Safe Speed Forums

...and FOR that "privilege" they pay more than the pedestrian or cyclist! The inattention on a pushbike can easily kill too - it's just that it's more likely to be the cyclist that cops for it when that happens. That doesn't automatically make it not their fault though!

VED is a pollution tax, based on the emissions of your car. VED probably doesn't cover the damage done to society by pollution from motor vehicles. You can avoid paying VED by having a low emissions car, or, er walking or cycling.

Fuel tax is a tax on the purchase of hydrocarbon fuel. I don't have to buy hydrocarbon fuel when I walk or cycle.

So I can't work out how you think you're somehow paying to drive along the road.

Where is that Troll alert ,or tricycle addition to a poster when it's needed. I'd suggest a Spitfire clone alert .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

The vast majority of motorists (and that includes bus, truck, taxi, van etc drivers) pay VED. They are obliged pay it if they are driving on a public road (I put that bit in italics to see if it helps you make the connection) . You can't avoid it by walking or cycling if you also have a VED-liable vehicle that is kept or used on a public road (as you're so fond of telling us!), whether you use it or not. ONLY if you don't have such a vehicle, can you avoid it by walking or cycling. (Which is a bit odd, really, because it's not like they're producing any CO2 when you're not using them, but hey, since when was life fair?! Still, the government needs its "general taxation" eh?!

Back in the real world, you'll find that the vast majority of users of motorised vehicles DO have to pay VED if they want to use their vehicles on a public road. On it's own, I agree it probably doesn't fully cover the damage done to society by motorised transport, but it isn't the only tax levied on such transport is it?

...Which leads me to your next point - fuel duty. Yes, that's another motoring tax, and yes, you're quite right, you can avoid paying it by not buying any fuel. That's a cunning money-saving tip there - you really ought to start a money-saving blog! Of course, if you never bought any, it would be rather a waste to be paying your VED anyway, but I guess it might be worth it to you? As a piece of sculpture, some cars are really quite appealing! It's also undeniable that the safest and greenest cars are the ones that never go anywhere...

...but returning, once again, to the real world, it can't have escaped your notice that the vast majority of cars DO, indeed get driven (what am I saying?! Of course you've noticed it - you never stop whinging about them, do you?)! Sooooo.... not only do the vast majority of motorists pay fuel duty, but they also pay VAT on their fuel duty (and their fuel)!

And, of course, as it's illegal to even keep your car (that you never put fuel in) on a public road, you'll either have to find somewhere away from a road to put it, OR you'll have to insure it (AND pay insurance premium tax on that insurance)....

Then, of course, if you ever DO decide to drive your car anywhere, you soon run into the problem of parking it when you get there. MORE revenue to the public purse extracted from "the motorist"...

Really Weepy, for someone who claims to BE a motorist on occasions, I'm quite surprised that any of this is news to you? Do you only ever use your car on your private country estate and run it on your own home-grown bio-fuel?

Thank you, so we can put to bed that VED is some form of road tax and is used to pay for the roads or access to them. Phew, it only took 2,000 words.




Well, that's debatable, it's a fuel duty, I pay it when I buy it to fill a generator or lawnmower for instance.



We all pay VAT on pretty much anything we purchase. And to kill the "tax on a tax" argument, we all pay taxes on duties when we buy anything that's been imported for example (VAT on top of import duty), so this is normal.



I think the concept is that if you have a car on the public road network then you're going to be using it in public. I imagine there are very very few vehicles that sit unmoving for the entire period their VED covers, people tend to SORN vehicles that they don't use.




Er, yeah.

To add I do pay insurance to cycle, out of personal choice, it's £25.00 a year third party cover. This is additional to the insurances I get from my household insurance (which also covers public liability, as long as I'm not driving a motor vehicle at the time the incident occurs).

I also have insurance that covers me if I cycle out of the country, that's £75 a year (which covers my trip insurance too). Sort of indicates the risk cyclists poses to insurers and their backers. Car insurance has the same principle.



Again, you're presuming money is made out of parking charges. I'm not so sure. Councils might hive off money made from parking charges, but there's no connection between them and the money raised from council tax that they spend on car parks, street parking, enforcement etc.... To add, you appear to presume that offering parking spaces for cars is a no cost operation. It's not, it's quite expensive.



