Possible road tax on cyclists--horses next?

Sounds like a good idea
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cyclists are the most arrogant and lawless of all road users and at the same time expect all sorts of consesions, hope the plan includes insurance and number plate too
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They could add enforcing lights, bells and huge fines for cycling on the pavement! I get so tired of nearly getting cleaned up by some fool whizzing along the pedestrian area or near misses in the car when spotting some lunatic riding in pitch darkness on a road and not having lights or hi viz anywhere in sight.

Coo I do sound anti cyclist don't I! I'm not though, just anti the fools!
 
So much for encouraging sustainable transport!

Lights already are required after dark and cycling on the pavements or over pedestrian crossings has always been illegal. We don't need new laws, we need the current ones properly enforced!

Bells were mandated for road time trialling during the 1950s and 60s. Competitors used to fit them to the seatpin underneath the saddle where it was not possible to reach them. So, they complied with the rules, but stuck 2 fingers up to them at the same time. As a regular cyclist, I would do exactly the same if bells were mandated now!
 
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Don't forget that £100,000's spent on National Cycle Route. If only horseriders were so lucky.

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Most of which are unusable. All my bikes are road bikes and their tyres sink in to the material they surface them with in the wet, and they are shake my teeth out when dry. Another well though-out government scheme!
 
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Don't forget that £100,000's spent on National Cycle Route. If only horseriders were so lucky.

[/ QUOTE ] or perhaps £1000s we have had to spend personaly on new lorry mirrors
so we can see the stupid idiots when they insist on pushing themselves down the blind side of lorrys... the gormless lycra clad twits
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I've long reckoned passports for horses and NED is purely a method for the government to assess how many possible horse owners there are in the UK.
Not only will they be able to track down and pts your horse incase of a virulent sickness, but they can also now find where you live to tax you...
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I think if they want more people to cycle taxing them isn't a good idea. Compulsory insurance is, and I would welcome that for horse riders too.
 
Have to agree with HH all the way.
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All our cycle routes are tarmac and very rarely used by cyclists, car owners tend to park on them or buses use them
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How exactly do they aim to tax kids??
 
Tax just goes in to 1 big bucket and is dished out accordingly. Its another government slight-of-hand to pretend that specific taxes like road fund tax (car tax is something different) and national insurance fund specific things.
 
I'm 100% behind cyclists having liability insurance and some form of identification.

Sadly, as in everything, there are the obnoxious few who know they can act with impunity at present.
 
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Don't forget that £100,000's spent on National Cycle Route. If only horseriders were so lucky.

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Most of which are unusable. All my bikes are road bikes and their tyres sink in to the material they surface them with in the wet, and they are shake my teeth out when dry. Another well though-out government scheme!

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Mine too Halloween. I don't know many cyclists (as in those who cycle regularly to keep fit) who ever use these so-called cycle tracks. IMHO they are actually harmful to road cyclists as certain deluded people think cyclists should only cycle on them so knocking them off the roads is acceptable. They only seem to be of use to the breed of people who get their "exercise" by driving to the car park for a cycle track, meandering around for 30 mins then driving back again.

Ditto cycle paths in this country - follow the Dutch method, or don't bother.

btw I have 3 cars and hence pay 3 sets of road tax, am a higher rate taxpayer and pay CT so I feel entitled to moan.

Perfect 11's - I am neither stupid nor an idiot. Neither am I a lawbreaker. I am a solicitor who cycles and have had a serious accident in which the driver who injured me by crashing into me paid me compensation. The feeling of metal crashing into my body ("I didnae see you") is not one I would care to repeat. I do however like sport and having a fit body. Don't you?

Unfortunatley you get people who break the law in all walks of life. The roads are full of cars with defective lights and tyres, and speeding, dangerous motorists.

Anyway, read on and you will see that the "proposal" is a small comment inserted after consulation and not a serious proposal at all. In fact, having worked in local government, inserting such comments after consulation is really not something that should be done and with it being Scotland, you never know whats coming next, so I suspect this has been accidental-on-purpose and they are seeing what the public reaction to it is. Its done in Switzerland, but income tax is a lot lower in Swizerland (racing bikes are exempt form the reg plate).
 
Cycle lanes alongside normal roads are worse than useless too. The encourage drivers to creep out of side roads in traffic and I have nearly gone across the bonnet of several before. Derby City Council also uses its cycle lanes to store broken glass!
 
