[Closed] "I pay road tax, you don't"

Girl on there with a nice bum... 😀

brilliant

I can only see churchills fat face 🙁

Well cars with emissions below 100 g/km CO limit pay zero "vehicle tax" so why should cyclists pay more than that ? Does a cyclist really produce more emissions than a car (curry nights withstanding) ?

Pfft!

Can't see the nice bum, feel quite deflated now...

As I see it, self propelled vehicles and animal drawn ones have a right to be on the road. It was always so.

Those stinking modern horseless carriages though are a recent introduction and have no right to use the road without licence.

Girl on there with a nice bum...

Where? Where? Oooh, I do like a nice lady's bottom, it has to be said... 😀

Talkemada, you're obsessed, you are. In fact, you're worse than me. 😯

I know! I'm going to have to organise one to play with for the weekend, if it's owner will let me. 😀

"I pay road tax, you don't"

Just a thought, why don't we tax drivers rather than cars? You can only drive one at a time. Doesn't seem fair to pay tax on a second car that sits in a drive most of the time. A fuel tax is hardly fair when public transport is in it's current state, penalises anyone who doesn't live in a city (next bus within 3 miles of me is due 7am Tuesday, last one home was 6pm tonight, Thursday. Last one into town was 8am this morning) and the big-milage company-car types tend to get fuel allowances anyway.
My personal preference is to abolish road tax and fuel tax and have a flat charge of, say, £10 for each day that a car is driven, maybe a sliding scale based on car value/emmissions/etc. Suddenly the 2 mile comute to work becomes realy expensive (where walking or biking is a viable alternative) but the longer journey where they are not an option becomes (relatively) cheaper.

My personal preference is to abolish road tax

you're in luck, road tax doesn't exist, you don't pay road tax, no one does, no taxes are paid that are used to directly fund the building and maintenence of roads

I tell them "**** off, I do pay road tax, just not on this". Seems to confuse people, like "Why would he be riding a bicycle if he has a car?"

andrew - when did you last try to use public transport? In and around the cities its good on the whole.

As for you wanting to pay less tax - when car drivers pay their way and are not subsidised by the general population then you can whinge. I'd like VED abolished and more tax on petrol - make the incentive to reduce consumption - more economical cars driven less.

Remember motoring taxes don't come close to the cost to society of car ownership.

Yep. fuel tax. It's the obvious way forwards. But anyway, vehicle excise duty as the old road tax is now known, is based on emissions and a bike produces zero emissions. Plus, as has been pointed out many times before and works wonderfully in the field... 'my bike is one less car holding you up, what's the problem?'

Guaranteed to produce an empty gaze and an end to the argument on every bovine faced driver out there. Smart people don't argue about bikes being on the road, only stupid people do.

I'm 35 and don't have a driving licence...

I had a good one the other day (ok it was over a year ago). I was (stopped) behind a guy at a T junction where the road approached the through road at a very acute angle - in order to pull out you have to look right back over your shoulder to see if anyone's coming - fair enough. So the guy in front of me goes, I start moving and look back over my shoulder to check the road. It's clear, so I look back ahead and suddenly the guy's stopped immediately after pulling out of the junction to let another woman with a bike push it across the road as a pedestrian. I gesticulated to say 'wtf are you doing stopping there' and he got very upset. The gist of his argument was that, since I was on a bike and so was the other lady, he was doing ME a favour by letting her across the road. Like bikers are all some kind of continuum where our emotions are all inter-dependent.

I've never seen her before in my life you stupid bugger.

Sorry, it's OT I know.

TandemJeremy - Member
andrew - when did you last try to use public transport? In and around the cities its good on the whole.

A little over two years ago, had to get a train when my bike broke (snapped frame). Cost me £48 off peak for a single from Reading to Grantham, a return trip would have cost around £30 in diesel in my car and wouldn't have involved either two hours sitting at Kings Cross due to a cancelled train or an 8 mile walk home after I arrived.

That's the whole point though, it might be good in the cities but in the country-side it is mostly non-existant, but occasionally just crap, and we end payinga huge amount in fuel duty just to get anywhere. I do most of my travelling by bike so less aftected than most, but i do have to drive occasionally.

andrew - when did you last try to use public transport? In and around the cities its good on the whole.

It tends to be good in getting you into or out of the city centre, but often needs multiple buses to get around. For example I'm only about 4 miles from home to office but would have to take two buses which makes it much slower than driving or cycling.

The 10 miles from home to my old office was much worse though - that required a bus into town (which is completely the wrong direction) first and would take the best part of 90 minutes. Driving took 15 minutes and cycling 40 minutes.

andrew - when did you last try to use public transport? In and around the cities its good on the whole.

A return to Manchester is over 12 quid for me before 9am - or about a fiver in petrol and I get to travel when I want to. The last train home is a crappy 11.14pm so a night out either finishes before it's started or it's 55 quid for a cab home. Public transport is shite IMO

Last train from York to Harrogate is about 9.30 I think - even more uselesser!

There is of course an underlying perception that we should be able to live wherever we like and work wherever we like and if the public transport between these 2 locations is so "terrible" there is no alternative other than using a car and it is totally justified. Public transport has never been and never will be able to hook up every permutation of locations. The difference in the past when personal ownership of cars was lower and the average personal income was unable to cover excessive transport costs was that you chose to live and work a manageable distance apart. If you wanted to live in village x, you worked within a few miles of it. If you wanted to do a job in a particular town, you lived there. If you couldn't afford a house in a particular area where that job was, you didn't take that job. The modern era (last 50 years or so) has dictated that it is our right to have our cake and eat it. I can foresee a time in the not too distant future where a sustainable transport solution will involve the populous making compromises and the personal choice to commute huge distances is probably one of them.

Re the "road tax" abuse whilst on a bike, on the few occasions this has been thrown at me, even when faced with a Range Rover sport driver, I look as snooty as I can (normally totally unfounded!), and make some banal comment about being a late 30 something year old professional who, judging by the crappy car you are driving, earns a shed load more than you - do really think I don't pay my way? And then flounce off.

And the bus from Knaresborough to Harrogate went up from £1.75 to £3.00 (nearly a 100% increase). It is only about 4 miles.