Claims, eh? I AM a "motorist" I own and drive a car, pretty much every weekend, rarely during the week.



None of it is, I very much understand the concept of the taxes, it's you that doesn't. You seem to think they confer you some status that you don't have and by extension that cyclists, horse riders or pedestrians using the road network don't get a say in our public road network system because they "don't pay to use it".



I don't have a private estate.

If I manufacture my own bio fuel I have to pay duty at the relevant rate on it anyway which is 0.3p per kg.

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPort ... ment#P6_70

Sorry to disappoint, but you're going to have to get some more "words" out! VED IS "some form of road tax used to pay for the roads" inasmuch as it goes (as you never tire of trotting-out) into "general taxation" and (as you also never tire of trotting out) roads are paid for out of (can you guess???) YES! "General taxation"!!! The fact that I can't "put an ink mark" on any particular pound coin that I have paid in VED and follow it through the system to see if it's been spent on a road (or, for that matter a cycle path) is utterly irrelevant! Throughout this (and many other) threads you have failed to acknowledge this fact (I suspect wilfully - although I'm beginning to think that might be giving you too much benefit of what little doubt remains)!


And, I daresay, your "barrel bottom scraping machine" is petrol powered too? (and I could well believe you having to put more fuel in that than in your car)! The fact that you're so desperate to dredge up vanishingly trivial anomalies is a pretty telling statement in itself. I'm sure, if you looked hard enough you'd find the odd tramp who has tried drinking it too - and doubtless you'd then point out that he's not paid the booze duty on it! Look, if you really want to waste some time, go and find some credible figures for the amount of petrol used as road fuel on public roads and the amount used in lawn mowers, strimmers, hedge trimmers and the like. If it's more than 50% I'll happily concede this argument there and then. If it's 10%, I'll even apologise for accusing you of dragging vanishingly trivial irrelevances into the argument to try and bolster up your position. If it's 1%, I'll be mildly surprised... (and so on).



So, far from killing the "tax on a tax" argument, you've actually agreed that it's "normal". I'm surprised you haven't proudly stated your massive contribution to the exchequer from the VAT you paid on your last bicycle tyre or brake block! You don't seem to understand that you're going off at a tangent here - the central argument is whether the motorist contributes more to the exchequer than the cyclist (and because you're fond of resorting to pedantry when you're cornered, let's not define "motorist" as "someone with a driving licence" - (just like a "pedestrian" isn't necessarily "someone with feet")!


That was actually in response to one of your earlier statements (again, desperately trying to dig up some "special case" to bolster your failing argument):

So, can I now (at last!) suppose that you CAN now work out how I think we're somehow paying to drive along the road?



"NEXT"! (We're talking about what is OBLIGED to pay here. I paid alcohol duty on a pint last night "out of personal choice" - so what?!)


More conjecture. Get some figures, THEN we'll talk. A quick Interweb search for a reposte to one of your earlier claims (Think it might have been from a "Torygraph" article, so I don't expect you to believe it) quoted a net income of £1.35 BILLION from parking charges round the country. Feel free to come up with your own figures about how much MORE than that is spent by councils up and down the country trying to make motorists' lives that much easier and save them a few bob into the bargain! Even one of the articles YOU quoted earlier in this thread (the guidance to Councils suggesting they offer services like MOTs to generate additional revenue, rather than just hiking up parking charges) is pretty telling in that respect! Oh, and if you DO find any figures, be sure to break it down so that we can see what percentage of that parking income comes from cyclists, won't you?


You need to understand that "not agreeing with you" isn't necessarily the same thing as "not understanding". That aside, as you don't seem (even now!) very sure of my position, YES I DO think that motorists (who are charged most for using the roads) SHOULD have a GREATER say in our public road network than cyclists horse riders or pedestrians (because they, as a group, pay LESS to use it). That seems perfectly fair to me! (Actually, if it WAS perfectly fair, I'd expect motorists to have a bit MORE say in our public network of cycle and bridle paths too - but I'm not a greedy sort of chap...)



No, I'm pretty certain it doesn't apply if it's not used as "road" fuel - and certainly not if you make less than 2500 litres per year.

