Live blog: Stop Killing Cyclists to hold major London protest, Jeremy Vine's Psycho encounter, a shockingly close overtake, + more

PRSboy wrote:

Bloody hell that pass is the closest I've seen... to the point I'm not sure the driver even saw the rider and missed him by luck.

Re fuel prices, the price of fuel has gone up by over 30%, so the VAT take has risen. 

It gets on my nerves that the cost of high value EVs (BMW i8 for example, £124k and you get a £2.5k rebate because its a hybrid!) is subsidised by us 'hard working people'.  Why aren't bikes and accessories lower VAT rated?

Its not. The i8 gets nothing because it is over £60k. Theoretically expensive hybrids with very low emissions could get the grant, but in practice there are no cat 1 hybrids of any price and it is only pure EVs.

However, I do agree about VAT on bikes and bike accessories, which would make a huge difference, but equally I can bet most of the savings would be made by people buying £1k+ N+1 bikes rather than cheap commuters, and also I do understand that changing VAT rates is not simple, at least whilst we are in the EU (although I would keep paying a bit more for my bikes if it meant staying in).

John Smith wrote:

PRSboy wrote:

Bloody hell that pass is the closest I've seen... to the point I'm not sure the driver even saw the rider and missed him by luck.

Re fuel prices, the price of fuel has gone up by over 30%, so the VAT take has risen. 

It gets on my nerves that the cost of high value EVs (BMW i8 for example, £124k and you get a £2.5k rebate because its a hybrid!) is subsidised by us 'hard working people'.  Why aren't bikes and accessories lower VAT rated?

 

Its not. The i8 gets nothing because it is over £60k. Theoretically expensive hybrids with very low emissions could get the grant, but in practice there are no cat 1 hybrids of any price and it is only pure EVs.

 

However, I do agree about VAT on bikes and bike accessories, which would make a huge difference, but equally I can bet most of the savings would be made by people buying £1k+ N+1 bikes rather than cheap commuters, and also I do understand that changing VAT rates is not simple, at least whilst we are in the EU (although I would keep paying a bit more for my bikes if it meant staying in).

Ah, you're right... not realised the i8 was excempt.  That said, the Tesla S and the i-Pace get £4,500 rebate as they are cat 1, but are mega money.  Should be a sliding scale or cap based on list price IMO, give a bigger rebate to cheaper EVs where there is a potentially bigger market.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Should have increased it and used the money to subsidise stopping up roads for motors in towns and cities everywhere and converting car parks into covered cycle parking.

yet more fuckwittery from the cons but Labour will do no better and has no cycle/active policy of any note. 

£9 bn a year that has cost the UK economy - £81,000,000,000!

The estimate for the cost to fix all of the UK's potholes is.....£8.9bn

alexb wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Should have increased it and used the money to subsidise stopping up roads for motors in towns and cities everywhere and converting car parks into covered cycle parking.

yet more fuckwittery from the cons but Labour will do no better and has no cycle/active policy of any note. 

£9 bn a year that has cost the UK economy - £81,000,000,000!

The estimate for the cost to fix all of the UK's potholes is.....£8.9b

the state of the roads is utterly disgraceful at the moment. In London, which is supposed to be a global city and stinkingly wealthy, some of them are worse than third world countries that I know - worse even than Blackburn, Lancashire. You could fill Wembley Stadium with these holes.

I have recently started cycling after work to a regular event in North West London. To get there I cycle along Tottenham Court Road, and to get home I have to cycle along Chamberlayne Road, in Kensal Rise. You'd think a fucking aeroplane had crashed onto them, they're so pitted.

And now that the evenings are drawing in they become even more dangerous as the craters are difficult to spot, even with lights, and with traffic all around me I should not be having to concentrate on the road surface while I cycle.

You can bet your life, perhaps literally, that they won't be repaired anytime in the next six months, because of the approach of winter, so they're only going to get worse. God knows what they'll be like in spring if we have a lot of freeze/thaw cycles.

While writing this I've been asking myself, ok moaning is all very well, but what are you going to do about it? So I think I'll spend a day photographing all the potholes with Fix That Hole, and bombard the councils with them. It may not get them fixed, but at least if I'm killed or injured the councils can't turn round and say they weren't aware.