Cyclists

[BobH]

I'd make all drivers spend a year cycling so they could appreciate things from a different perspective, might make them safer drivers

 

 

Yea right, it could only come from a cyclist

 

If you want to use the roads to get around, pay for them like everyone else and take a test and pay insurance !!

 

And don't you think most folk used a cycle before they drove cars ?

 

Bob

[Steve Walker]

The Mrs and I pay about £900 a year in vehicle excise duty on three cars and a couple of grand a year in fuel duty. That's a fair chunk of money, though it's less than we pay a month in income tax and NI, and then there's council tax, which is what pays for most road maintenance - and you want me to put my hand in my pocket again before I can ride my bicycle on the road?

[Steve Walker]

Tell you what, though, I will happily pay the same rate as a zero emissions car - in fact, I will happily write out a cheque for £0.00 to pay it for every cyclist in the country

[Ken L]

Tell you what, though, I will happily pay the same rate as a zero emissions car - in fact, I will happily write out a cheque for £0.00 to pay it for every cyclist in the country

 

Beat me to it.

VED isn't there to pay for roads. It's a tax on polluters - which is why it's charged based on a vehicle's capacity to pollute. Fuel taxes are another tax on pollution but charged according to how much polluting is actually done.

[snakey1]

 

 

Yea right, it could only come from a cyclist

 

If you want to use the roads to get around, pay for them like everyone else and take a test and pay insurance !!

 

And don't you think most folk used a cycle before they drove cars ?

 

Bob

Ah the old cyclists don't pay for the roads Shiite. Well the roads are funded from general taxation which most people pay not VED (or road tax as some people incorrectly call it) as this hasn't been ring fenced to pay for roads since about 1937. As for tests cyclists don't need one as unlike a car not many people are killed by bad cyclists. And personally I have third party insurance thanks. As for people cycling before driving cars, in the past that may have been true as was the fact an awful lot of motorists had motorbikes before cars and so were more aware of other road users, now most kids get straight into a car at 17 and so have no idea about other road users.

[corydoras]

Yea right, it could only come from a cyclist

 

If you want to use the roads to get around, pay for them like everyone else and take a test and pay insurance !!

 

And don't you think most folk used a cycle before they drove cars ?

 

Bob

Britain does not do ring fenced taxes. Roads are paid from general taxation. Edited December 18, 2014 by corydoras

[Vagabond]

so many car drivers acting like total dicks around cyclists,

...and almost all cyclists behave like total dicks around pedestrians.....

 

 

and Snakey has a point

 

I spent seven years (age 9 to age 16) as a cyclist, then a further 6 years with motor cycles before I could afford my first car -

 

valuable road sense learnt during my formative years.

[Ken L]

I'd take issue with "almost all" but there's certainly no arguing that some cyclists behave like total dicks around pedestrians.

I use a shared area in central Birmingham as part of my commute and have seen a lot of near misses. There's also a short section between Centenary and Victoria squares where cyclists are required to dismount - but many don't bother despite it being indoors.

[Vagabond]

I'd take issue with "almost all"

We could argue about "representative samples" but two places I walk (Rye Harbour to Winchelsea and some local former railway tracks) are supposedly "shared" with cyclists. In reality they are dominated by cyclists, head down, pedalling as if in a road race, and assuming they have automatic right of way over walkers. One has to glance behind every twenty seconds to make sure none of these pests are on a collision course with the small of one's back. I note that no bells seem to be fitted to cycles these days.

 

"Almost all" is my generosity to any careful cyclists that might exist, but I have yet to encounter one.

[Ken L]

Bells tend to make things worse because most people are fairly predictable until they start jumping around in response to a bell - just like most dogs are fairly predictable until their idiot owners spot a bike and start calling them across the pathway.

Still, an experience of cyclists using one route in an irresponsible way is hardly something that can be extrapolated across the entire country.