"4.2.1 Exempt producers/users

If you have produced or used less than 2,500 litres of:
? any biofuel, or
? any other fuel substitute or additive

within the last 12 months, and/or expect to produce or use less than 2,500 litres in the next 12 months, you are an exempt producer and do not need to register with us and account for duty. However, there are simple record keeping requirements, which are described in paragraph 4.9.1.

Production includes the manufacture or processing of road fuel, and the setting aside of any product that has not been charged with duty, with the intention of using it as road fuel."

Nobody is charged to use the roads though.

Some car owners pay VED, which is an emissions tax, which we've discussed, probably doesn't cover the cost of the damage pollution causes. To excise your vehicle in public (it's called vehicle excise duty) you pay a duty, nothing to do with roads.

Fuel duty?

When I fill up my tank I pay fuel duty, a duty on fuel, not a tax to drive on roads.

Car ownership in London is low. It's highly probable many Londoners that don't have a car pay MORE taxes in total than many elsewhere who do.

By your measure somebody who cycles to work who pays more tax than somebody who drives overall should have "more of a say". Utter nonsense, just as it is the other way round.

So, in a debate about transport, you would seriously suggest that your opinion carries more weight than that of somebody who doesn't drive because you pay more taxes than they do?

Nuts.

Oh yawn... round we go again...

OK, just to correct you on something I didn't pull you up on earlier...

...VED is a CO2 emissions-based tax for a MINORITY of vehicles on the roads (and in any case, is absolutely nothing to do with any of the other emissions that come out of a car). Almost all goods vehicles are not taxed on emissions, and neither are older passenger cars. Added to that, you still have to pay it if your car is even PARKED on a public road whether it's emitting any CO2 or not. So if you use the ROAD to park (or drive) your car on and your car (as the vast majority are) is subject to it, you have to pay it. If you want to think of that as "nothing to do with the roads" because it suits your argument, that's fine, but to most sane mortals that would be, as you so eloquently put it, "nuts".

I don't know whether you read my last post, and if you did, whether you were incapable of understanding it or whether you could actually understand it but chose to read it with both fingers in your ears shouting "la-la-la- can't hear you"! Nor do I know if you took the trouble to read the HMRC link that YOU yourself posted, but had you done either, you'd have seen that it is a duty on ROAD fuel (their words, not mine. The clue, as they say, is in the name...) By all means, create your own personal definition that suits your argument if you want, but in the world outside of "Weepy's world", that standpoint would be regarded as (what was the word?) Ah yes, "nuts".


Awwww blessss... I'm playing my smallest violin here... Yes the old assertion that "everyone in London is a millionaire and pays all the tax they're supposed to AND cycles everywhere or uses public transport 'cause they're THAT virtuous"....

Once again, we deal with weasel-words like "probably" which, in this context means "I really haven't a clue but I'm going to say it anyway because it suits my argument".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16235349

TRANSPORT SPENDING PER HEAD

London - £2,731
South-east of England - £792
East Midlands - £311
West Midlands - £269
Yorkshire and Humberside - £201
North-west of England - £134
Eastern England - £43
South-west of England - £19
North-east of England - £5

Tell you what: up your public spending per head (yes, PER HEAD!!!!) on transport by a factor of TWENTY up here in the North West and maybe I'll use public transport a bit more and I'll use my car less. Hopefully, I won't get so conceited as to get on my high horse and start preaching about the evils of the motor car as some down there though! I must say, I always felt the rest of us were getting fleeced subsidising you Londoners but I never knew it was THAT bad! Still, at least I've a fair idea what some of that extra motoring (er, I mean "general" ) taxation that I'm having to pay as a direct result of using my car (but that can't be called "motoring taxation" because Weepy says so) is getting spent on!


Seems perfectly reasonable to me, actually! I notice that when it suits your purpose you're not QUITE so quick to point out that this hypothetical person who pays more tax overall and cycles to work is probably a car owner too Tell you what though. I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is. "YES", I say. Let ALL these people who don't pay motoring taxes but pay more tax overall have "more of a say". Why am I not bothered? Well (a) because it's fair ("no taxation without representation" & all that( and (b) because I'm willing to bet that there are so few of those, their opinion wouldn't make any appreciable difference in the overall scheme of things.



YES. But as I'm such a reasonable person, I'd be willing to modify that so that anyone who pays more tax than me EVEN IF THEY DON'T HAVE A CAR, still gets a say in proportion to what they contribute. Can't say fairer than that now, can I?

