 'what a psychopath does', or where communication is achieved by a series on monotonic beeps and rude gestures. But I don't think a silly tax, speed bumps, gatso's or even desultory little strips with a half-formed picture of a bicycle on the most crap-covered part of the road are going to be what's needed to change that.
Wow, sorry to dump, I guess the uglier side of car use has been getting me down lately. Anyone want to buy me a V8 to remind me what's fun about driving? A caterham would do
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