Don't let Lenihan hear this one...

adodsk

Suggestions for a tax on cyclists in my home country...

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/-Government-in-talks-over.5642372.jp

Ministers have denied it'll happen but is it only a matter of time before we have to get taxed and insured????

tunney

I am only too happy to pay a cycling tax and pay for insurance.

However, coupled with this I would be demanding equal access to, and protection, on the roads as other vehicles that use the roads and also pay tax.

RobFowl

If introduced, cyclists might be forced to register cycles with their local authority and pay annual amounts, as motorists do with vehicle excise duty.

Jaesus the boardsies would be screwed if we have to register all the bikes !!

Chips Lovell

Won't happen. It would make little sense for the government to provide tax relief on the purchase of bikes and then tax the use of them.

NeilMcEoigheann

el tonto wrote: »

Won't happen. It would make little sense for the government to provide tax relief on the purchase of bikes and then tax the use of them.

oh thank god my mind is now completely at rest.
although i wonder who would be first to manufacture carbon number plate holders/tax disk holders?
also is it not an incentive to "go green"?

adodsk

like providing child benefit and then taxing it maybe???

ROK ON

Can't happen. One of the guiding principles of tax policy is cost of implementation and collection.
I doubt that this would make fiscal sense in this regard.

Chips Lovell

ROK ON wrote: »

Can't happen. One of the guiding principles of tax policy is cost of implementation and collection.
I doubt that this would make fiscal sense in this regard.

^Good point.

Morgan

I'd be in favour of a pedestrian tax. We could all walk around wearing these:

Chips Lovell

They tattoo your reg number on your head

Beasty

ROK ON wrote: »

Can't happen. One of the guiding principles of tax policy is cost of implementation and collection.
I doubt that this would make fiscal sense in this regard.

Agreed - unlike cars it's impossible to track all bikes sold, and how can you check who's riding what bike and where. Then there's the question of how do you deal with kids - will you need a licence to push a three-wheeler along the pavement?

It's completely impractical, and I would be staggered if this proposal goes any further in Scotland

Captain Havoc

el tonto wrote: »

Won't happen. It would make little sense for the government to provide tax relief on the purchase of bikes and then tax the use of them.

It wouldn't make sense, you have too much faith in politicians. If they were to implement the tax they could use it towards repairing the potholes the cars of potential cyclists create and also inject it into the NHS to pay for the extra attention that is required by unfit people who may have been turned off cycling by the tax.

Captain Havoc

Beasty wrote: »

Agreed - unlike cars it's impossible to track all bikes sold, and how can you check who's riding what bike and where. Then there's the question of how do you deal with kids - will you need a licence to push a three-wheeler along the pavement?

It's completely impractical, and I would be staggered if this proposal goes any further in Scotland

In Switzerland you have to buy a registraton for your bicycle which you stick on. It costs about €5 per year.

-K2-

Their objective is to "ensure that, by 2020, 10 per cent of all journeys in Scotland are by bike".

In order to achieve this they plan on charging people for using a bike. No sense at all.

RobFowl

jerseyeire wrote: »

In Switzerland you have to buy a registraton for your bicycle which you stick on. It costs about €5 per year.

How very un-euro :rolleyes:

blorg

As poster on bikeradar said

They could have put the last sentance first and saved me a minute of my life!

"A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Scottish ministers have no plans to charge cyclists for using the roads in Scotland.""

scamp1

Would people have a problem with this if it meant that Dublin finally got some proper cycle lanes-not wishing to bring up that debate. If the idea of the cycle road tax actually benefited cyclists I think that it would be a good idea.

To implement this, I'm guessing that each bike would have to be registered to an owner. If this could be coupled with a national database of bikes and their owners, and some sort of tracking device like in the UK I could see that it would cut down on theft and also help a lot of owners be reunited with bikes which have been stolen.

So I'd be for this idea, as long as the government didn't decide to try and charge Irish prices for it...

Jawgap

I already pay a tax to use the roads - it's called motor tax and it's the thick end of 600 euros (I've just received my renewal request).

In total the State fleeces motorists for over 5.5billion per year in motoring taxes of which about 800 million is motor tax - the roads budget is about 600 million - when they spend the motor tax on the roads I think they could consider widening the tax net.

