

Is there any such thing as 'road tax'? (UK: Cars vs Cyclists) - lucaspiller
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23694438

======
jkldotio
While language is powerful I am not sure it will help, as in Australia calling
it a registration fee, leads to "but you don't pay rego" arguments. It's
particularly silly in Australia as a huge number cyclists are car owners
anyway.

For my part when I moved to a dense European city with clockwork public
transport I gave up cycling and am much more stress free because of it. I
think I'd only return to cycling in areas with proper lanes or separate paths
or a prominent cycling culture (e.g. Denmark or the Netherlands). There is
just too much stress involved with sharing the road with aggressive cars when
there are no separate lanes, particularly when being forced very close to
parked cars where people fling open their doors. The other poster in this
thread saying he's only been "hit only lightly a couple of times" says it all,
even if the stats for serious injury aren't that high it's just in your mind
all the time.

All that's to say nothing of people deliberately coming close and beeping just
to bully, or people double parked sleeping in bike lanes. The one that takes
the cake is probably the person who ran a red in their car, I was waiting for
it and yelled at them, and then deliberately crossed into a cycle lane I was
in and braked heavily to deliberately have me smack into the back of them
sending me over the handlebars and ruining a wheel. Police not taking things
seriously was the main a problem there. If someone had some other huge piece
of machinery that wasn't surrounded with the cultural aspects of a car and
deliberately smacked it into someone they'd be in a court in short order.

While I find Top Gear amusing and will always support sports driving in
designated areas I think self-driving cars can't come soon enough. The process
will accelerate pretty heavily in the countries with poor public transport
infrastructure facing the retirement of the post war boomers as well.

------
jbrooksuk
I'm a keen cyclist myself and have been (very thankfully) hit only lightly a
couple of times, then had awful words shouted at me and one man getting out of
his car to confront me. I always stand my ground in situations like that, but
I felt deeply saddened that this man, this 60+ year old man believes he has
more priority on the road in his big Merc than I do on my bike. I drive too, I
pay my £115 VED yearly and the road is not paid for by the public.

I cycled 150 miles for Cancer Research last year, and thankfully suffered only
one scare (thanks to my own mum), even after having to cycle down a dual
carriage way (on the pavement).

The whole "I pay road tax" is crap, it needs to be sorted. Public
announcement?

~~~
ealexhudson
The "car tax" name isn't much better, not least because motorbikes and lorries
pay it too, and a good number of cars don't. "Road tax" is the better name in
that sense; it's just many people get exempted to some degree.

Based on carbon emissions, which is the main escalator, if bikes were included
they would be fully exempt from the tax. Maybe cyclists (and other exempt
users) should be allowed to get a special green disc for free to show they're
part of the system and to shut these luddites up.

~~~
Shish2k
"Pollution tax"?

~~~
JosephRedfern
"Emissions Tax"

~~~
nicholassmith
At least "Emissions Tax" versus "Vehicle Emissions Tax" works better in coping
with horses.

------
andyking
I don't know if I'm making a big mistake here, but isn't local council tax
used to maintain the roads?

So if I was going to go down the path of "I pay my road tax, therefore I have
more rights on the road than you," I could just as easily say "you're not from
around here, get off MY roads!" Which would just be silly.

~~~
harrytuttle
That is correct.

You can actually sometimes tell when you drive out of a London borough with
good maintenance (Richmond) into one that is crap (Hounslow for example)
without even looking at the signs...

~~~
toble
It's similar for Scotland's rural routes. Some councils don't have the funding
to maintaining their roads properly, so they focus on the important roads. It
can be quite jarring crossing from one area to another.

