Quickly deleted road tax poll doesn't go to plan (+ cycle lane petition); Bernal: I had 95% chance of becoming paraplegic; Wiggoception; Bet your brake pads aren't as worn as Dan Martin's; G's lovely day in 'Tenby' + more on the live blog

bennettkaru wrote:

I'd love to know what Susan means by "More of a priority" 

She had, immediately prior to this, commented along the lines of "Very good article!" on a MSN piece entitled "'Make them pay road levy and insurance!' Fury at 'ridiculous' new rules for cyclists in UK".

Presumably, she thought she was onto a winner. 

I wonder how she feels about EVs, given that they also do not pay VED (and yet add to congestion and wear'n'tear on road surfaces way more than bicycles...).

brooksby wrote:

I wonder how she feels about EVs, given that they also do not pay VED (and yet add to congestion and wear'n'tear on road surfaces way more than bicycles...).

Her profile mentions that she's a long-boat owner/enthusiast so if she lives in a long-boat, she might well not pay council tax and thus contribute to the roads that way (not that who does or does not contribute is in any way relevant).

Personally, I would love paying a bicycle road tax if car owners then had to pay upwards of £10,000 a year to drive around (i.e. taxation proportionate to road damge - 4th power of axle weight).

hawkinspeter wrote:

Her profile mentions that she's a long-boat owner/enthusiast

Yikes - can we expect pillaging raids on popular local cycle routes?

hawkinspeter wrote:

Her profile mentions that she's a long-boat owner/enthusiast

Haha... narrowboat... can't picture Rosie & Jim marauding the coast of the British Isles.

IF we paid a cycle tax (don't want trikes & unicycles to miss out), would we then be able to cause lots of death & carnage, but just claim the sun was in our eyes, or we just happened to be looking the other way & whatever it was came out of nowhere & wasn't in hiviz? (!)

No, that would never happen because if we had a right to cycle (because we have a licence and passed a test and pay tax and are insured and have number plates) every cyclist would know that those were just stories blown wildly out of proportion by angry entitled motorists. Or if that does happen it's only a few criminals doing that - and what has that got to do with me?  That doesn't reflect on my lawful, careful cycling. Oh, well, yes - very rarely people make a mistake. Accidents happen.  You can't be expected to watch out for every squirrel.  Sad, but that child just ran straight out in front of them and there was nothing the poor cyclist could do.

I love my bike wrote:

IF we paid a cycle tax (don't want trikes & unicycles to miss out),....

Quite right. We don't want any TERBs* around here thank you very much....

*Trike Exclusionary Radical Bicyclists

Oi!

2 wheels bad 3 wheels good.

"There have been a number of accusations recently that boaters do not pay Council Tax and so should not benefit from local services. This is incorrect. British Waterways pays the Government a composite levy in respect of Council Tax and Business Rates. This is collected centrally and the income is used to offset general central Government payments to local authorities through the Rate Support Grant. Therefore, anyone who pays a boat licence fee to BW contributes to this composite levy in respect of Council Tax."

Not as direct as cyclists paying council tax towards the local roads maintained by their relevant highways dept.

hirsute wrote:

"There have been a number of accusations recently that boaters do not pay Council Tax and so should not benefit from local services. This is incorrect. British Waterways pays the Government a composite levy in respect of Council Tax and Business Rates. This is collected centrally and the income is used to offset general central Government payments to local authorities through the Rate Support Grant. Therefore, anyone who pays a boat licence fee to BW contributes to this composite levy in respect of Council Tax."

Not as direct as cyclists paying council tax towards the local roads maintained by their relevant highways dept.

Thanks - good to know. I've got nothing against boaters (apart from those that have old polluting diesel generators) and it wouldn't bother me if they didn't contribute to roads. The mouthy ones could do with shutting up on Twitter about cyclists, though.

hirsute wrote:

"There have been a number of accusations recently that boaters do not pay Council Tax and so should not benefit from local services. This is incorrect. British Waterways pays the Government a composite levy in respect of Council Tax and Business Rates. This is collected centrally and the income is used to offset general central Government payments to local authorities through the Rate Support Grant. Therefore, anyone who pays a boat licence fee to BW contributes to this composite levy in respect of Council Tax."

Not as direct as cyclists paying council tax towards the local roads maintained by their relevant highways dept.

apparently about £1200 p.a. for a narrow boat, so comparable to council tax. Of course as this is paid to central government it's questionable how much reaches the correct local authority.

That figure seems to come from here https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/thumbnail/43152-long-term-b...

in which case, some of the fee will be paying for the upkeep of the canals and rivers and not paying for local services. Council Tax is cheap round your way !

hawkinspeter wrote:

brooksby wrote:

I wonder how she feels about EVs, given that they also do not pay VED (and yet add to congestion and wear'n'tear on road surfaces way more than bicycles...).

Her profile mentions that she's a long-boat owner/enthusiast so if she lives in a long-boat, she might well not pay council tax and thus contribute to the roads that way (not that who does or does not contribute is in any way relevant).