I used to be ana avid cyclist and nearly died after i got knocked off my bike on a straight road in daylight while wearing all reflectives, lights just in case. that was 15 years ago. consequently I try very hard to give cyclists due consideration but i have noticed over the last few years that more and more are getting arrogant to the point of being dangerous.
the trouble is that until they can be identified they cannot be held responsible. i was thinking about this a couple of days ago when driving in Bromley. two guys were riding abreast about six foot apart ( so they could chat) with a huge queue behind them on a main road that usually thay could have easily been passed on. They didnt care because at teh moment the law is totally on the side of the cyclist even if they are riding like a nutter. sadly at a set of lights when they parked in the middle of the road so no-one could get past, the person in front of me (who had been held up already for a few minutes) lost his temper and forced past. One bike got pushed over and the rider came off and the car just drove off.
I did stop, the bike was totalled, the rider just a bit briused, but i wasnt sympathetic at all and said so. they were in the process of calling the police and i said i had no intention of being a witness on their behalf, i thought they got what they deserved tbh and was going to tell the law exactly that.
the riders really made me sick, talk about thinking they could own the road.
 
Cyclist round here are a pain in the backside you cant even ride safely on a bridleway. They come whizzing down the bridleways nearly crashing into our horses as they come round blind bends to a screaming braking halt about 3 inches away from my horse's nose. Just because they are off road they ride llike there is noone there.
Bizarrely as I write this on the news is a report about a cyclist that has been killed on a farm track whizzing down a hill and hitting a tractor trailer - very sad but an illustration of what I mean.
 
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does road tax(well car tax) actually pay for the roads upkeep or is it council tax?

If its council tax, why should cyclists have to pay any tax? I thought the reason for car tax was to do with pollution etc?

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It's road tax.
 
I am really shocked by this. Firstly, that someone would think it was EVER ok to cause injury to another person. Yes, they were holding up traffic, which is annoying, but hardly calls for assault. Secondly, as a horse rider, I have had occasion to ride 2 abreast on roads before - while escorting young, skittish horses (who would kick out at cars, hence the equine buffer between the green horse and traffic), while doing ride and lead with a disabled rider, while escorting novice riders. I have been shouted at, had cars honk their horns at me (smart moves, really people...) etc, because they thought I should be riding in single file so they could come past. I was even told I should be riding on the steep sloping grass verge by one particulaly abusive man. Luckily, none of these people decided to ram my horse and I, like they did the cyclist.

Riding 2 abreast is not illegal nor is cycling 2 abreast. It forces cars to pass you as if you were another car, rather than try to sneak by, and so is actually done for safety, especially when there is a younger or nervous cyclist. If cars actually did as suggested, and pass as if passing a car, giving the cyclist plenty of room, then they wouldn't feel the need to ride side by side for their own safety. By the sounds of it, on this stretch of road, cars must normally skim past cyclists, otherwise they would have had no more difficulty passing two.
 
Good for you. I hate bl@@dy cyclists and wish they were all totalled in a ditch. They clog up my road with no consideration for anyone, it is a single file rural rat run which has numerous blind bends and you can be stuck behind them 2 abreast for ever.
 
No wonder horsey people have a reputation for being snooty!

I ride a bike relatively regularly - I can't afford a horse and this is the next best thing for hunting and exploring the countryside. I always try to be courteous when anywhere near horses - slowing down or stopping for them, so as to minimise alarm that might be caused by an orange machine zooming past.

Like many riders I have experienced cretins in their cars who think they own the road come screaming past me too close, perhaps those of us mounted on 4 legs and 2 wheels should be sticking together.
 
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Good for you. I hate bl@@dy cyclists and wish they were all totalled in a ditch. They clog up my road with no consideration for anyone, it is a single file rural rat run which has numerous blind bends and you can be stuck behind them 2 abreast for ever.

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All the more reason you find cyclists on it and cars forced to drive slowly surely - because its a single file rural road, not a motorway! I should think the cyclists are doing everyone a favour. I can't say I have any great wish to rush around rural roads when I'm driving anyway, theres too many potential hazards up ahead.

Look, I freely admit some cyclists can be annoying, and odd, and smug. But there aren't any more law breaking cyclists than law breaking car drivers, and the consequences of breaking the law in a car and hitting someone is an awful lot more serious, thats why they are required to be licensed and so on.

