Should Cyclists Pay Road Tax

peterjmaxwell wrote: »

I don't think cyclist's should pay "road tax" but let's say a tax on cyclists was introduced and I paid this tax to use the road, do you think it would change motorist's opinions and that I could cycle about town and take my place as a tax paying road user without fear of maniac drivers with a chip on their shoulder?

I think some motorists need the crutch of "cyclists don't pay road tax so I have more rights than them" as seen by the recent emmaway20 tweets. It'd just be another excuse to treat cyclists as second rate road users.

I pay a very punishing rate of road tax applied to me for no real reason but I don't disrespect cyclists on the road. Emma Way is a F@#%ing twat who should at minimum have her license suspended for a very long time. And I say this as a proud motorist who feels no need to apologise or justify my motoring to anyone.

My innate sense of natural justice tells me that you as a cyclist shouldn't have to be regulated or taxed too much (just enough to prevent egregious lawbreaking like cycling on footpaths and cutting off other road users) but the attitude that I've gotten from some in the cycling fraternity indicates that the same element of common sense should not be returned to motorists.

There is one poster on boards who I am increasingly beginning to believe is representative of the cycling fraternity, who is constantly moaning about how everything is too motorist "centric" and wants new houses to be built to car-hostile designs, wants road laws affecting motorists to be enforced with an iron rod and be continuously more expensive and onerous. Said individual has highly extreme views about speed limits (as just one area) making claims that there is no such thing as safe speeding and that the only reasons a motorist could ever exceed one is through carelessness or recklessness. When I pointed out that this might not always be true, such as grade separated dual carriageways with 30kph (18.5MPH) speed limits or HQDCs with 50kph speed limits, I got the sense that he/she would rather choke than admit his extreme views might have even the slightest caveat, this while constantly downplaying lawbreaking by cyclists and pedestrians.

It should come as no surprise that said individual was on this thread in the cycling forum, bitched and moaned bitterly and like the crazy fundamentalist that he is about the misuse of the term "Road Tax." In the same thread he also (hypocritcially) accused motorists of having a sense of entitlement and believing that motorists think cyclists use the roads at the pleasure of motorists (When it's clear that the only sense of entitlement is his and he thinks that motorists should only be allowed to use the roads ad the pleasure of cyclist fruitcakes like him).

Knowing that cyclists harbour such burning deep seated hatred for motorists means I have to maintain every bit of my humanity not, in turn, to become hateful of and abusive towards cyclists, and fortunately I am quite successful at this, for the most part. I still feel somewhere deep down that it is possible to make road policy and infrastructure that works for everyone, public transport, cyclists, pedestrians and motorists, equally well. But the more I hear from cyclists the more I'm beginning to think that it's a binary choice between making things easier for cyclists and easier for motorists. Though physically and logistically it should be possible to do both, the "us-and-them" mentality of anti car extremists makes this impossible by policy.

Nowadays I like to use the term ROAD TAX just to piss of crazy cycling fanatics. I don't care if it's not the proper legal term, it's a tax a lot of us have to pay to use the roads (depsite as little as 1/3 of it going to roads)

ROAD TAX, ROAD TAX, ROAD TAX, pay some f***ing ROAD TAX!!! :P