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scotty79
Funny thing to do would be to actually reintroduce noticeably high road tax on
car owners and channel those funds directly to building bicycle paths.

~~~
tehwalrus
combined costs of Vehicle Excise Duty (car tax) and the extra tax added to
petrol ("gas") is _phenomenal_ in the UK, to the extent that I keep getting
invites to facebook groups of real ordinary non-political people
"campaigning"[1] to have them lowered. Both of these taxes go into central
government funding.

[1] i.e. sitting on facebook being angry together..

------
apierre
While I appreciate Boris'Superhighway, I think driving during rush hours with
dozen of cyclists coming from every way, driving in the middle of the road is
just insane.

I am a very careful driver, I respect cyclists but some of them really think
the road only belongs to them. I sometimes feel I am in a middle of a flock of
birds and that is dangerous.

~~~
rmc
A lot of the time "assertive cycling" (cycling in the middle of the road) is
safer for the cyclist. It means cars are forced to stay behind then. If you
cycle on the side of the road, a car can try to squeeze past you, sometimes at
speed.

People aren't just making these decisions based on thinking "they own the
road", personal safety comes into it too.

~~~
DanBC
Plus, sometimes what drivers consider to be the "middle of the road" is
actually just "avoiding the various drain grates and potholes".

I do agree that there are a large number of road users (pedestrians, cyclists,
car-drivers) who are stupid, selfish, and lousy.

I'd be interested to see research on attitude. Do cyclists suddenly forget
what it's like when they get in a car?

------
alsothings
It's perhaps worth mentioning that there's a pro-cyclist campaign around this
issue that's been going for a few years (full disclosure, I have one of their
jerseys) [http://ipayroadtax.com/](http://ipayroadtax.com/)

------
malbs
In Australia, car registration fees predominantly go towards paying compulsory
insurance which funds common law/no fault motor accident victims.

The roads/infrastructure costs are paid for by fuel taxes.

So really, if people get upset about cyclists' right-to-road access, then they
should also be upset about electric car drivers, and to a lesser extend,
hybrid drivers!

I'm actually curious what will happen when Tesla start selling vehicles in
Australia. These are very heavy vehicles - they will absolutely impact the
roads, yet will be essentially using them "for free" \- no fuel tax being
paid.

~~~
lucaspiller
> common law/no fault motor accident victims

Could you elaborate a bit on that? I haven't heard of such thing in the UK?

~~~
malbs
In Victoria the TAC handles it - "The TAC will pay the reasonable costs of
medical treatment, rehabilitation services, disability services, income
assistance, travel and household support services that you may need as a
result of your injuries from a transport accident."

They also pay out on accident claims - my brother was involved in a multi-
vehicle accident as a passenger in Victoria, sustaining serious head injury
which will impact him for life.

In Tasmania the MAIB handles it - "The Motor Accidents Insurance Board (MAIB)
is a Tasmanian Government Business Enterprise which operates a combined common
law/no fault motor accident scheme for Tasmanians.

The scheme provides medical and income benefits on a no fault basis to persons
injured in motor vehicle accidents whilst enabling access to common law."

For example, my car registration is around $600 aud per year, however only
about $150 is actual registration/administration costs. The rest is a tax that
is paid straight to the MAIB.

------
rikkus
Typical BBC article. It misses the point entirely.

The problems are:

1\. Many motorists drive dangerously.

2\. Many motorists are aggressive towards cyclists.

3\. Many cyclists cycle dangerously.

4\. Number 3 fuels number 2.

All of these combined make it dangerous to be a cyclist. It's the fault of
both groups (note it's only the majority - a minority are careful
drivers/cyclists and non-aggressive).

Changing attitudes is difficult. Segregating the two groups is expensive. I
don't see the situation improving in the near future.

~~~
Swannie
Agreed... I can be an aggressive cyclist, and I say that with pride.

I'm usually slightly more assertive than the norm. However, on the road in the
UK, on a bicycle, you have to be very assertive. If a driver has seriously
risked my life, or that of another cyclist (and in London, it happens all the
time) - you better believe I'm cycling up to the driver side and shouting at
them. The first time my girlfriend saw me doing it, she was extremely
shocked... but damn it, that driver (in a big 4x4) almost knocked her off her
bike in the middle of an extremely busy junction.

