but as vehicles that don’t use public roads (closed course rally & race cars, motocross bikes, trials bikes, aircraft, etc.) don’t have to pay the tax, it’s obviously just a Road Tax.

Yup, that tends to spoil the ‘no such thing as road tax’ line that people keep trotting out.

if only every driver that hit a cyclist and drove off was monumentally stupid enough to brag about it on twitter ……..

At what point in this saga is she going to get off on appeal due to prejudicial coverage of the case before the trail?

Because I really don’t want that to happen

“The only fair outcome of the drivers actions would be a total ban with retest required”

How is this the ‘only fair outcome’?

it is a starting point.

Problem with the test it doesn’t do attitude, you just have to prove you can drive, not that you won’t be a cock.

> but as vehicles that don’t use public roads (closed course rally & race cars, motocross bikes, trials bikes, aircraft, etc.) don’t have to pay the tax, it’s obviously just a Road Tax.

Yup, that tends to spoil the ‘no such thing as road tax’ line that people keep trotting out.

It doesn’t though does it. Because it’s bollocks.

To use Tuckers example: it is like referring to Alcohol Tax Duty (it’s real name) as “Pub Tax” and claiming that’s its proper name as “everyone” in the pub pays it, yet if you brew your own moonshine in the garage you don’t have to pay it.

More to the point paying “Pub Tax” doesn’t give you the right to glass someone who is drinking Coke.

I hope the Police throw the book at her and her employers too. Does she have no conscience?
We need some kind of psychological element to the driving test.

on the beeb http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-22596605

I don’t think her employers should share the blame….

😉

What’s the point in an academic argument about whether road tax exists? We all know that roads are mostly funded by the general taxation that everyone pays, the overwhelming majority of cyclists who are old enough to drive will be paying VED anyway, and whether you make a financial contribution towards the road network is completely irrelevant to this issue anyway.

The @CycleHatred page is really depressing. Emma Way could only make a jokey public post about knocking someone down because we have a society where so many other people are saying similar things with no fear of opprobrium. Going back to an earlier point, Jeremy Clarkson is definitely guilty of helping to reinforce this culture:

“Trespassers in the motorcars domain, [cyclists] do not pay road tax and therefore have no right to be on the road, some of them even believe they are going fast enough to not be an obstruction. Run them down to prove them wrong.”

“Some people, usually on bicycles, bang on your roof as you go by and say they find your conspicuous consumption offensive. What I want to do at times like this is bang on their cycling helmets and say I find their poverty offensive. But I’m made from stronger stuff so I turn the other cheek and run them down.”

“Handy hints to those setting out on a bike for the first time…Do not cruise through red lights. Because if I’m coming the other way, I will run you down, for fun…Do not pull up at junctions in front of a line of traffic. Because if I’m behind you, I will set off at normal speed and you will be crushed under my wheels.”

Or how about Matthew Parris writing in the Times:

“A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists”

I don’t think for a minute that Clarkson or Parris really believe what they are writing, but they are unprincipled enough to take advantage of the prevailing culture to make a few quid, while loudly proclaiming that it’s all tongue in cheek. In doing so, they help to reinforce that culture, and the lazy prejudices of people like Emma Way.

he also said this…
http://road.cc/content/news/56433-jeremy-clarkson-turns-cycling-advocate-he-praises-copenhagens-approach

Once she gets out of jail for attempting manslaughter, she should be sentenced to ride a bicycle for 5 years before getting a car licence again….

Almost everyone goes almost everywhere on a bicycle.

“Now I know that sounds like the ninth circle of hell, but that’s because you live in Britain, where cars and bikes share the road space,” he continues. “This cannot and does not work. It’s like putting a dog and a cat in a cage and expecting them to get along. They won’t, and as a result London is currently hosting an undeclared war. I am constantly irritated by cyclists and I’m sure they’re constantly irritated by me.

“City fathers have to choose. Cars or bicycles. And in Copenhagen they’ve gone for the bike.Oh aye. Very understanding.

more on the beeb this morning
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-22602141

Toby Hockley should consider starting a skills course business. Hit head-on by car, up onto bonnet and window, back off, into hedge for 20 metres, stays on bike, ends up back on the road upright! 😯

Either that or he should hobble down to the newsagent and buy a lotto ticket.

Is this really such a surprise when dicks like Jeremy Clarkson are allowed to spew forth anti-cyclist bile (disguised as humour) on state-owned TV and he’s held up to be some sort of wonderful celebrity across the nation – including by many on this site?

*yawn*

well said, kcr.

Prompted a discussion by BBC Norfolk, Nick Conrad (BBC reporter) has put this on his FB page… 🙄
https://www.facebook.com/nconrad

NFN, as medical acronyms would say.

As some context, it seems quite a reasonable question in comparison with the rest of the show, which includes whether ‘children should be taught pornography’, whatever that means. The facebook page also includes this pearler of a topic:

“What is the point in putting expensive conditioner in your hair only to wash it out 3 mins later?”

Dunno what’s with the NFU Calendar Girl pose though.

Once she gets out of jail for attempting manslaughter,

There’s no such thing as ‘attempted manslaughter’. There’s also no ‘assault with a deadly weapon’ or ‘assault with a vehicle’ charge that so many below-the-line commenters seem to think should be used in these cases.

It’s careless/dangerous driving and leaving the scene. For it to be attempted murder (isn’t manslaughter when you mean to hurt someone/are negligent and accidentally kill them? So how could you attempt to do something if you didn’t want to do it?) there would have to be proof that she wanted to kill him, and was trying to kill him but failed.

In this world of logic people who walk across or along roads should be treated with the same disdain?

