Updated: "Oi! Cyclist! Get off the road!" DfT report highlights anti-cycling attitudes

PAVEMENT TAX and PEDESTRIANS
What i would like to know is this. If drivers think they pay for roads and the right to use them, who do they think pays PAVEMENT TAX? and why don't pedestrians walk around with Pavement Tax discs on their foreheads?

I'm not keen on compulsory cycling proficiency, but like the Dutch idea that cycling is taught at school, so that it's just second nature to most.

Compared to bikes, motor vehicles are dangerous, dirty, noisy, polluting, use up non-replaceable fossil fuel and promote physical ill health as well as unhealthy, nasty states of mind in drivers. And damage the road surface, which bikes don't.

I look forward to the day when some kind of GPS tracking device is fitted as standard to all vehicles, and a tax bill issued according to the amount of damage caused, a tax which takes into account the size of the vehicle and the miles covered. If this included bikes, their owners would receive a payment rather than making one, as a good proportion of clean bike mileage will be replacing dirty damaging dangerous car mileage. I have read that cyclists actually leave the air cleaner, using their lungs as an air filtration system. Whether or not bikes were registered for such a scheme should of course be voluntary. It's the only fair way.

I don't like compulsory cycling proficiency. My 3 year old cycles (with stabilisers) but wouldn't be able to pass any test. I'm not sure my 6 year old could have done last year when she was cycling on the roads (with me).

Now a statement in the Highway code to the effect that cycles have a right to be on the road and cars do not (unless they have paid VED )[assuming that that is legally correct] might clarify things. After all people might have to know that to pass their driving test.

I think you make some good points weavil though I can't agree that cycling proficiency should be compulsory. I see cycling as much closer to walking or running than it is to driving a car. And you wouldn't test runners.

I recently got knocked off my bike. The driver was shaken up and kept on repeating how she hadn't seen me. The police have decided to offer her a Driver Awareness Course which is a good idea but a bit too late for me and my broken bike. Maybe this is something that should be implemented as a regular re-test rather than an "ooops you've had an accident, let's try and make it better" approach.

I like the idea of people having to re-take their driving test on a regular basis - similar to Australia. I think we have all become complacent and are unaware of how absent minded we are whilst sat behind the wheel of a car. Those that don't need to use their cars so much would have to weigh up whether it is worth the additional expense to keep re-newing their licence or whether public transport is the better option. The extra revenue generated would go to the government to spend as they wish (hopefully not wholly on expenses... my cynical side!) but maybe on the horrendous state of our public highways and public transport system.

I also believe that cycling proficiency needs to be compulsary. You can't enforce one rule for one side without upholding the same standard to the other. Should cycle insurance be compulsary too?

Maybe I'm way off the mark but all road users need to accept responsibility for their actions. I believe awareness of each other is key to commuting in harmony.

i think your picture in the heading is rather daft dont you? i am a driver and find cyclists incredibly dangerous. my own husband insists on listening to his ipod when he cycles, yet he cant hear me shout from behind him. he is thrilled when he reaches 20 mph and i spend my day avoiding cyclists who are jumping kerbs, using the pavement, ignoring signals and junctions, signalling with a little finger, cos thats visible isnt it! and on the phone. as my family all cycle i am patient but the general behaviour of cyclists is appalling, certainly in central london.

John_the_Monkey wrote:

I'm conscious that a degree of hairsplitting is going on here, but the tax is to own a vehicle, emitting CO2 at a particular level that *could* be used on the roads.

Leave the thing out front of the house all day (as we do with our increasingly elderly Astra most days) and you pay the same as the plumber driving all over, every day, in the same model.

But if you leave it on your private drive you dont have to pay as you can do a SORN, therefore its not a cost of owning a car its a cost of using/leaving a car on public roads. Everything about the system apart from the name tells drivers its a tax on using the roads, so you have to understand why its so hard to argue against.

The local council provides many services i pay for and dont use, schools, librarys etc. (infact you could say drivers pay for and dont use footpaths ) but I pay council tax because i live in the area, not because i choose to use some of the services. This does not compare to VED, which only taxes the user if they take the car onto public roads.

Sorry if this sounds like im arguing, im not (intentionally) trying to stir. I just think these arguments need to be seen from the drivers point of view, and cycling drivers are biased so you dont count

Rich. Non-driving, non-car owning, 100%cyclist.

I'm conscious that a degree of hairsplitting is going on here, but the tax is to own a vehicle, emitting CO2 at a particular level that *could* be used on the roads.

Leave the thing out front of the house all day (as we do with our increasingly elderly Astra most days) and you pay the same as the plumber driving all over, every day, in the same model.

Personally, I think the only logical outcome is roadside audits. In the event of a dispute over who owns the road, whomever pays most tax gets to whack the other party with a frame pump/tyre iron. (Do remember to pack your P60 though).

What Dave said.

