Jeremy Vine in the news again...

SME

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/lat ... ium=Social

I'm not going to comment one way or another, but...

Jeanne Pipard's comment about road tax....
Isn't it now a Vehicle Excise Duty based on carbon emissions?
I'll try not to f@rt on my next commute!

kingstongraham

Very close to my place of work. There is not really room for two cars and a bike there, so once ahead of her, the only safe place to be is somewhere that would stop her trying to overtake.

SME

KingstonGraham wrote:

Very close to my place of work. There is not really room for two cars and a bike there, so once ahead of her, the only safe place to be is somewhere that would stop her trying to overtake.

Yep, don't look too good room wise. Personally, If the space seems too small for vehicle and myself (on my bike, of course), I'll move out a little to make sure it's too small to try and stop a driver from forcing a dangerous situation - if they do force it I have room to move back.

But the converse is also true - I give way where I can, sometimes even waving them past if I get the feeling they're unsure of what I may do.

Just an observation... Is it just me, or do drivers in the smallest cars seem to need the widest space to overtake?

rick_chasey

If he thinks this is worth sharing he can't be out on his bike all that much :roll:

kingstongraham

Rick Chasey wrote:

If he thinks this is worth sharing he can't be out on his bike all that much :roll:

I thought that too. It would be worth a comment when I got to work if it was me that almost got driven into very slowly, but nothing more.

awavey

Rick Chasey wrote:

If he thinks this is worth sharing he can't be out on his bike all that much :roll:

true, but then I think well is that our fault though for becoming inured to that kind of stuff, maybe we should call it out more, because I know non-cyclists who see that tend to go well thats why we wont ride our bikes in city centres, and the driver who has done that classic use their car to intimidate thing wont have thought there was anything wrong with doing that.

The Rookie

SME wrote:

Jeanne Pipard's comment about road tax....
Isn't it now a Vehicle Excise Duty based on carbon emissions?
I'll try not to f@rt on my next commute!

VED is based on CO2 emissions (Carbon emissions is a rather silly term if you think about it), as cyclists we already pay the same as the owners of the greenest cars (a large number are now below 99 g/km) at £0.

Of course many of us have a car we are paying VED on that stays at home when we are cycling (I pay £295 for mine - if it were the same model a year later it would be £500) despite doing less wear and tear to the roads they still want me to pay VED on my bike that would cost more than all the zero rated band A cars (http://www.nextgreencar.com/car-tax/band/band-a-list/) so lets pick a £22K Lexus CT200h or a £26K Toyota Pius as examples!