Should cyclists in London pay some kind of road tax?

[CalumCookable]

Originally Posted by Ebeneezer_Goode

Because they're lazy and/or unfit.

Ahem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M

[El_Greco]

Originally Posted by NCT

On most London trunk roads that would mean no lanes for general traffic at all since most of these roads are only one up one down most of the time.

London wastes too much space on pointless things like traffic islands, remove those and you gained some space for cycle lanes.

[potto]

Originally Posted by Loathing

Sensible solutions as always DarrrrJoLe.

its been what? nearly 10 years since congestion charging was introduced?

[Bob]

Well really we should tax pedestrians to use the pavements, which are in a shocking state of repair in some cases. How else can we afford to improve the pedestrian realm? This would of course have to be graduated with prams and the disabled in wheelchairs paying more.

What utter nonsense. If only cyclists used the roads they'd have to be resurfaced about once every thousand years.

Cyclists and cars are only fighting because we endlessly adopt the stick rather than carrot approach to everyone. It's classic divide and conquer keeping the politician all important. To tax the cyclist would be yet more stick - you want the basics, pay for it scum.

[spindrift]

Do we really need this sub-Daily Mail ignorance and divisiveness on this forum?

[spindrift]

Octoman.

You are displaying knuckle-dragging levels of stupidity and hatred. In the week that the thirteenth London cyclist this year has died on the roads you are inciting more hatred and more pointless division. Your question is ridiculous, there's no such thing as road tax, and the choices you've supplied are very silly and illogical. People are dying, and you are encouraging the aggression and hatred that leads to them dying.

[ill tonkso]

But you yet again assume it's all the motorists fault.

[eddyk]

Is the poll going the way you wanted it?

[spindrift]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

But you yet again assume it's all the motorists fault.

Where?

[spindrift]

Is the ridiculous "road tax" argument trotted out as an excuse for intimidation and violence against cyclists?

Yes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptXMjJQZP6g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Fyj2GMxgo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vFgkM6CGB0

Octoman, by phrasing the question about whether cyclists should pay a tax that doesn't exist, is encouraging and inciting violence and hatred against people based on nothing more than their mode of transport.

It's absurd.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by spindrift

Is the ridiculous "road tax" argument trotted out as an excuse for intimidation and violence against cyclists?

Yes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptXMjJQZP6g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Fyj2GMxgo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vFgkM6CGB0

Octoman, by phrasing the question about whether cyclists should pay a tax that doesn't exist, is encouraging and inciting violence and hatred against people based on nothing more than their mode of transport.

It's absurd.

well fine - should they pay insurance like other road users in charge of a potentially injury causing or damage inflicting mode of transport - yes.

should they pay the congestion charge - no because they don't lead to congestion.

should they be fined more regularly for cycling on pavements and darting through traffic lights? yes they should be.

[spindrift]

Out of interest, I can't find a single verifiable instance of a cyclist causing an unrecoverable loss. Can you? Cyclists generally don't want to collide with anything because it flipping hurts!

Most household policies include TP liability, mine has £2m. I'm not sure how I could cause £2m worth of damage, but I've got the cover, so has any cyclist with home insurance and any cyclist who's a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club or London Cycling Campaign. I claimed on it once when I collided with a girl on the Eastway cycle path, she got a new bike.

On fines, it may even be that even though cyclists are the safest road user the cops target them disproportionately:

A spokesperson told me that in the past three years City Police issued 12 fixed penalties to motorists for entering ASZs unlawfully.


Yet in the same period it handed out just over 6,000 fixed penalties to cyclists for jumping red lights.

The Met does not separately record the numbers of motorists infringing ASZs, but does record the number of fixed penalties it hands out each year for red light offences as a whole. Since 2008 it has issued about 3,000 fixed penalties annually at the roadside to motorists for these offences. In the same period the number of fixed penalties for cyclists for red light offences has gone up from around 1,000 in 2008, to 1,700 in 2009, to over 3,000 in 2010.

So the figures for cyclists and motorists are now roughly equal.

The Met says that this is "a result of police attempting to make cycling safer in London"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ights-cyclists

There are ten times as many motor vehicles than cyclists, yet they are fined equally for red light jumping. Soft policing, a box-ticking exercise.

But seriously, how can you get to be an adult and able to use a computer and not know how the roads are paid for? If priority is assigned to the higher taxpayer do we all prostate ourselves when someone like Sir Alan Sugar sweeps past in his Roller? It's bonkers. If a cyclist leaves hers car at home and cycles in does she get a refund? Idiotic.

