Boris Bikes already have number plates.

Bike licensing doesn’t work, just ask Boris

my predictions

mandatory fluro vests with your facebook name on it

automatic scanning of your mobile on cycle paths into city centres to confirm you’ve got third party insurance

no bike fridays to give pedestrians a chance to “reclaim the pavement”

more electric bikes than pedal bikes (already a sales trend in that their Netherlands)

Having cyclists visibly registered is a good idea for traffic law enforcement

What horrific crimes are cyclists committing that would justify such an enormously expensive scheme?

Presumably the registration plate would need to be a similar size/font to a car one to allow it to be read by traffic cameras etc – where are you going to mount it?

What about kids bikes? Off-road bikes? etc

‘Road tax’ is an accurate description: a tax to be paid by those using vehicles on the road. It does not mean the money is spent on roads, just like alcohol tax isn’t spent buying alcohol and tobacco tax isn’t spent buying tobacco.

It has nothing to do with pollution per se because I can buy a car or bike and use it exclusively off-road and not have to pay said tax…I only pay if I want to use the vehicle on our roads.

It’s not a particularity complicated subject to get your head around.

‘Road tax’ is an accurate description: a tax to be paid by those using vehicles on the road.

But for some the term “road tax” is intrinsically linked to “road fund”.

It has nothing to do with pollution per se because … I only pay if I want to use the vehicle on our roads.

Unless it doesn’t pollute too much – in which case you don’t pay.

Which sort of suggests a link to pollution, no?

And many off-road tracks you could drive a car on (i.e. RUPPs) still require you to pay car tax.

And many off-road tracks you could drive a car on (i.e. RUPPs) still require you to pay car tax.

Gosh, you could start a whole new thread arguing about the meaning of ‘off-road’ when taken in the context of my posting.

🙄

Can we tax drivers instead of cars?
From my point of view I pay £260 a year road tax (OK, VED if you must) but go most places on my bike. I therefore pay a lot more for using the road than the majority of drivers. Most cyclists are divers too, but i suspect very few drivers are also cyclists.
However, my car is quite large and expensive to run. If I were to buy a smaller, more economical one to use when i didn’t need the big one I would pay tax again even though I would be using less fuel/casuing less wear to the road etc. If the driver was taxed then one could transfer it between vehicles, you can only drive one at a time.
.
IMO an even better idea would be a a flat rate tax based on days used. For example, do away with VED & fuel duty and have a monitor in the car which charges, say £10, each day the vehicle is used (maybe bands for emmisissions, lists prices etc) This would make people think long and hard about using the car for th 1/2 mile school run, but without penalising those who live in the aprts of the country where there is no such thing as public transport and they have jno choice but to have a car.

Also, why is there no ‘red petrol’ for use in lawnmowers, chainsaws etc?

Gosh, you could start a whole new thread arguing about the meaning of ‘off-road’ when taken in the context of my posting.

True. But it’s a point: a lot of what people might regard as “off-road” is a rough path maintained by public money so still subject to “road tax”; conversely a lot of motor vehicles that drive on public highways are not subject to “road tax”.

I therefore pay a lot more for using the road…

This is the thing. Unless you’re on a toll road, you pay nothing for the roads. At least not specifically.

Your ‘road tax’ goes into one big pot alongside your income tax, VAT and whatever else. If you’re lucky, it might go towards something useful. Like a moat in your local MPs back garden.

It has as much to do with the roads as an apple crumble.

tucker while I get that we are only arguing semantics here “road tax” has connotations and implies to the hard of thinking that it pays for upkeep of, or entitles the driver to use of, the road (it kind of does but not to the exclusion of others) or infers some sort of ownership. Didn’t churchill scrap the “road tax” moniker for specifically that reason?

he is right, road tax suggests you pay a tax to use the roads when in reality you dont. It is not an entitlement to use the roads it is a punishment/tax whatever for the emissions your vehicle will make whilst using the roads hence why bikes would be set at zero.

Given that roads are paid for by general taxation, surely highly paid chain-smoking alcoholics have more right to use them than the rest of us?

have a monitor in the car which charges, say £10, each day the vehicle is used (maybe bands for emmisissions, lists prices etc) This would make people think long and hard about using the car for th 1/2 mile school run, but without penalising those who live in the aprts of the country where there is no such thing as public transport and they have jno choice but to have a car.

Errr, no it doesn’t. In your analogy those who are half a mile away can walk, whilst those with no choice have to pay £10 every day. It specifically penalises those without public transport!

it is a punishment/tax whatever for the emissions your vehicle will make

has it always been the case? I’ve only been driving a few years but got the impression that the emmissions bit was fairly new (I know the A-H? are new but I thought the < or > 1.59 was comparatively recent aswell)

CO2 emissions banding was introduced in 2005 apparently.
Prior to that it was just based on engine size.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty#History

In June 1999, a reduced car road tax band was introduced for cars with an engine capacity up to 1100cc

so prior to 1999 was it same charge for all cars?
Plenty of people been driving from well before then so I can see how they’d view this emissions thing as just being road tax tarted up as a new green incentive but it’s still essentially their fee to buy/loan/use their roads.
Still bobbins but just wondering.

True, but even in 1999 it wasn’t a tax to “pay for the roads”, to get that you have to go back to the “road fund” which was abolished in 1937.