Generally if 'someone's' brakes fail somebody is NOT most likely to be seriously injured or killed, that is wrong. It is perfectly possible to drive a car extremely safely without using the brakes at all. It makes you think a very long way ahead of what you are going to do and trains you to anticipate massively.
However if you think that you will cause damage that is another matter, but learning how to drive without using the brakes may give you confidence as to what to do in this potentially scarey event.

When the likes of Halfords encourage bringing in your bike for a check to ensure all is well, and other cycle organisations/stores etc encourage it too, I think that there is a chance that it will be 'more likely' to become mandatory.

After all it only takes a business wo/man to show how much profit and revenue stream that it can create and safety improvements made to help convince government officials that it IS a good idea. Add a simple ID to the bike and then you can add another revenue stream as bikes are then shown up on many CCTV to flouting road traffic rules and as their 'bike chip' passes it will record the bike. The registration of bikes will start and then 'some motorists' will feel happier that now more are all in the same boat .... when really we all need to work together to fight and stop the needless persecution of all road users especially motorised ones as it is disproportionate to any benefit.
Cyclists not using lights make themselves even more vulnerable. It is understandable when motorists get upset, by this as it is a simple sensible essential safety feature and yet many fail to comply. Yet if the bike crashes they may well be the first to complain.
Cyclists running red lights ought to have to take a cycle proficiency test to prove they are safe on the roads before they are 'allowed' back on them, a;though how you can stop anyone is difficult without a gps gadget on the person. Perhaps that is the answer ?

This is all the result of segregating society but the divide and conquer works as instead of working together to rid us all of a failed policy/policies the two (cyclists/motorists) parties attack each other and ignore the real culprit (government/councils/police).

There will be a whole portion of cyclist who do not pay road taxes, along with horse riders and old aged pensioners on scooters too.
There are no figures that I know of as to what percentage this is however so it is 'anyone's guess' as to what they are.

Two bike riders colliding will and does happen. When people make mistakes, no matter what they are in or on, an incident is possible.

Perhaps the real answer is to see a very brave politician to stand up and abolish all car tax and just add that lost revenue onto everyone's tax bill. This way everyone who earns more that the basic minimum then pays to use roads, pavements, buses (via bus lanes!), and so on.

And just to touch on the cyclists are healthier point, no it has been shown that reports promoting cycling deliberating intended NOT to show HOW MUCH cyclists do get hurt and so cost the NHS MORE money.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

That sounds so patronising.

I was posting on here a while back that if you needed to use your brakes too much whilst driving then you're doing something wrong and got a kicking for it.

I drive in a way that means I use my brakes as little as possible, and then if I do only lightly.

However, at some point ALL drivers will need to use their brakes, and if they fail, then that's just not good.

Certainly if brakes weren't checked as part of an MOT we'd be seeing a LOT more crashes due to brake failure or lack of braking power.



Never going to happen.



Motorists are persecuted? Oh please! I don't feel persecuted as a motorist, do you?



Again, I'd be concentrating on motorists running red lights if I were in charge as that's what causes the deaths and injuries, but I bet if I suggested a "GPS Gadget" I'd be roundly criticised.

Registration of cyclists, even scofflaw ones ... not going to happen.




There are no road taxes. There are MOTORING related taxes, VED and fuel tax. These are not road taxes. Why would a cyclist pay a motoring tax when they don't have a motor.

They will pay motoring taxes for their car.



[/quote]

Yup, it's an option. We all benefit from the roads, as is reflected by the fact we all pay for them through general taxation.




They already do.




We all cost the NHS money, your average person that uses a bike regularly as part of a healthy lifestyle costs far less than those that don't.

Well, luckily for us the underlying principle of our democracy is universal suffrage, not working out how much tax is paid and having that dictate how the voices are heard.

Obviously there is an aspect of this in today's society, but the idea is to hunt it down and cut it out, not encourage it.

Yeah!!!! We might be getting somewhere at last! THAT'S BETTER! (none of this guff about lawnmowers and zero-VED cars)!

Remember though, that these are by no means the ONLY "taxes" associated with owning and using a car either!

It was I that originally described VED and fuel tax as "motoring taxes" correcting (you I think) who described them as "road taxes". Nice to see you've come round to my way of thinking.