I'd like a safe London where kids can cycle to school without coming to harm, schools that trial joint bike rides of pupils report that the children are wide awake and ready for learning when they arrive.

I'd like meat head white van men who bellow at cyclists:

"Uuurrrggh blllaaaaaahhh road tax!"

to be taken outside and shot.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by spindrift

Out of interest, I can't find a single verifiable instance of a cyclist causing an unrecoverable loss. Can you? Cyclists generally don't want to collide with anything because it flipping hurts!

Most household policies include TP liability, mine has £2m. I'm not sure how I could cause £2m worth of damage, but I've got the cover, so has any cyclist with home insurance and any cyclist who's a member of the Cyclists' Touring Club or London Cycling Campaign. I claimed on it once when I collided with a girl on the Eastway cycle path, she got a new bike.

On fines, it may even be that even though cyclists are the safest road user the cops target them disproportionately:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...ights-cyclists

There are ten times as many motor vehicles than cyclists, yet they are fined equally for red light jumping. Soft policing, a box-ticking exercise.

But seriously, how can you get to be an adult and able to use a computer and not know how the roads are paid for? If priority is assigned to the higher taxpayer do we all prostate ourselves when someone like Sir Alan Sugar sweeps past in his Roller? It's bonkers. If a cyclist leaves hers car at home and cycles in does she get a refund? Idiotic.

I'd like a safe London where kids can cycle to school without coming to harm, schools that trial joint bike rides of pupils report that the children are wide awake and ready for learning when they arrive.

I'd like meat head white van men who bellow at cyclists:

"Uuurrrggh blllaaaaaahhh road tax!"

to be taken outside and shot.

does anyone want to collide with anything? i think that's rather a strange view to take. i'm neither pro nor anti car, but to suggest most drivers would risk losing their licence, liberty, or life, purely for the fun of colliding with someone/thing resulting in unrecoverable loss is idiotic.

i cycled as a child without coming to harm. why do they need to cycle to school anyway? why can't they walk? children who walk are in just as good health, and just as wakened by the fresh air - you don't need expensive studies to point out the obvious that any form of physical activity gets the blood going of a morning.

edit - i've never looked, having no great interest in the subject, but a quick google shows up this story. i imagine mr tuckers family consider his death to be an unrecoverable loss...

Cyclist is jailed for killing by 1861 law
A cyclist was sent to prison for killing a pedestrian – using a law passed in 1861.
Related Tags - Dorset Police Crown Prosecution Service
Darren Hall was jailed for seven months after admitting 'wanton and furious driving causing bodily harm'.

Jail for deadly cyclist
The supermarket worker struck Ronald Turner, 84, after jumping on to a pavement to run a red light.
The law is still used because there is no other appropriate legislation to prosecute cyclists who kill or seriously injure pedestrians.

The legislation is used once or twice a year to prosecute cyclists who kill or injure pedestrians and it 'fitted the bill' in this case, the CPS said.
On average, three pedestrians die each year in Britain in collisions with cyclists. Just ten per cent of those accidents occur on footways.
In 2007, cyclist Peter Messen – who killed a pedestrian while riding on a pavement in Cornwall at 25mph – escaped with 300 hours of community service.

[spindrift]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

i'm neither pro nor anti car, but to suggest most drivers would risk losing their licence, liberty, or life, purely for the fun of colliding with someone/thing resulting in unrecoverable loss is idiotic.

I agree. That's why I didn't say car drivers collide with things "for fun" I merely pointed out that the consequences of a cyclist colliding with something are liable to be more painful than a scratched bumper or dented railing. The natural disincentive cyclists feel toward collisions is because they are not sitting in a ton of steel. Look around you at the streetscape, the dented railings, smashed walls, cyclists didn't cause that damage.

Cycling in London can be dangerous, it's also worth remembering that all the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by a significant factor.

It's low-impact and cardio-vascular so cyclists are fitter, slimmer, and women cyclists develop lovely calf muscles and trim buttocks, sorry, where was I?

Oh, and Zone 3 to Zone 1 on the tube now is £130 a month. A chap I knew cycled his commute from those zones, in all weathers, for 8 years and saved enough money to do a loft conversion and add another bedroom and bathroom to his house!