Sadly not everyone has realised this:

Completely impossible to do what about kiddies on little bikes, BMXers? offroad riders?

Several countries have tried this – not one has made it a sucess

Bit late to the party TJ. Busy day? 😉

have a monitor in the car which charges, say £10, each day the vehicle is used (maybe bands for emmisissions, lists prices etc) This would make people think long and hard about using the car for th 1/2 mile school run, but without penalising those who live in the aprts of the country where there is no such thing as public transport and they have jno choice but to have a car.

Errr, no it doesn’t. In your analogy those who are half a mile away can walk, whilst those with no choice have to pay £10 every day. It specifically penalises those without public transport

No, because as you say those who live half a mile can, and probably would walk. Those who have no option but to drive would benefit because the £10 would be lower than the fuel tax removed further up in the paragraph. I’m not sure where the break-even distance would be but it would cut down a lot on the 1-2 mile school runs!

This is the thing. Unless you’re on a toll road, you pay nothing for the roads. At least not specifically

Yes it goes into general coffers, but you do pay for using the roads, if you don’t use, you don’t pay (mostly) Roads are paid for out of general tax so whether you use (directltly) or not your taxes pay for the roads. Subtle difference.

Just did some relevant geeky sums that may amuse:

The DVLA Annual Report and Accounts states “VED receipts in 2010-11 amounted to £5,782 million”.

Meantime the HMRC figures show that Tobacco and Alcohol tax receipts were £17,776 million, plus another few billion for all the VAT on booze and fags of course.

So alcoholic smokers fund us to the tune of £20 billion pa.

Non-smokers and tee-totallers should not be allowed on our roads!
If you want to drive/cycle on the road then pick up 20 Marlboro and bottle of Johnnie Walker and pay your way.

I want to get this article printed onto leaflets to carry with me so I can hand them out to the next ignorant pillock that shouts “pay yer road tax” at me.

There’s a significant anti-cyclist feeling out there now, headlined recently by John Griffin of Addison Lee cabs spouting off about how cyclists should get trained and pay up. Usual ignorant bollocks which the Daily Wail readers love. The term “road tax” or even worse “road fund licence” implies to these particularly thick people that they’ve paid for “something” (they’re not really sure what) and you haven’t. You’re therefore a freeloading scumbag who needs to be run off the road.

Of course, the idea of VED is still flawed anyway – I could drive a Humvee 1000 miles a year and have fewer emissions than someone driving a Micra 25000 miles a year but still be paying £400+ to their £35. You can’t link it to fuel duty because fuel prices are irretrievably linked to inflation so even if VED was scrapped overnight and 20p added to the cost of every litre of fuel to make up for the loss of VED revenue, inflation would skyrocket.

What’s needed is a proper road pricing plan – scrap VED, lower the cost of fuel and then have a pay-per-mile scheme. Yes it would cost a lot to implement but it would be the best thing that any Government could do for congestion, the environment. Ring-fence the revenue raised to pay for public transport and road improvements, hire bike schemes etc.
Unfortunately, it’s political suicide so it’ll never happen. 🙁

, lower the cost of fuel and then have a pay-per-mile scheme.

Fuel tax is a pay per mile scheme, sort of. And it doesn’t work.
Those who do 2 mile schol runs pay next to nothing and cause most of the congestion. Those who drive on empty countryside A and B road because they live 20 miles from the nearest station and have no other option pay a fortune.
My flat rate scheme would penalise, heavily, those who do short journies, ie those journies where walking or biking is a viable alternative, it’s those people we should target. And they all seem to drive silly little Smart cars and Priusus thinking they are doing their bit. Bollox, a Smart car driven on unnecessary journeys (journies doens’t look right, I’m terrible at spilling) does a lot of harm, environmentally and congestion-wise which could easily be avoided.
And the lower-emmissions = lower tax thing hits the poorest hardest again. Old big cars = cheap to buy, eg I got a Mondeo for £760, really get stung on VED every year. A new ‘green’ car with £0 VED is way out of my price range. Also, keeping an old ‘gas guzzler’ going as long as possible is far less bad for the environment than building a new lower emmissions car, even Friends of the Earth say that!
And don’t start me on the scrappage scheme, worst idea ever that one.
Finally in my little rant, why does no-one ever refer to a G-Wizz or similar as coal-powered?

Great thread and for once nearly everyone is talking sense! 🙂

As TJ alluded, what has happened abroad?

Have you all signed the Addison Lee petition on Government website? He really does need to be brought round to seeing sense.

Some typical examples of why the “road tax” myth matters:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YmK6Z52tcY[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiWji4osR0[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Fyj2GMxgo[/video]

The trouble is; despite us all ‘being in the right’ about the ‘road tax’ error – NONE of those motorists seemed to listen or change their opinion.

There needs to be a quicker, more sincinct way (if you actually care that much) to get the point across – most of the time it’s a beep of the horn, “road tax blah blah blah…f*%$ off” and they’re gone, thinking they’re in the right 🙁

DrP

What’s needed in my opinion are some suitably eyecatching adverts to explain this fact to motorists.

Ideally funded by the DfT, maybe with some sponsorship from RoadPeace, AA, RAC, CTC and Sustrans. And Top Gear. 😉