And sorry, if you mean VAT, then when you buy things like a car, you pay VAT (well, most of us do); what's that got to do with the price of fish?

And if not VAT, What other taxes are related to motoring then?

Zero rated VED cars were absolutely important to mention for those reading that think it's only cyclists or horse riders that don't pay "road tax", and yes people pay fuel duty when they buy petrol for their chainsaw or lawnmower.

Oh, I must have imagined it then - when you said:

No, if you can acknowledge VED and fuel duty as "motoring taxes", I think my work here is done, because the vast majority of revenue thus generated is EXACTLY what they are. If we leave aside your various (vanishingly insignificant) red herrings about lawnmowers, the overwhelming majority of revenue generated by these taxes comes as a result of motorised vehicles being driven on public roads. NONE of it comes as a result of bicycles being ridden on public roads. It goes into "general taxation" and the roads get paid for out of "general taxation", THEREFORE...

...the motorist contributes to the upkeep of the roads.

What's more, as the country spends LESS money on it's roads than it received in "motoring taxation", you have to start wondering about what they spend the surplus on. For all YOU know, ALL the spending on roads comes from "motoring taxation" AS WELL AS it paying for other things.


No, that's wasn't at the top of my list although VAT spent on MOTORs could quite reasonably be regarded as MOTORing taxation! (As could VAT spent on parts and services for cars, for that matter, AND, indeed, the VAT on the fuel duty). Now, I don't know why you should be so keen to deny that VAT paid on motoring expenses is a motoring tax - partly because it patently IS, but also because this gives you your chance to shine! It enables you point out that actually cyclists DO make a contribution towards using the roads (because, as you say, they generally DO pay VAT on their bikes and parts and services to do with bikes). I mean, OK, it's a pretty paltry amount compared to what is contributed by users of motorised transport, but at least you can use it to claim that you're not freeloading! (Well, assuming it exceeds the cost to the public purse of cycling-related benefits, like the provision of cycle lanes, cycle parking and storage, the "bike-to-work" scheme etc etc. Maybe, in fact, I'm doing you a disservice? MAYBE, cyclists are just like motorists in that what they contribute in taxation vastly exceeds what is spent on them?


Well....let me see...

You mean BESIDES VED and fuel duty and VAT on motoring-related expenses?

Well, there's the Insurance premium tax (yes, of course that's payable on ANY kind of insurance premium, but (I think you know what I'm going to say here, don't you?!) If I insure my bike, or my house, or my wife's jewelery, I DON'T regard it as a "motoring tax" because it has nothing to do with "motoring". If, on the other hand, I insure my MOTOR (and let's remember, unlike the cyclist, it's not like I have the choice!), then I DO regard it as MOTORing tax!

Then, of course, there's company CAR tax... (I eagerly await your contrived argument as to why that's not a motoring tax)....

And, if I had the misfortune to live in London, I might have to pay the congestion charge...

Which, brings us neatly to the subject of parking charges...

And it's such a small amount that it's scarcely worth mentioning, but as you're bursting with civic pride at the contribution you make to the exchequer by purchasing road fuel to run your lawn mower on, I may as well mention that there is EVEN a levy on tyre disposal, whenever I replace a car tyre! (although presumably, you're going to tell me that's not a "motoring tax", because ANYONE who bought a car tyre because (say) they wanted to put it on their mantlepiece and admire it until they got fed up of it and then disposed of it, would have to pay it too...).

So, yes, you were quite right, there ARE other taxes related to motoring.



Well, absolutely important for those seeking to downplay the overall contribution to the exchequer made by motorists, at any rate! Now that I've mentioned the London congestion charge, you'll be able to tell me that they don't have to pay that too! As you can see from the above (actually, I probably ought to say "as you SHOULD be able to see from the above, but I've a curious feeling you'll choose not to..."), there are PLENTY of other motoring related taxes besides VED and fuel duty!

VED is a charge based onthe CO" emissions of your vehicle, it's a pollution tax, and you can categorise it as a motoring tax.



You might as well say the motorist contributes to the upkeep of hospitals. There is no link between motoring taxes and road spending.




Again, there is no link between motoring taxes and road spending, so there is no surplus. Even if there was, again, you've totally ignored any other costs motoring brings society, those traffic police ain't free you know, neither are the staff that deal with road crash victims, nor are the effects of noise and pollution on people and buildings.