Quote:

to drive a car on the road it needs to be taxed, ergo, its still a road tax

it *isn't* a road tax because it *isn't* ringfenced for the roads. it's just tax, the government can spend it on whatever they like.

the point is that paying a 'road tax' gives you a sense of ownership over the roads, the logical extension of the argument being that those that don't pay the 'road tax' aren't entitled to be there. that's me, on my bike, in spite of the fact that survey after survey shows that cyclists are higher than average earners with higher than average car ownership; ergo, we pay more for the roads.

I still dont get this...

"said advertisers still call VED road tax, perpetrating over and over the myth that motorists pay for the right to use the roads."

But they do dont they, call it VED or whatever you like but to drive a car on the road it needs to be taxed, ergo, its still a road tax. I can buy a car and leave it running 24/7 on private land and dont need to pay tax, so its not really an emmissions tax is it?

Of course there is still the problem that drivers think this gives them more rights than others, which is what really needs to be addressed.

I'm curious when this negative attitude towards cyclists by certain motorists actually appeared. There certainly wasn't such an attitude when I first started commuting in London by bicycle 20 years ago, and I'd already been riding in traffic in my home city some years prior to that. Certain TV personalities, and Jeremy Clarkson in particular, have been pretty vocal in blaring out their dislike of cyclists in recent years. The question is, did this growing dislike of cyclists predate Clarkson's comments and was he just a mouthpiece, or did they originate with him? One thing that I think is noticeable is that people who are anti-cyclist do conform to certain stereotypes, with few appearing fit and many being smokers. I'd be interested if anyone else has observed similar.

"Let's be honest. We all like speed. Speed = efficiency = success. It's the primitive base rock of all car advertising. So anything that interrupts that efficiency creates huge anxiety. "

It doesn't though, does it?

The thing that interrupts efficiency most often is other idiots[1] in cars - case in point being Oxford Road in Manchester this week, where traffic is at a virtual standstill from 4pm to 5pm most days. Drivers can get away with bullying cyclists though, so they do.

Fundamentally, a different attitude to so called road rage, and traffic offences generally is needed - beyond that, an understanding of how traffic flows (how many cretins roar past to stand at a red light/queue of traffic on your commute?)

As for those saying "Yeah, but cyclists are bad too" point taken, but poor cyclists in general endanger themselves rather than others, the reverse being true of the poor motorist. I'd argue that it makes more sense, with limited resources, to focus on the latter.

[1] Yes, this is judgemental. but why would you choose to sit in traffic for an hour everyday (assuming you don't have heavy tools to carry, and aren't physically infirm) and then bleat that other people are holding you up? I despair.

"A contributor called cjc119 added: "If Mr Abraham had taken up cycling at a younger age he wouldn't be the ill-informed, fat bag of wind he is today.""

brillant!.

that my new best insult that is.

Ive had this 'conversation' with drivers before, those who shout that I should be wearing hi viz. I shout back that I dont see any cars or houses painted in hi-viz colours and they seem to be able to avoid them quite well. They dont know how to respond without shouting abuse after that.

I note that page 11 of the report suggests that high vis could be "incorporated into a programme to promote better road sharing". Watch out folks - it could become compulsory for us to dress in high vis to allow motorists to carry on speeding in safety!

Let's be honest. We all like speed. Speed = efficiency = success. It's the primitive base rock of all car advertising. So anything that interrupts that efficiency creates huge anxiety. Every time drivers meet cyclists on the road it's an affront to both their efficiency and their self worth. That cyclists are in good health and sometimes travelling faster than the car driver doesn't help either.

I feel like having a bib vest which says "Relax"on the back with a nice big smiley face on it: maybe even "Relax Don't do it" if it refers to overtaking on blind bends...

Still waiting for us chimps not to like speed and the feelings of self importance driving gives us but that isn't going to happen. Can't wait for the 20mph speed limit.

The whole report is predicated on the assumption - proved amply wrong in the Netherlands and Denmark - that it's best to have cyclists share the roads with cars. Until there's a genuine value judgement made by the DfT of a car journey versus a bicycle (or pedestrian) journey, we'll be stuck in our car-obsessed society.

Most traffic delays in any industrialized country are caused by automobiles.

Not only are there not as many cyclists as there are drivers contributing to traffic jams at intersections, but often it is possible and legal for cyclists to operate alongside cars, allowing cars to pass slower bicyclists and vice versa, so that they aren't really inconveniencing each other. The only time a cyclist usually blocks a driver, unless he is just being stupid, is when dodging out to go around some hazard like a pothole, broken glass, or to take the lane when the street is too narrow to be passed safely -- all things that are directly caused by drivers not cyclists. Seriously, how many 20-lb bicycles cause potholes? Compared to 2 ton cars?

Most people are not evil, but many noncycling drivers ARE ignorant, and are therefore the last people who should be listened to when compiling reports of road situations. You might as well ask a perosn who never passed childhood math classes to evaluate an economic trend, or a laymen to direct a brain surgery.

My experience is that most people are rude, ignorant, unpleasant and inconsiderate, despite their chosen mode of transport.