Road tax poll

pinno

Just fishing for points of view.

The revenue created could theoretically pay for:

A Cycle paths and cycle path maintenance
B Insurance to cover injury/death
C Court costs - preliminary judicial hearings to ascertain if there is a case. Both sides present their views and to ascertain if there is a case for civil or criminal proceedings
D Compensation/damages to either parties
E Cover police costs

Headhuunter

Not enough is spent on cycling infrastructure at the moment to warrant any kind of taxation to fund it. In general, cycling infrastructure is an afterthought bolted onto roads designed for motorists. Patchy cycle lanes in the gutter, the odd blue sign here and there... Even the cycle superhighways are simply blue paint in the gutter along main roads whose legal status is only "advisory" anyway - meaning buses, motorbikes and car drivers can stray into them when they feel necessary. In fact the cost of administering and collecting tax on bike riders would probably be higher than the actual money spent on cycling...

As for paying for roads, cyclists still make up a tiny minority of road users anyway and the amount of damage that they do to the actual road surface is absolutely minuscule, I'm sure the weather does more damage. 1 HGV probably does more damage than the entire cycling population of the UK....

In any case, many people believe that when all costs are taken into account - pollution damage, damage to road surfaces, cost of expensive infrastructure like motorways and big junctions, delays caused by traffic etc - motorists are in fact heavily subsidised (someone provided a link about this yesterday on a thread somewhere on this site).

So, no, I don't believe that cyclists should pay tax beyond what they already pay...

daviesee

I voted yes, just to be mischievous and to shut up car drivers.

Just like cars it should be based on emissions.
Just like the Prius etc, the amount should be £0.00.

It would be a complete waste of time and money.

junglist_matty

Cars with low emissions are tax free..... Just saying!

Pituophis

But road tax doesn't seem to pay for road maintenace at the moment, so why would they maintain cycle paths?

Headhuunter

Pituophis wrote:

But road tax doesn't seem to pay for road maintenace at the moment, so why would they maintain cycle paths?

"road tax"hasn't paid for roads since 1936 or 37 or whenever it was

airbag

No, because tbh I don't think motorists should pay it either. The last time it made sense was back when it did have a direct connection to road funding, when cars were a luxury for the few and the economic benefits you gain from a mass motorised economy (even if you don't drive yourself) hadn't hit yet.

It doesn't pay for roads, it doesn't encourage you to drive less, or drive better, it's not significant enough to encourage you to abandon a car altogether, it might provide a small incentive to buy a car that does better on the test cycle, but it also provides manufacturers with an incentive to priotise doing well on the cycle over doing well in real life. It does make people feel bitter that they're paying a fairly badly thought-out tax that cyclists aren't.

A point often made is that if you own a car as well as a bike you also pay road tax, so you're doing people a favour by riding your bike. That would also be true if you owned a gas-guzzler for some good reason, and bought an ecobox for when you didn't need whatever attribute the gas-guzzler provides, yet unless your ecobox is band A you'd still have a direct government incentive to sell it and use the gas-guzzler all the time. That's perverse.

sungod

there's no such thing as road tax, it's vehicle emission duty

drivers of low/no emission vehicles pay zero, exactly the same as cyclists would

so effectively we're already taxed on exactly the same basis

Hoopdriver

sungod wrote:

there's no such thing as road tax, it's vehicle emission duty

drivers of low/no emission vehicles pay zero, exactly the same as cyclists would

so effectively we're already taxed on exactly the same basis

Actually it is Vehicle Excise Duty, but is based on emissions.

But you're right, here ain't no road tax...

seanoconn

Hoopdriver wrote:

sungod wrote:

there's no such thing as road tax, it's vehicle emission duty

drivers of low/no emission vehicles pay zero, exactly the same as cyclists would

so effectively we're already taxed on exactly the same basis

Actually it is Vehicle Excise Duty, but is based on emissions.

But you're right, here ain't no road tax...

So what you're saying is this poll is a total balls up and the O.P should be banned immediately?

Daz555

seanoconn wrote:

Hoopdriver wrote:

sungod wrote:

there's no such thing as road tax, it's vehicle emission duty

drivers of low/no emission vehicles pay zero, exactly the same as cyclists would

so effectively we're already taxed on exactly the same basis

Actually it is Vehicle Excise Duty, but is based on emissions.

But you're right, here ain't no road tax...

So what you're saying is this poll is a total balls up and the O.P should be banned immediately?

+1 potato.