Is that productive? I don't think so. But I'm not going to change my
behaviour. If someone walked up to me in the street and threw a punch at my
face, and missed by a few centimeters, I'd hope to have them on the floor in a
second, restrained, and to be perusing assault charges.

~~~
tehwalrus
I practice advanced driving[1] when cycling, which means taking my lane and
making cars move over for me. It helps that I accelerate faster than most cars
out of traffic lights and then tuck in to the left past the junction.

(It works almost all the time, just don't ever try it with a London Taxi,
they'll kill you.)

[1] [http://www.iam.org.uk/](http://www.iam.org.uk/)

~~~
Swannie
Right! Exactly as described in Cyclecraft ([http://www.amazon.com/Cyclecraft-
Skilled-Cycling-Techniques-...](http://www.amazon.com/Cyclecraft-Skilled-
Cycling-Techniques-Adults/dp/0117020516)).

But some people just ignore your good cycling technique. What often happens is
that cars _still insist_ on trying to overtake you navigating junctions when
you take your lane, even when there is a) no where for them to go in front of
you, as you're keeping pace with traffic, b) doing so endangers you safety, as
the pass extremely close, forcing you out of the lane, c) pushes other traffic
out of their correct position, as they straddle two lanes.

I stopped cycling in London regularly because of the sheer number of incidents
like these I'd see - at least one a week, where the car driver just shrugged
and sped off.

------
mrweasel
Denmark changed the term to "Grøn afgift" \- Green Tax. This means that car
owners pay for the polution that they generate, but not for the roads. Roads
are pay though other taxes.

------
maaaats
I hear this often in Norway as well. But I also own a car and pay the same
tax/fees each year as they do, I just choose the bike to and from work. And
still, even if I hadn't the car has no priority.

But while they are arguing, honking and standing in line with their high blood
pressure, I am cruising past them.

------
alexchamberlain
Why not charge cyclists for use of the road too? Simply charge a low fee - say
£5 a year - and all these arguments would go away.

It actually annoys me more that they don't have to have insurance.

~~~
jalada
Why not charge pedestrians for use of the pavement and road crossings?

------
alsothings
I believe this headline is a very clear example of Betteridge's law of
headlines[1], since the answer is 'No'.

I'll also just add that road surface wear and tear is to a significant extent
and function of vehicle weight. If car driver want to yell at people for using
more than their fair share of the road, yell at HGVs.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines)

~~~
quarterto
But in this case, the question mark isn't obfuscating the article's lack of
content.

------
blibble
this argument always stinks of excessive pedantry, yes the budgets aren't ring
fenced, but this doesn't mean fuel using vehicles aren't paying for the roads
that cyclists use.

in 2013 the the treasury expects to collect £26B[1] via fuel duty alone (the
tax motorists pay on petrol/diesel), and the entire transport budget is
£21B[2], so it's accurate to say that the motorist's taxes pay entirely for
the roads (and a good chunk of the trains too).

(note the £26B fuel duty figure doesn't include the 20% VAT motorists also pay
on petrol, and the money from VED)

[1]:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...](https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/221885/budget2013_complete.pdf)
page 103

[2]: same document, page 10

~~~
skrause
[http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/vkw/ivs/oeko...](http://tu-
dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/vkw/ivs/oeko/dateien/The_true_costs_of_cars_EN_20121220.pdf)
suggests that the _total_ cost of cars in the UK are around £50B per year.

Your argument also suggest that all cyclists don't pay taxes at all.

~~~
blibble
that document assigns a future expected value of £30B for damages due to
climate change caused by cars... which to be frank, is a bullshit made up
number.

take that out, and motorists still make a profit for the treasury.

my argument is purely based on receipts from purchase of fuel... if there were
0 motor vehicles on the road, the receipts would be many orders of magnitude
lower.