Personally, I would love paying a bicycle road tax if car owners then had to pay upwards of £10,000 a year to drive around (i.e. taxation proportionate to road damge - 4th power of axle weight).

I made a similar point to someone on another message board last week, asking what he thought would be the fairest way of taxing my 13kg bike and my neighbours 2,000kg SUV.

His reply, 'the contact patch of your tyre assuming 1" x 2" = 2" and a total weight of 110kgwhen ridden is 55kg per square inch of pressure on the road.

The neighbour's car at 2000kg but with tyres contact are 9"  x 4 = 36" is he equivalent of 55kg per square inch on the road.   You are both doing the same amount of damage to the road".

Kapelmuur wrote:

......

I made a similar point to someone on another message board last week, asking what he thought would be the fairest way of taxing my 13kg bike and my neighbours 2,000kg SUV.

His reply, 'the contact patch of your tyre assuming 1" x 2" = 2" and a total weight of 110kgwhen ridden is 55kg per square inch of pressure on the road.

The neighbour's car at 2000kg but with tyres contact are 9"  x 4 = 36" is he equivalent of 55kg per square inch on the road.   You are both doing the same amount of damage to the road".

Next he'll tell you that people wearing high heels do as much damage the road as an elephant......

Captain Badger wrote:

Next he'll tell you that people wearing high heels do as much damage the road as an elephant......

To be fair, I haven't seen much elephant damage on the roads, so he could be right

The arithmetic may be correct, but it doesn't seem to describe the physics hence the generally accepted 4th power guideline.

hirsute wrote:

The arithmetic may be correct, but it doesn't seem to describe the physics hence the generally accepted 4th power guideline.

Quite. The pressure on the road is equivalent, but we're not talking about that - we're talking about load (aka axle weight), which is of course proportional to the absolute mass of the vehicle.

Even if you accepted the maths, and the idea that the pressure is the sole relevant factor, it leaves out that you're not applying that pressure statically to a single patch - you're applying it to the track of the wheels. Assuming, for simplicity's sake, that both front and back wheels follow the same track, that's one strip of road 1" wide for the bike, and two strips of road 9" wide for the car - therefore the car is 18 times as bad.

hirsute wrote:

The arithmetic may be correct, but it doesn't seem to describe the physics hence the generally accepted 4th power guideline.

Indeed - and it does seem to be the "heavy vehicles" although cars are blurring that line by getting heavier.

Well there's a folk method (I'm sure the only kind many complainants would follow) for them to check.  Go and compare the road surfaces with the cycle path surfaces.  We're looking for cracking, crazing, rutting and waves going across the road.  Bus stops round me are great for this - it looks like someone dropped the bus from above into really wet asphalt.  That's even for roads resurfaced in the last couple of years.

For fairness you'll want to correct for the numbers of bicycles / motor vehicles - but the argument will have either ceased at this point or moved on to "what about...".

Oh - wait - lots of the cycle paths have crap surfaces too.  Did I lose the argument?  Or could this be that they were shoddily built (repurposed footway or former road) or in some cases that motor vehicles still drive on / over them?

chrisonatrike wrote:

Bus stops round me are great for this - it looks like someone dropped the bus from above into really wet asphalt.  That's even for roads resurfaced in the last couple of years.

This damage is more to do with leaking diesel (mainly fuel lines and joints) which acts as a solvent on the tarmac. McGills vehicles over here in Renfrewshire have really stuffed the road at a lot of bus stops. 

Good point!  But but what about all those snot rockets?

Surely they would serve as filling material if sent the right direction 🤢

IANA civil engineer, but (agreeing with you) wouldn’t the pressure of his motor vehicle tyre be repeated multiple times for each press of a cycle tyre on a given patch of road, so it’ll take cycles a lot longer to damage the road to an equal degree? Plus isn’t he neglecting additional forces (pressure = force/area not weight/area) from e.g. bouncing up and down and engine/braking acceleration/deceleration, that are going to be much greater for larger masses?

I wish I had done A level physics but clearly the rotational forces involved are more important that static. More than happy to defer to an engineer though !

Kapelmuur wrote:

 You are both doing the same amount of damage to the road".

Follow up question - can we do an experiment? First I will ride my bicycle over a part of your body, and we will look for damage. Then I will repeat with your car and compare the results.

The static pressure only really matters when stationary. It is the acceleration and braking of vehicles that damage the road surface most (roads are always more worn on the approach to roundabouts, traffic lights etc. because of this).

SimoninSpalding wrote:

Follow up question - can we do an experiment? First I will ride my bicycle over a part of your body, and we will look for damage. Then I will repeat with your car and compare the results.

As long as I can wear a helmet to prevent all damage.

I know people who drive EVs who still bang on about there should be road tax for cyclists, some people just are anti cyclist.

Awavey wrote:

I know people who drive EVs who still bang on about there should be road tax for cyclists, some people just are anti cyclist.

By "some" people you mean all non cyclists?

No, there are plenty of cyclists too who often crop up on those road tax debates who seem to hate other cyclists on the road as much as the non cyclists.

it's just as common if I ride near to MTB centres to be close passed by someone with a bike strapped to their car as it is people just out for a drive in the country.