It'll never happen though - totally unenforceable - could you imagine running into a checkpoint and having some Garda Plod up-ending your bike to check if the frame number matches your registration document??

Euro_Kraut

jerseyeire wrote: »

In Switzerland you have to buy a registraton for your bicycle which you stick on. It costs about €5 per year.

That true. Its a type of public liability insurance. You similarly need insurance to skiing.

Beasty

scamp1 wrote: »

Would people have a problem with this if it meant that Dublin finally got some proper cycle lanes-not wishing to bring up that debate. If the idea of the cycle road tax actually benefited cyclists I think that it would be a good idea.

To implement this, I'm guessing that each bike would have to be registered to an owner. If this could be coupled with a national database of bikes and their owners, and some sort of tracking device like in the UK I could see that it would cut down on theft and also help a lot of owners be reunited with bikes which have been stolen.

So I'd be for this idea, as long as the government didn't decide to try and charge Irish prices for it...

There are currently (about!) 12 bikes in my household - only 1 of them is regularly on the road, although the kids do occasionally get out also - where do you draw the line on this? It is completely impractical to register all bikes, and even more impractical to collect an annual tax (how many people buy dog licences in this country?). The costs of administering such a scheme would probably be more than the amount collected (that was certainly the case with the UK dog licence scheme before they abloished it)

The only way would be to charge a "bike registration tax" (like VRT!) on new purchases, and encourage even more of us to buy from the UK.

It will not work, and no-one in their right mind would try to introduce such a scheme in this country

blorg

It is unnecessary, unenforceable, at any reasonable rate would cost more to implement than it would raise in revenue, and would deter cycling thus reducing numbers on the road and increasing the danger to those that remain.

So yes, I would have a problem with it.

Such a scheme generally comes from the ignorant "don't even pay road tax" brigade (most commonly in the US, where it tends to crop up on a city by city level but has been defeated in most where proposed) and it has not to the best of my knowledge been successfully implemented anywhere.

Switzerland has a compulsory third-party insurance system, the "Velo-Vignette", where cyclists are insured against damage they cause for €4/year. A sticker goes on the bike.

I have third party insurance myself as a member of a CI club but to be honest the damage caused by cyclists is in aggregate so rare and slight that I would not be in favour of even this on a compulsory basis. Third party insurance is mandatory for motor vehicles because as a simple consequence of the laws of physics they can and do cause massive amounts of damage to third parties on a daily basis.

Jawgap

What about tricycles?

Beasty

... of course, we could then register our bikes in the North, and if stopped put on a broad Northern accent and claim to be "just visiting":D

Beasty

Jawgap wrote: »

What about tricycles?

The charge should be based on the number of wheels, and so tricycles would attract a 50% premium to "proper" bikes:)

RobFowl

Jawgap wrote: »

What about tricycles?

The shame and embarrassment of owning one are payment enough !

Jawgap

Beasty wrote: »

The charge should be based on the number of wheels, and so tricycles would attract a 50% premium to "proper" bikes:)

My thoughts exactly - why should some little fecker get off paying the tax just because he's got Thomas the Tank Engine on his trike????

In fact the tax should apply to anything pedal powered including those "car" things you see toddlers dodging about it (it'll get them used to pay a real motor tax when they're older!!)

It should also apply to KMX's and Green Machines.

Recumbents should be charged double - if you can afford a recumbent you can afford the tax!!

Fixies - should also be taxed at double the going rate because I can't cycle one and begrudge and envy those that can......

Gym bikes - should also be taxed!!

Captain Havoc

Euro_Kraut wrote: »

That true. Its a type of public liability insurance. You similarly need insurance to skiing.

What ever it is, I never paid it

Beasty

Jawgap wrote: »

In fact the tax should apply to anything pedal powered including those "car" things you see toddlers dodging about it (it'll get them used to pay a real motor tax when they're older!!)

Sorry, but I do draw the line at "Noddy" - the little fella would be heartbroken if we had to send it to the scrapyard as part of a tax-avoidance scheme

DualFrontDiscs

Beasty wrote: »

The charge should be based on the number of wheels, and so tricycles would attract a 50% premium to "proper" bikes:)

As long as the charge is then divided by the number of possible concurrent users, I've no problem with that. Three wheels good, two wheels ordinary

DFD.