By the way, just how much of the roads budget comes from road tax and from general taxation? Would have thought some comes from council tax. Whilst we’re on taxation just how many cyclist don’t also own a car?

Prompted a discussion by BBC Norfolk, Nick Conrad (BBC reporter) has put this on his FB page..

Jeebus that guy is either impressively thick or cynically targeting himself at a particular daytime audience demographic.

“educate, inform and entertain” anyone?

Sadly you can’t comment on his Facebook feed without becoming his friend – what a great way to get a balanced debate eh?

I know that these type of people are out there on the roads,I just try to keep thinking that they are still a minority ,and the chances of meeting them are fairly slim .

BBC Norfolk doing an excellent job there, top quality reporting. 🙄

A driver knocks a cyclist off his bike and leaves the scene and the only question they can ask is “should cyclists pay road tax?”

There simply aren’t enough facepalm pictures in existence for me to express my true feelings here.

I’m confused by the conflicting statements of the rider involved.

In this recount of events he says A car came tearing round the blind corner and narrowly missed a cyclist in front of me. She came on to my side of the road, I took the wing mirror off and I went flying off my bike into a hedge. She hit me hard, really hard. I am lucky to be alive. But I managed to get out of the hedge and stand up.

and on this one my right leg caught the front right wing. I was thrown up onto the bonnet, I hit the side of windsrceen and the wing mirror. I bounced back off the car and went through a hedge for about 20 metres. I managed to keep control of the bike; the back brake had locked on but I managed to rejoin the road and stop in the middle of it“

I’m glad to see the bbc putting ‘so called road tax’ on their site though.

Do BBC Norfolk have a page where you can comment?

Good news – they plan to have Carlton Reid on:

Carlton Reid ?@carltonreid
I’ll be on @BBCnorfolk shortly after 11am, batting away the old chestnuts about “road tax” & insurance for cyclists.

Not like this is a sole case though. From today’s CycleHatred feed:

Sarah Edmondson ?@Edmo23
Passed 15 cyclists this morning, 7 of which i nearly knocked down, and only 2 wear wearing a helmet! #safetyfirst

😯

NFN, as medical acronyms would say.

🙂

I really can’t understand the idiots who boast about nearly hitting or threatening to hit a cyclist, if you’re ever in a scrape with a cyclist it could come back to haunt you. Tweeting about actually hitting one is a whole other level of stupidity.

I had plenty of time to get across a busy junction this morning as the next lady in the queue of cars from my right was accelerating very slowly due to having her phone at the top of her steering wheel texting away 🙄 maybe she was tweeting something destined to appear on cycle hatred (very depressing read)

7 of which i nearly knocked down, and only 2 wear wearing a helmet! #safetyfirst

ironometer just exploded

Do BBC Norfolk have a page where you can comment?

I think this is the best bet..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/

Once these debates attract the usual “they all go through red lights” etc.. comments any hope for a rational debate goes out the window.

From that BBC guys facebook:

I picked up on the change in his story too. Maybe the tale has grown in the telling.

” very slowly due to having her phone at the top of her steering wheel texting away”

the second setting of a hornit sounds like a siren – not a police siren just not a horn…..

sitting at lights with a woman doing as you describe on facebook – i could see as i sat next to her…..

slipped my hand onto the bars and touched the hornits button ….. phone flew over her shoulder and she was looking round all over for the police…..

BBC Norfolk have coverage now

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-22602141

includes this sidebar

The so-called ‘Road Tax’

The comment on Twitter suggested Toby Hockley, as a cyclist, does not pay “road tax”.

A road tax does not exist in the UK but the term is commonly and incorrectly used to refer to the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), or “car tax” paid on most motorised vehicles as a tax on emissions.

Roads are funded by all UK taxpayers under general and local taxes.

Source:Gov.uk

There does seem to be a certain type of female driver that are very aggressive on the road. “Pushy Princesses” in their Minis and Fiat 500’s, tailgating like crazy, always in the outside lane of the motorway and now it seems knocking off cyclists too.

I really hope they throw the book at her.

There does seem to be a certain type of female driver that are very aggressive on the road. “Pushy Princesses” in their Minis and Fiat 500’s, tailgating like crazy, always in the outside lane of the motorway and now it seems knocking off cyclists too.

CycleHatred does seem to feature a disproportionate number of young women. Not sure if this reflects which group hate cyclists the most or just the demographics of twitter.

But I quite like Carlton’s pop psychology analysis of this:

The tweets collected by @cyclehatred have shown that a surprising number of anti-cyclist comments are not coming from traditional ‘white van man’ but from young women, many of them clearly new to driving. What is it that’s making these otherwise unremarkable young women say such hateful things about cyclists? Perhaps it’s that young female motorists feel safe in their cars and often rely on them to get everywhere? For such women, perhaps the thought of being a cyclist – unprotected from ‘stranger danger’ and open to the elements – makes them shudder, and the way to reject and despoil this “other” is to vilify and mock it?

Source: http://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/i-knocked-a-cyclist-off-his-bike-i-have-right-of-way-he-doesnt-even-pay-road-tax/

I really hope they throw the book at her.

Put her in a male prison? Too harsh perhaps?

BBC: “Toby, it would be really great if you could wear a cycling jersey for the photo, just so people can identify you as a cyclist, and not a human being…”

Someone should send this to Charlie Brooker

wrecker – Member

Put her in a male prison? Too harsh perhaps?

Wow, what a disgusting thought. Well done.

Just listening to BBC Norfolk.

Presenter blokey has massively turned down his rhetoric and is now claiming to be a cyclist himself (and his family.. some of his best friends.. etc) 😕

Wow. That ‘cyclehatred’ twitter feed is one of the most frustrating things I have ever seen. People often vent something without meaning it but there are some genuine head cases on there!