[spindrift]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

The legislation is used once or twice a year to prosecute cyclists who kill or injure pedestrians and it 'fitted the bill' in this case, the CPS said.
On average, three pedestrians die each year in Britain in collisions with cyclists. Just ten per cent of those accidents occur on footways.
.

Sorry, this is simply not true. I expect the facts will not convince you but here goes.

In London during the period 2001-2005 there were 34,791 pedestrian injuries involving motor vehicles, compared with 331 involving cycles.

The figures for pedestrians being injured by cyclists on pavements was in total 52 over the five year period with no fatalities.

That compares with 2,197 pedestrians injured on pavements by motorists and 17 fatal injuries.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by spindrift

I agree. That's why I didn't say car drivers collide with things "for fun" I merely pointed out that the consequences of a cyclist colliding with something are liable to be more painful than a scratched bumper or dented railing. The natural disincentive cyclists feel toward collisions is because they are not sitting in a ton of steel. Look around you at the streetscape, the dented railings, smashed walls, cyclists didn't cause that damage.

Cycling in London can be dangerous, it's also worth remembering that all the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by a significant factor.

It's low-impact and cardio-vascular so cyclists are fitter, slimmer, and women cyclists develop lovely calf muscles and trim buttocks, sorry, where was I?

Oh, and Zone 3 to Zone 1 on the tube now is £130 a month. A chap I knew cycled his commute from those zones, in all weathers, for 8 years and saved enough money to do a loft conversion and add another bedroom and bathroom to his house!

well we don't have those problems in knightsbridge, and any that occur thanks to alan sugar losing control of his rolls royce are quickly fixed.

i haven't been on a bike since i was at junior school, and am very fit & slim thank you very much.

well that's great, i'm pleased his loft conversion brought him so much joy.

i still say everyone, regardless of their mode of transport, feels a disincentive to collide with things. crashing into railings or paying for a bumper repair results in higher insurance costs or straight unclaimed for repair work.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by spindrift

Sorry, this is simply not true. I expect the facts will not convince you but here goes.

In London during the period 2001-2005 there were 34,791 pedestrian injuries involving motor vehicles, compared with 331 involving cycles.

The figures for pedestrians being injured by cyclists on pavements was in total 52 over the five year period with no fatalities.

That compares with 2,197 pedestrians injured on pavements by motorists and 17 fatal injuries.

it is true - the cases mentioned were in dorset and devon. i'm as blind to life outside of zone 1 as anyone, but dorset and devon are real places where real things happen.

i imagine the majority of those pedestrians injured on pavements were doing things like walking without looking as someone reversed from a drive way. in which case whose fault is it really?

with no context, there is no way to tell. but other than reversing out of driveways, i can't think of any other innocuous way of driving on pavements that would result in such a high figure.

an accident figure high enough to suggest the occurrence of the activity is very commonplace. apart from at the cinema, i don't see many people driving merrily along pavements.

[spindrift]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

well we don't have those problems in knightsbridge

The most recent year's figures I can find are 2004:

Total number of Road Traffic Accidents - over two thousand

Slight injuries - over eighteen hundred

Killed or seriously injured - over two hundred

Nine deaths.

http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/d...ore/chap_6.pdf

[spindrift]

Originally Posted by cosmictanya

i imagine the majority of those pedestrians injured on pavements were doing things like walking without looking as someone reversed from a drive way. in which case whose fault is it really?

Are you serious? A pedestrian gets run over by a car on the pavement and you're blaming the pedestrian?

In summary:

The number of pedestrians killed by cyclists on the footway in the ten years 2000-2009 was three. Average one per 3 1/3 years.

In the five years 2005-2009, 226 people were killed on the footway by motor vehicles, 161 by cars, 65 by other vehicles. Average 45 per year.



Based upon these figures, the danger to pedestrians on the footway is 99.34% from motor-vehicles and 0.66% from cyclists. On average >150 times as many pedestrians were killed on the footway by motor-vehicles as by people riding bicycles.

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopModules...=638&mid=13641

Pavement cyclists can be annoying, they are not a significant feature in the accident rates.

[cosmictanya]

Originally Posted by spindrift

The most recent year's figures I can find are 2004:

Total number of Road Traffic Accidents - over two thousand

Slight injuries - over eighteen hundred

Killed or seriously injured - over two hundred

Nine deaths.

http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/d...ore/chap_6.pdf

well i'm in k&c anyway. it was a joke - about dented railings and smashed up walls.