Lumen

The simple solution is to do away with motor/road taxes altogether.

Everyone uses the roads, directly or indirectly. They're a common resource and should be funded out of general taxation.

If I was forced to choose one sort of meddling nanny state solution over another I might be in favour of a bicycle license (say, for over 16s) with some kind of basic proficiency course like the CBT in the UK (not sure how motorbike licences work over here).

Bunnyhopper

It'd be particularly daft given that cycling could boost the Scottish economy by some £4bn per annum.

Copenhagenize has some discussion of why they reckon "Bike Licences are Stupid" here, and some other interesting comments here.

RobFowl

James Martin thinks they are a good idea :rolleyes:

Lumen

Bunnyhopper wrote: »

Copenhagenize has some discussion of why they reckon "Bike Licences are Stupid" here, and some other interesting comments here.

There seems to be conflating of taxes vs licences in this debate. They're not the same thing.

Also, in those links I find stuff like "All of the common sense above should somehow lead to rewards for cyclists. A city council that builds segregated bike lanes, thereby encouraging citizens to ride, will be spending less on road works and public health.".

So we're back to segregation again.

A common argument seems to be that anything that puts people off cycling is inherently a bad thing. By that argument there should be no laws on compulsory lighting, for instance (I know they're not enforced anyway).

I'm not really in favour of bicycle licences, but it does offer a potential solution to the "idiot cyclist" problem, if one were needed and the will to enforce was there.

Raam

Lumen wrote: »

I'm not really in favour of bicycle licences, but it does offer a potential solution to the "idiot cyclist" problem, if one were needed and the will to enforce was there.

Unfortunately licenses for driving haven't solved the idiot motorist problem. Certainly it makes people somewhat more traceable, but we all see so much stupid stuff on the roads everyday that I can't see a license for cycling making an iota of a difference.

Bunnyhopper

Good point about licences vs taxes, Lumen, but I suppose if they charge you €10 or €20 or whatever for the licence it's hard to tell the difference in practice even if they are different things with different aims in mind.

Lumen wrote: »

So we're back to segregation again.

Yeah, let's not get into that one I think the more general point that a reduction in motor traffic saves on road maintenance seems a reasonable enough one though.

Maybe things that put people off cycling are not inherently bad, but to be avoided unless there's a clear enough justification for it, which there is with compulsory lighting. Then again, who's to say that compulsory use of those dang segregated lanes isn't clearly justified, or that compulsory licensing isn't clearly justified?

I don't favour licences either, but I do agree that doing something about idiot cyclists would be good for all sorts of reasons.

Raam wrote: »

Unfortunately licenses for driving haven't solved the idiot motorist problem. Certainly it makes people somewhat more traceable, but we all see so much stupid stuff on the roads everyday that I can't see a license for cycling making an iota of a difference.

I wonder how many of the idiot cyclists are disqualified drivers A licence does at least give you the possibility of putting someone off the road.

Maybe they could include a cycling proficiency test as part of the process of getting a driving licence (do they do something like that in Germany?) and then you might get a discount on your car insurance if you have a cycling proficiency cert. What about saying that participation in the bike to work scheme is dependent upon your having a cert? I suppose they're all sort-of licensing, but by incentive rather than compulsion.

Raam

I've heard that as it stands you can get points/endoresments on your driving license if you misbehave whilst cycling.

velo.2010

Did anyone hear lastnights FM104 phoneshow. Sounded like Adrian Kennedy was pressing for a campaign for cyclists to pay E100 a year Tax/insurance. Lots of support(apparently) by text.

niceonetom

ROK ON wrote: »

Can't happen. One of the guiding principles of tax policy is cost of implementation and collection.
I doubt that this would make fiscal sense in this regard.

There is a third factor is the "is it worth it?" equation. Are there votes in it?

If the scum that rule us can actually find a popular new tax (:eek:) these days the "is it worth it?" issue will take a back seat to the "can I use this to me make look less of a useless prick?" issue.

The people love having someone to kick, and any phone-in show that allows the type of people who both ring phone-in shows and vote will be enough to tell you that a tax on cyclists might be popular in some key demographics. If some of these noisy eejits had their way we wouldn't be taxed - we'd be sold off for our organs.