In short, I believe and there's plenty of figures to show) that motoring is subsidised by society, so make sure you're thanking us taxpayers when you're driving along their roads....




Fixed that for you.



Now your making a non existent link between VAT and road use? Oh dear.



You only needed to stop there, nothing to do with road spending again.




Ooo, you found one other, that a vanishingly small percentage of people pay, well done! It's still not linked to road spending though.



Not a tax.



Not taxes, the clue is in the name. You might like to call it a parking tax, but it's not.



No, important to highlight that cycles are not the only vehicles on the road not paying VED, skewers the argument that people that don't pay "road tax" shouldn't be allowed on the roads (not that "road tax" has anything to do with roads).



Low/no emissions vehicles don't pay the charge.

OH MAKE YOUR MIND UP!!! First you say it's a pollution tax, then you say it's a motoring tax, now you're back to saying it's a CO2 tax...
(incidentally, you're not strictly correct in that, by the way, because you still have to pay it even if you don't use the vehicle - and therefore, produce no CO2). You could call it a "keeping-a-motor-vehicle-on-a-public-road-whether-you-use-it-or-not-tax", if you want to. The amount of which, varies in proportion to it's official CO2 emissions output when used. I call it £6 BILLION a year (2011-22012 figures) of "general taxation" that the government would have to find from somewhere (cyclists, perhaps?! ) if all the vehicles that paid it were taken off the road tomorrow.



Quite right! The motorist probably DOES contribute towards the upkeep of hospitals, purely by virtue of being "a motorist"! What does "the cyclist" contribute, purely by virtue of being "a cyclist"?




Just as YOU have totally ignored the £40 BILLION each year (and that's just VED, fuel duty and VAT on the fuel duty!) of "general taxation" that comes exclusively from "the motorist", by desperately trying to call it something other than "motoring tax" to justify your ludicrous position! You keep claiming that the motorist is subsidised by society, and that there's "plenty of evidence" but so far, all I've seen is your reference to a pretty pathetic Guardian article (itself based on a European study commissioned by the Green party ) that tried to pull the same trick as you - i.e. conveniently ignoring most of the revenue generated from "the motorist" purely because it's not "labelled" as "road tax"! If I'm going to thank anybody, I'd prefer to thank "we" taxpayers because, (to use your argument that cyclists pay income tax too!) (Oh, I think you know what's coming next don't you?!) YES! YOU GUESSED! MOTORISTS PAY INCOME TAX TOO!!!!! (That's AS WELL AS their "motoring taxation", by the way)!



Oh, OK, you've won me over to your side of the argument with your rapier wit, mature, well-researched discourse and hard facts...


Ok, YOU WIN! I take it back, cyclists DO get to use the roads for sweet stuff-all. But hey, don't say I didn't try to be even-handed an accord cyclists the same bite at the cherry! I mean, I tried, I really did, but... yeah... it's a poor attempt. The thing is, I was really struggling to find SOMETHING I could label as a contribution they made towards the roads by virtue of their choice of transport!



Ah yes! The list of "that's-not-a-motoring-tax-because-I've-decided-not-to-call-it-one" revenues. Yes, good plan. Let's take the money, but pretend it's not a motoring tax because otherwise it will be much harder to try and plug our anti-car agenda! What shall we call it then? "motoring-related revenue"? "motoring-related public income"? "general taxation that cyclists don't have to pay"? Because that's the thing isn't it? No matter what name you choose to give it, IT'S STILL THERE and IT STILL COMES FROM MOTORISTS! Mind you, if I have to be grateful to cyclists for ANYTHING, it's the amusing irony that one hurdle road charging is going to have to overcome, it's that unless THEY have to pay it too (at a reduced rate, of course - that would only be fair), they'll have to try even harder to peddle (or maybe that should be "pedal"?!) the myth that "motorists don't pay for the roads"!


Sorry, but where have I ever said that people who don't pay "road tax" shouldn't be allowed on the roads? Wouldn't that rather shoot me in the foot when I'm on my bike? That's never a position I've held, nor am I likely to. MY beef is the mendacious mis-information put out by the anti-car lobby that tries to make ludicrous claims such as "everyone subsidies the motorist" and "cyclists are somehow doing the country a big favour" (when, in fact, if ANY group of road users is lapping-up subsidies, it's cyclists)!