I do think though that comments such as hating cyclists do come across as a bit misinformed. Surely everyone has used a bike for transport at some time and has an interest in keeping reasonably fit, so may use one at some time again. It actually makes me quite embarrassed to be a horse rider to hear people making these kind of comments as even if I wasn't a cyclist and triathlete, I would respect other human being's rights to sharing the planet with me!
 
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does road tax(well car tax) actually pay for the roads upkeep or is it council tax?

If its council tax, why should cyclists have to pay any tax? I thought the reason for car tax was to do with pollution etc?

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It's road tax.

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Just googled it-Vehicle tax, or so direct gov says.

Also found this:

Road tax is a perpetual source of political contention. The majority of adults in the UK are either car owners or regularly use a car or other vehicle, and car tax therefore affects most of us. Furthermore, aside from the standard road tax payable to the DVLA and proved by your tax disc, motorists are also hit by fuel duty, council parking charges, congestion charges, and all manner of other taxes. So Where Does All the Money Go? This is not a particularly easy question to answer. Frequently, tax rises are presented as necessary in order to cover the cost of a related expenditure. For example, the London Congestion Charge was supposed to pay for new upgrades to the Underground network. However, there is really no way of telling whether or not this is the case as all tax income ultimately ends up in one of two places, depending on the tax. DVLA road tax and fuel duty both end up in the coffers of the Exchequer, along with your income tax and companies' corporation tax. Council parking fees, along with the Congestion Charge if you live in London, are paid to the Local Authority, and are topped up by council tax and a subsidy from central government. As can be seen, it is therefore very difficult to detail exactly how your road tax is spent, because it is divvied up in the same was as any other tax. However, there are certain related expenditures that we certainly rely on road tax and fuel tax to pay for. Infrastructure Infrastructure projects are amongst the most important motoring-related expenditures. These include new road building and widening, tunnel construction and so on. These projects are frequently carried out in partnership with a private company, using a system known as a Private Finance Initiative (PFI). There are a number of notable PFI infrastructure projects including, for example, the Skye Bridge. Private Finance Initiatives are a useful tool for the government, as they allow massive new infrastructure projects to take place 'off balance sheet' – that is, the cost of these projects does not contribute to the national debt. PFIs have, however, ground to a halt in recent months as the private sector is finding it increasingly difficult to secure funds to carry out the projects. Local Government Projects Motoring taxes paid to a council are more easily traced to their eventual expenditure, as the projects they pay for tend to be concentrated in a smaller area and therefore more visible to residents. For example, your parking fees might well help pay for extended car park facilities, while your resident's parking permit is probably contributing to road resurfacing or a similar project. As has been mentioned, though, council income is topped up by central government – so,ultimately, you are also paying for these projects and services through your council tax and income tax. Many drivers complain that the costs of driving are unfairly inflated by tax, particularly in the price of petrol. There may be some truth in this; driving is an easily taxable activity, because it is a necessity for many and individuals do not see the cost coming directly from their wage packet. However, it should be remembered that without these taxes both central and local government would find it even more difficult to carry out the infrastructure and repair projects on which a modern society relies.

So if part of car tax does go on the repair of roads than that makes sense considering the weight of cars and the wear they have on the roads.

Cyclists - and horse riders however will contribute very little - if any - wear to the roads. They wont spill oil or fuel,or cause pot holes (although that's road construction faults really). They don't cause traffic jams. They don't require parking spaces. I see it as a tub of butter, why if you have like 1 scrape should you pay the same as someone who is using the whole tub?

So if they did tax cyclists - they cant really justify it being more than about £10-£15 a year.
 
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So if they did tax cyclists - they cant really justify it being more than about £10-£15 a year.

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Which would cost more to collect than it would generate. And that, I suspect, is the aim. The whole paper is to do with a utopian ideal of a left wing independent Scotland, they know the economy is far too heavily dependent on public sector employment to be viable, so what do they do in the short term - think up more public sector jobs! And even the preperation of that paper - who authorised it, who paid for it and who said it was necessary? Total waste of time and money, the whole lot of it. Bikes don't need to be taxed, neither do horseriders. And cardrivers are overtaxed. I have 3 cars and will be getting a horsebox but can only drive 1 at a time. Why can't it be like in Swizerland, where you transfer your tax and insurance disc to the vehicles you are using at the time of use? Also makes it much easier to check you have current road tax and insurance. In fact, why don't they prepare a bloody paper on comparitive methods in other countries of cutting down insurance and road tax avoidance, or would that be too useful?

* rant over *
 
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