- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
London:cyclist in traffic (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpgJenny Jones takes "a different approach" to road tax debate
Congestion, pollution, other people’s ill-health, damage to roads and waiting lists at hospitals or queues at doctor’s surgeries – just some of the areas that cyclists don’t contribute to, says Green Party politician Jenny Jones in a blog post for road.cc.
The London Assembly member, who also sits in the House of Lords after being created a life peer in 2013, was writing in reaction to the storm on Twitter created by Transport for London board member Brian Cooke due to his comments about cyclists and “road tax” – something abolished in the 1930s, as Jones points out.
Her blog post seeks to take “a different approach” to the issue rather than setting out what she describes as “the well-worn rebuttals about how much general taxation pays for roads, how many cyclists are also drivers and how many drivers are exempt from what the motorheads mistakenly still call ‘road tax’.”
In it, she looks at how cyclists benefit society through not contributing to those issues outlines at the start of this article, or at least contribute less than the average person would, how they cities nicer places to live, and how improvements they fight for make roads safer for pedestrians too.
You can read her post here.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- Simon E 1 sec ago
Yes, they look just like the Lezyne Zecto model. My club bought a couple of sets from the LBS for our midweek TTs so if someone turns up without...
- bensynnock 1 hour 32 min ago
Stick it in the road.
- Hirsute 2 hours 31 min ago
If you can't see a %^$&ing large tractor what ^%$£"!*ing hope is there that you will see a cyclist ?...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 49 min ago
Well if you *can* interview the original riders at all surely they worked, at least?...
- David9694 3 hours 18 min ago
Live: Car plunges over wall and lands on beach rocks...
- biking59boomer 3 hours 24 min ago
Looks like yet another bike share service that's going to fold because of selfish idiots.
- quiff 7 hours 28 min ago
Fair point - I was restricting myself to pedal bikes. As I've never spent that kind of money on anything though (mortgage doesn't count), it's kind...
- brooksby 8 hours 31 min ago
And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
- Doug_D 10 hours 7 min ago
Another book suggestion - I can highly recommend "Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons: A Mint Sauce collection" - a beautifully presented...
Add new comment
25 comments
in the scheme of things VED is very small beer though, people make it sound like a lot but for most people on average it is £2 per week
Get rid of the excise licence completely and put it on the price of a litre of petrol. It means the people who use the roads more pay more.
Completely agree. It's the only sensible course of action.
Currently a normal family car that emits 200g/km pays about half the VED than a Ferrari that emits 400g/km does. Yet the average mileage of a family car is 12000 miles a year, the average mileage of a Ferrari is about 2000. I'm not suggesting everyone should have Ferraris but the current system clearly targets people who are perceived to have the money to pay the tax rather than the people who actually produce the emissions, which is pretty crap.
Literally nobody ever has raised road tax with me.
Plenty of other general abuse on the road from motorists, often re. RLJing (not by me, I hasten to add) or, weirdly, aggressive knobheads making dog noises - anyone else had that?! - but never the road tax thing.
Yeah, someone shouted "Where's your dog?" at me as I cycled past them recently. No idea what that's about.
Road.cc writers should proofread their articles. You just need to read them through once, then you would see all the mistakes, and could correct them.
The penultimate paragraph of this article is a particularly shabby piece of work.
As I cyclist I would "love" to pay a road tax if it get motorist off my back (we all know it wouldn't) .
That being said it would have to be directly proportional between bikes and cars. It could be based on engine size or weight of the vehicle (both reasonable ways of determining how much damage a vehicle would do to a road). As a cyclist I would happily pay in the region of £1000 a year for the use of the roads. Putting all vehicles on that kind of sliding scale of taxation would make the average family car in excess of £10,000 year to drive on the roads, hopefully pricing the great unwashed off the roads along with scum bags in their rusting white vans making the roads a much more pleasant place to be.
Perhaps as you got fitter and lost weight you paid less...now that's an incentive.
I'd rather advocate for a financial incentive to ride to work. There are plenty of known benefits from cycle commuting and it's time to put a dollar figure on the savings to society.
We have a hypothocated petrol tax and car registration here which is currently around 67 cents a litre. There's still 2-3 Billion dollars worth of public funds going towards roads out of a total road bill of around 10 Billion (pop 4.4 mil - 2.8 mil cars - average distance driven ~10,000 km per year). http://www.gw.govt.nz/assets/Transport/Regional-transport/Pics/NewFolder...
There's an even simpler route. I point out to my cycle-bashing colleagues that I would be very happy to pay VED on the same basis that they do: As it's emissions based I'd pay nothing, but the administration costs of millions of cyclists would have to go somewhere, logically onto the VED paid by motorists. They soon change their minds then.
As I was being shunted up the back mudguard by an idiot in a black Mercedes Vito taxi this morning (you know who you are) whilst waiting at a red traffic light behind two cars, I thought to myself…wouldn’t it be nice if there was a cycle lane up the left side of the A12 then I could get from London to Colchester in 3 hours rather than the 5 it takes on the back-roads. It is easily wide enough.
Have you reported the taxi driver to his employers?
don't motorways already have a monster cycle lane on the left ?
Well they might as well user it for that given the lack of flow on
some m ways
Why do you call it a "debate"?
It's a simple matter of correcting an inaccuracy.
I'm with you on that. In trying to increase her own visibility on the issue she has in effect turned an erroneous load of tosh into one side of a debate so she could be on the other. In so doing she has actually taken this idiot seriously and given him the status of protagonist in a debate. Cooke is wrong. Just wrong. Taxpayers pay for roads the costs from general taxation and VED or fuel taxes are not hypothecated. More importantly most all adult cyclists are also drivers and income tax payers.
So yes I am a cyclist and I do contribute to congestion and pollution when I am driving my car, but not when I am cycling but I pay for the roads as a taxpayer whether I am walking, running, cycling, riding a horse, riding a motorbike, driving a car or van or lorry or whether I never use them at all.
It would have been far better to make this point than for her to have engaged this Cooke idiot. Because you know what it has more impact. That pedestrian waiting to cross at a junction while most motorists ignore the fact that they should give way to pedestrians at junctions is also paying for the roads.
But what are her views on the helmet debate?
Does Jenny wear a lid? Don't think I've ever seen her under one.
Does it matter in the slightest?
Does Jenny wear a lid? Don't think I've ever seen her under one.
And we don't ride on Motorways.
I would if I could, they are so smooooth.
NO! This is not a helmet debate. Stop that right now. We don't need another off topic slanging match.
They're not actually - motorway road surfaces are actually rougher than normal roads to help reduce spray when wet and to increase grip for braking.
Motorways smooth? i dont think so, maybe in a coach but on a 23mm tyre it would be a juddering misery
Cometh the day when the "cycling party" wins the election those motorways will be ours