Ah yes...nothing if not predictable! I mention the congestion charge, and you mention a vanishingly small percentage of exempt vehicles. Somehow, that's a valid argument when you make it about the congestion charge, but not when I make it the other way round about company car tax. Poor Boris and all those impoverished Londoners (who "only" get 20 times more spent on their public transport per head than us in the North West)! I'm surprised he still even bothers collecting the congestion charge - I mean, It's "only" averaged about £250 Million a year over the last 10 years!

So, let's sum up taxes surrounding the cost of owning and running a car shall we:

VED (oft mistakenly refferred to as "road tax")- a motoring tax based on the emissions that the vehicle kicks out when used - not ring-fenced for spending on roads
Fuel Duty - not ring-fenced for spending on roads
VAT charged on car and fuel related purchases - not ring-fenced for spending on roads (in the similar way that alcohol tax is not ring-fenced for spending on pubs, or indeed the cost of treating alcohol related problems)
Insurance tax - a tax on insurances, including car insurance - not ring-fenced for spending on roads
Company Car tax - not ring-fenced for spending on roads

Yes, but what's your point? I'd be inclined to add parking charges to that, and maybe some road tolls. Also First Registration tax (if it's a new car), and (if you have the misfortune to live there) the London congestion charge...

Anyway, I'm sure you'll also dismiss these out of hand as "not being ringfenced for spending on roads", but so what? I've never claimed that they ARE ringfenced for spending on roads! The point I'm making is that ALL these are contributions made to the exchequer by motorists - whether they're spent on a road or a hospital or a nuclear submarine or a cycle path is immaterial to me - the fact is, they're NOT contributions that cyclists are obliged to make!

I think this topic highlights the precise point about ensuring your OWN safety is carried out by you taking care by having good consideration/courtesy, observation, attitude/ anticipation/ awareness, space all around you and time for your journey and leaving two seconds between you and the vehicle in front. Had they both applied this then they would not have had an incident.
Authorities have been asked more in the last few weeks about 'how they are going to keep cyclists safer' but frankly they need to say that cyclists need to look out for themselves as all road users have to.
Any cyclists that chooses to ride down the side of a large lorry as they pass a side turning may risk injury, if they have failed to observe positioning and indications of a potentially turning vehicle. They have failed to anticipate this potential action.
Whilst a lorry driver may try to see them the cyclist has to be prepared to take avoiding action.
IMHO anyone to who rides or drives in a manner where they think or believe that others must be responsible for their safety entirely, is potentially incompetent to be on the road.
Perhaps these cyclists who collided were both in the false belief that the other was going to give way? Whilst it may have been a mistake it may also have highlighted this potentially lethal appalling attitude.


They are some inclusion for cycle accidents in the stats but it's hard to estimate the number son the road and that is necessary first to enable to obtain true behaviour patterns and whether things are truly getting better or worse. The car/bike stats are around but we'd need to go check all the data to fully extrude the facts of course before we can really say what 'state' it is or isn't in. Whilst 'we' might not see it frequently it doesn't mean that it is or isn't happening.
Our National Insurance pays for most of our care of course.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Having got the location :
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Gonvil ... 3,,0,24.63
I wonder why they didn't just put in a roundabout ? There seems to be enough room (although I don't know the precise requirements) for a midi one for sure which would remove all the current collection of street furniture.
Curious junction to start a new scheme on ... needs further study.

Reading another article on it here : http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Cambrid ... 102516.htm
It occurs to me that allowing cyclists to head off before everyone else will increase driver frustration and encourage cyclists at other red light areas to jump the lights with greater authority (because they have priority elsewhere). Psychology has not IMO been thoroughly considered with this scheme and it puts cyclists ahead for no real benefit.
I think I'd favour a scheme where cyclists were encouraged not to bunch at the front of traffic bu simply wait as the side of traffic in their own single file 'queue' ... it's something many do and have done for years.
What is this increase in 'allowing' a greater priority to be at the front ? What for? Can't they wait like everyone else ?
When I cycle I tolerate waiting like everyone else. the roads are not raceways for cyclists or anyone else, to get there are fast as possible.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.