Hey, you! Yes, you! – "Get Britain Cycling" e-petition.

Having recently examined a little paper circle purchased from the Post Office whilst changing one, they are called Tax Discs- true fact!

Oh yeah. It’s no wonder people are confused when the text on the discs themselves is worded incorrectly.

camo16 – Member
Something learned today then.

you cheeky wee scamp.

done

Having recently examined a little paper circle purchased from the Post Office whilst changing one, they are called Tax Discs- true fact!

Yep – “tax disc” is a perfectly reasonable name. Note that it doesn’t say “ROAD tax disc” though does it?

The Post Office website refers to it as “vehicle tax”:
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/vehicle-tax

And the gov.uk website calls it “vehicle tax” or “car tax”:
https://www.gov.uk/browse/driving/car-tax-discs

It is a tax imposed on the particular vehicle, not a tax on general road use.
That’s an important distinction that sadly very few people seem to understand.

Cougar – Moderator

Seems pedantic, but it’s worth knowing if you’re riding on the roads.

It really isn’t. it’s one of those sad cases where people will use a falsehood against you, but there’s no possibility at all of correcting or convincing them otherwise. Meanwhile if you respond with the actual facts, you end up looking like a knob.

Signed up though because this has nowt to do with the petition.

And in the end? It doesn’t really matter at all. So you end up engaging a nonsense argument due to its inaccuracy, rather than dismissing it because it’s nonsense.

It’s like a 40-a-day smoker complaining that non-smokers don’t pay “NHS tax” so they shouldn’t be allowed in hospitals.

Done

Done and shared

Done. There’s no excuse for this thread not to turn into a 17 page behemoth.

17. The government should set national targets to increase cycle use from less than 2% of journeys in 2011, to 10% of all journeys in 2025, and 25% by 2050

Working for Scottish Government on setting and monitoring (NHS) targets, I know that targets aren’t typically set unless they are measureable, which I am not sure this is

a 17 page behemoth

I tried to sign the petition, but some cocky **** in an Audi overtook me and I’m still stuck in the queue. 👿 😀

Signed, shared and tweeted.

It is possible to build reasonable infrastructure in the UK. Darlington got about a fiver per head for 8 years or so and ended up with some reasonable bike routes; it’s just a shame they wasted a fortune on individual travel planning and promotion before building the routes.

But, for example, my mid-50s mum who hadn’t ridden a bike for years will now ride the two miles to the town centre to meet her friends for coffee rather than driving, because there are off-road tracks she can ride alongside the main roads.

Working for Scottish Government on setting and monitoring (NHS) targets, I know that targets aren’t typically set unless they are measureable, which I am not sure this is

They’re measurable. How do you think we know the current numbers?

Darlington has a network of automatic bike counters. I pass at least on on my journey to/from work each day. They also carry out counts on one day per month on a ring around the town centre. They do door-to-door surveys and have also used questionnaires and travel diaries of samples of the population.

Between them, these will show whether a change is occurring.

Over 7,000 signature already and apparently gaining 1,480 per hour. 😀

Long way to go to get to the magic 100,000 though so please share/tweet/post/email and generally get people involved.

Great to see all the major names getting behind it too:

See tweets, facebook posts, emails and articles from CTC, Sustrans, British Cycling, road.cc, Cycling Weekly, The Times, Guardian Bike Blog, Chris Boardman, Carlton Reid…

Not Singletrack though…? 🙁

the magic 100,000

… which guarantees that the petition…

will be considered for debate by the Backbench Business Committee

Seriously, is that something worth aiming for?

Done.

My councils initiative to get us biking

Seriously, is that something worth aiming for?

Yes. As unglamourous as it sounds. If you want to play politics then you have to expect bureaucracy – it is pretty much the lifeblood of the entire political system.

GrahamS – I hope so, but the cynic in me can’t help thinking that the BB Committee ‘debates’ all petitions that exceed 100,000 signatures just so the UK Govt can defend non-action on the relevant issues by stating these issues were appropriately considered and dealt with…

TBH the cynic in me thinks some of it is a bit wishful, the £10 per head rising to £25 ain’t going to happen not under the current lot… certain wings of Press will go batshitcrazy if you took “£630M away from Road Maintenance to Paint lines on pavements for bicycles” as they will no doubt describe it…

I the Tories will probably go for the easiest options:

They’ll appoint a figurehead “National Cycling Champion” some visible public figure, probably connected to cycling but with no formal Qualifications/experience in planning, infrastructure or road safety (Sir Chris is at a loose end now), makes for good headlines… means little.

They’ll undershoot the recommended investment of £10 per person per year, and allocate something like £6.3M over 3 years (£0.33 per head, per year) that can be quietly dropped from the budget by 2015.

