Comments on: Should Cyclists Pay Road Tax?

By: Delspletive elited

Delspletive elited — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 21:27:39 +0000

Most cyclists should most certainly not pay road tax as they only use a tiny fraction of the road.

However, sanctimonious c*nts with shaved legs, lycra shorts, £1000 racers and yellow sunglasses with their nasty little bottoms stuck up in the air while toiling up a 2 mile long hill bang in the middle of the road with a mile-long tailback of frustrated motorists behind them should definately pay road tax as they appear to think that they need as much road as a car.

The road is for transport, not for people to practice their sport on for free. If these people even pulled over every 5 minutes to let all the motorists past, cyclists would have a much better name and get less flak from motorists. Being a cyclist and a motorcyclist and a car driver, I know what gets my back up. I know the kind of motorcyclists that give us bikers a bad name too, and they are just as bad, using the road as a racetrack.

If you fit the above description (and I am sure that many of you do), why not f*ck off to a velodrome and I’ll f*ck off to a track day on my motorbike. In fact I’d better just f*ck off. Probably.

By: Give Cyclists Room | Cycling UK

Give Cyclists Room | Cycling UK — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:14:29 +0000

[...] Would you overtake a pedestrian at 40mph with a foot to spare? Do pedestrians pay road tax? Do pedestrians wear a helmet? (Should cyclists pay road tax?) [...]

By: Vicky

Vicky — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 15:00:17 +0000

I work in engineering and sometimes on behalf of the council. we spend many hours designing and building cycleway to be use by cyclist only not cars or horses or any other vehicle, yet i am pay for them. why should the cyclists be the only ones who contribute to the maintaining of a facility that they are going to use. i pay to use the road effectively with my road tax.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:34:47 +0000

what if you just cycle in the summer months and the cycle is left in a garage around 10 months of the year..Is it fair to charge tax on this ?……….. It would never work…I know people who cycle maybe 3 times a year…how on earth could you maintain a tax system on that?

Most of my cycling is done on tracks and specialized routes avoiding roads as much as possible….. I own both a car and a bike and to consider tax on such a environmentally friendly machine…well…….ridiculous!

By: Kevin Steinhardt

Kevin Steinhardt — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:25:08 +0000

‘Road tax’ doesn’t exist. Road building and maintenance is paid for by general taxation and in the case of most roads, that taxation is council tax. VED (vehicle exise duty; your tax disc) and fuel duty go into the finances of the Treasury; you could say that duty on cigarettes, &c. pays for our roads.

By: mattoid

mattoid — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:25:29 +0000

It’s so funny, whenever you hear this argument just how much you motorists whine about you wonderful cars.
Get out of your biscuit tin and get on a bike. You’ll be so much happier.

By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:40:04 +0000

@paul bennett

WRONG

Non-Motorists pay more since they are subsidising the cost of Motorists (30p mile/£40 year are usually mentioned.

This is because VED pays for the emissions monitoring and not the roads. VED could never ever afford to pay for the road maintenance.

Road building/maintenance is paid for out of all taxes, VAT, Council Tax etc… so we all pay for them, even if we don’t use a car/the roads.

And how much more does it cost to build infrastructure for a car vs for a cyclist… 1000000x more (okay, exaggeration).

Remember, you pay this because you agreed to it and signed your life away when you got your driving licence.

@realist
I disagree that cyclists should, but I can understand the arguments for not bothering to have a “tax” system for cars.
Although VED is for monitoring emissions and various things, I rather keep it. If you can afford to “waste” money on a huge engine, quite honestly you should be able to afford the higher VED rates.
It also makes it easy for the police to find the type of people that avoid paying it, since someone that hasn’t paid it, probably doesn’t have insurance or an MOT either.

By: realist

realist — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:38:16 +0000

If cyclists use the roads either they should pay road tax OR road tax should be scrapped for cars as well given that practically NONE of the extortionate amounts raised is even spent on the roads.

By: adele

adele — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:04:38 +0000

Would you like this to apply to horse riders, dog walkers and hikers as well then?

By: paul bennett

paul bennett — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:28:21 +0000

Aren’t we forgetting that the roads that cyclist’s use for nothing are paid for from a fraction of the money raised from the pockets of car drivers of this country?