The “cross-departmental Cycling Action Plan / annual progress report” will just be some Statistical round up and massaging excercise to chuck a junior civil servant at for a couple of weeks each year…

“Promote cycling as a safe and normal activity for people of all ages and backgrounds.” a nice cheap poster and leaflet campaign in GP’s/Dentist’s waiting rooms, won’t run for long once they feel they’ve met the basic recommendation…

But I think the authors are probably conscious of the Governments propensity for undershooting the mark on things like this…

The benefits of adopting this reports recommendations for the UK can’t really be overstated though IMO:

-Relieving pressure on roads and congestion
-A proportionally healthier population relieving pressure on the NHS
-New business oportunities opened up in a growing UK cycle industry
-Road and transport infrastucture projects generating more employment
-Reductions in transport emissions…

Clearly the DM are still busy working themselves up into a froth over this one, a quick google news search turned up pieces from the Guardian, Independant and the Times but nowt from our favorite National press, anti-cycling advocates… Seems odd.

I found this an interesting take

Do you think the roads will need more, or less, maintenance if we reduce the number of cars using them?

I think they will need about the same. I strongly doubt that the numbers that transfer over to bikes will make much of an impact on the roads. Plus you will always have HGV vehicles using them.

I’m all for the proposals, I’m just dubious as to where the money will come from. Something may happen, but as usual it will probably be half-arsed.

can’t help thinking that the BB Committee ‘debates’ all petitions that exceed 100,000 signatures just so the UK Govt can defend non-action on the relevant issues by stating these issues were appropriately considered and dealt with…

If you look an the BB Committee website you can see what they have considered and when the approved petitions have been scheduled for debate in parliament.

I’m just dubious as to where the money will come from

In terms of government spending on transport it is a drop in the ocean. (e.g. CrossRail 2 = £12 billion, High Speed rail 2 = 32.7 billion)

Done.

Done

Signed

Done

Signed and shared

I’m all for the proposals, I’m just dubious as to where the money will come from. Something may happen, but as usual it will probably be half-arsed.

The thing with most big projects or ambitious sounding ones is that few Governments consider much beyond their term in power unless it’s a super-project (a vanity thing if you like) along the lines of CrossRail or HS2.

It’s easy just to swan along doing the same old same old but this does give some nice, easily quantifiable objectives and with the co-ordination provided by a “Cycling Czar”, it could just happen. I read something the other day that reckoned 15 years was needed to change attitudes (eg getting drink-driving to the point where it is now considered unacceptable and where people feel OK going to a pub and not drinking). It’ll take the same to get mobile phone use to the same point.

This could be a vanity/legacy thing too though – it has certainly worked for Boris and his Boris Bikes (despite them actually being Red Ken’s Bikes).

Done

Could this be a site set up by a scammer to capture the names and full addresses of anyone who’s interested in cycling and therefore likely to have a bike to steal? 9,000 addresses and counting…

Just a thought. Hope you didn’t put your home address in…

😯 By jove, I think you may have a point.
It’s that pesky government trying to find out all our addresses. I bet they add them to some big database.

Looking into the site a bit further it looks fairly genuine but it does make you wonder how many people just fired their home details into a random site without validating its authenticity

I can only assumed you’ve only just been allowed on the internet?

direct.gov.uk is hardly a “random site” given that it has been around for years and is the same one used by millions of folk for these ePetitions.

😯

You think the government epetition site is possibly a scam?

Wow!

Hope you didn’t put your home address in…

I hope your did, or your signature may be discounted.

Looking into the site a bit further it looks fairly genuine

Yeah fairly – I think the thing that probably gives it away is that it is part of the .gov.uk website[/url] which is the main portal for all UK Government internet resources.

That and any google search will provide plenty of links to it from reliable news organisations discussing its commission, its launch in 2011 and the many epetition campaigns that have followed from it.

Basically: don’t worry. It is legit.

You think the government epetition site is possibly a scam?

Wow!

You have so much spare time to fill out so many epetitions that you were already fully confident in that site’s authenticity?

Wow!

You have so much spare time to fill out so many epetitions that you were already fully confident in that site’s authenticity?

It’s been around for ages.

Done although I’m now worried that the government will come round and nick my bikes. I’ve just realised they’ve also got the address of where I keeps my cars and my house. They’ll probably nick those too since they’re worth more than my bikes.

You have so much spare time to fill out so many epetitions that you were already fully confident in that site’s authenticity?

Err… no.

I just know what the HM Government website is.

It’s not exactly a secret. It is where I go for to pay my taxes (e.g. car tax, self-assessment), use services (e.g. passports), to get pretty much any government information I require (e.g. employment laws, benefits, highway code, etc) and yes, to sign petitions.

You are basically saying “Well yes it’s a black door with a 10 on it, and it’s in Downing Street. But I’m not sending them a letter – there could be anyone living there.”

😆

If it makes you feel better here is the twitter stream of the All Party Cycling Group that conducted the inquiry:

Tweets by allpartycycling

Notice the large number of tweets from the MPs involved, discussing the epetition and linking directly to it?

Pleased to see that they said they were hoping to hit 10,000 signatures by 4pm and they are already well over that. 😀

Reminds me of the Edi Bikes slogan: