Toronto to REMOVE bike lanes now!

[kenneal - lagger]

Road fund license, vehicle excise duty or road tax was scaled to represent the amount of damage inflicted on the road by the vehicle. It is now supposedly scaled to represent the wider environmental damage so why should a cycle pay anything at all?

[bigjim]

Road fund license, vehicle excise duty or road tax was scaled to represent the amount of damage inflicted on the road by the vehicle. It is now supposedly scaled to represent the wider environmental damage so why should a cycle pay anything at all?

Yep. Low emissions cars like Toyota Priuses and VW Polo Bluemotions, as well as electric cars, fall into the lowest bracket for vehicle excise duty and attract a charge of £0. If you were to force cycles to pay VED as well then logically they would fall into this band so therefore the only effect would be increasing bureaucracy and government workloads for no extra tax take whatsoever. And this would have the effect of putting people off cycling which would be a retrograde step- after all, the more people that cycle, the less transport fuels we would have to import and increases the health benefits for the nation.

Besides, most road maintenance comes from local government coffers out of council tax, with major roads being maintained out of central government funds. All the VED money goes into central government pots and is not ring fenced which means that technically, everyone pays for road maintenance whether they drive or not. And cycles cause far less wear and tear than cars.

I do think it's a good idea for cyclists to undergo some sort of training and to take out insurance and it does my nut in whenever I see cyclists jumping red lights. I almost always obey red lights (I've jumped them on rare occasions when it's been late at night and pissing down with rain).

Cyclists are under no obligation at all to use cycle lanes. Most people on faster road bikes can sustain speeds of 15mph+ which would be too fast for shared use lanes.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

It's a fair point on VED now that it has been acknowledged that it is just a revenue raiser with no actual link to the roads. I'm not entirely sure a cycle would rate as a low carbon vehicle under the current tax rules - you'd have to count the extra calories you need to consume in order to pedal and the extra CO2 you (I) emit while puffing hard up the hills. Still, as it's just a revenue raiser why should there *not* be a nominal charge?

Compulsory registration numbers for cycles would imbue the riders with a sense of being traceable and therefore less likely to break the traffic laws.

Compulsory training would make sure they knew what those laws were before they were let loose. It could even be a step required before you are allowed to take your driving licence.

Licenses would allow the public to be protected from the small minority that cause problems and allow compulsory third party insurance to be enforced.

Bike MoTs would ensure the safety of the bikes and by extension improve the safety of the riders and other road users.

The money raised could be used to promote cycling, fund more proper cycle lanes, road sweepers to keep the verges/edges clean, and allow subsidised training.

Lives would be saved, all road users would be more tolerant and local bike shops would get more trade.

What's to not like?

[DominicJ]

If we can bypass cycles for a moment, what are peoples views on horses?
Should they be licenced, taxed, regulated?

Far more dangerous than a car, yet 14 year old girls can trot along A Roads on bloody Destriers they have piss all control of.

[PS_RalphW]

Roads existed for thousands of years before cars were invented.

They will exist long after oil powered cars have rusted to dust.

Horses have had the right, and were the most practical from of road conveyance, for all of those thousands of years. They will be again.

The vast majority of 14 yo horse riders in this country are 'well brought up' young ladies who are far more responsible road users and in better control of their 'vehicles' than the majority of 17yos who have just passed their driving test.

Of course, there are a few irresponsible ones out there, but they would be the ones to ride without a licence anyway.

[JohnB]

What about taxing pedestrians then? People have been walking on roads even longer than they've ridden horses on them. A road is a travel route, not just a route for cars, and needs to be suitable for all forms of travel.

[DominicJ]

The vast majority of 14 yo horse riders in this country are 'well brought up' young ladies who are far more responsible road users and in better control of their 'vehicles' than the majority of 17yos who have just passed their driving test.

And the vast majority of car drivers are good drivers.

I dont get your point, your comparing "good" horse riders against "bad" car drivers, and claiming to have proven something.

I merely mention it, because when being picked up from the train station last night, I was almost ran over by a girl whos horse was spinning in the middle of the road....

[PS_RalphW]

My point was that roads were built for people , horses and wagons, not cars. Cars were nearly banned because they were so noisy and fast they frightened the horses. They were incompatible with the existing technology. Horses are highly strung animals and the best rider in the world cannot control a spooked horse. Since they are going to be re-introduced as a significant transport mode in the near future, it is important for car drivers to learn to treat them with respect, as most drivers in country areas already know how to do.

And the vast majority of car drivers are good drivers.

And as we all know, almost all drivers are better than average...

[edit]
this is old, but I expect three quarters of these drivers are still on the road
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/503560.stm

[DominicJ]

Ralph
You can train a horse to charge into a hail of bullets and bite a mans face off.
Well trained horses dont "get spooked".

I'm not sure how to expalin this better.
We make drivers undergo hugely expensive training and testing, and yet you cannot lose control of a car for more than a few seconds. Simply slam the breaks on, take the keys out, and its immobile.

An untrained horse and an untrained rider are subject to no training, testing or insurance, yet an untrained horse, once paniced, might need to be shot dead to be brought back under control.

Since they are going to be re-introduced as a significant transport mode in the near future,

Do you have any idea how much a horse costs?
See I'm lookingat the moment, and it appears to be roughly £1000 for a horse, and £50 a week stabling cost.

it is important for car drivers to learn to treat them with respect

Respect should be earnt.

[Ludwig]

Roads existed for thousands of years before cars were invented.

They will exist long after oil powered cars have rusted to dust.

Horses have had the right, and were the most practical from of road conveyance, for all of those thousands of years. They will be again.

That's assuming there's anyone to ride them

[PS_RalphW]

Ralph
You can train a horse to charge into a hail of bullets and bite a mans face off.
Well trained horses dont "get spooked".

I'm not sure how to expalin this better.
We make drivers undergo hugely expensive training and testing, and yet you cannot lose control of a car for more than a few seconds. Simply slam the breaks on, take the keys out, and its immobile.

An untrained horse and an untrained rider are subject to no training, testing or insurance, yet an untrained horse, once paniced, might need to be shot dead to be brought back under control.

Since they are going to be re-introduced as a significant transport mode in the near future,

Do you have any idea how much a horse costs?
See I'm lookingat the moment, and it appears to be roughly £1000 for a horse, and £50 a week stabling cost.

Cheaper than most cars...

I seen police horses spooked.

You can legally pass your driving test having never paid a penny for lessons. Only motor cycle licences require compulsory training.

I seem to remember Toyota paying millions in compensation for cars that crashed after being 'out of control' for tens of miles. More realistically, you cannot have a car out of control for more than a few seconds, because it will collide with other objects on the road.

A car at 60mph will have more kinetic energy than a horse at 30 mph.

There are almost certainly hundreds of thousands of drivers on UK roads who do not have a legal licence to be driving...

Incidentally, I remember from direct experience, that riding a recumbent bicycle is more or less certain to spook a horse. The forward facing pedals going up and down trigger the 'quadruped carnivore galloping towards me' response. I haven't tried it on a police horse.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

On the horse vs car debate people often forget to look at the pre-car accident figures for Victorian London. Streets packed full of horse drawn conveyances are dangerous (Victorian London). No brakes on a horse and naff all grip in the wet.

Then there's the death and disease from all that manure and urine.

Horse riding, like foraging for food, is great so long as it's only you doing it. When everyone else joins in it becomes a disaster.

Incidentally the roads were made for cars, at least metalled roads were.

[mindscience]

I think it's a smarter and more comfortable idea to have the cyclists share the road with specific bike lanes, rather than share the pavement with pedestrians. The reason for this is that despite being slower than cars, they are faster than people and given that pedestrians usually make sudden turns and decisions when walking (as opposed to those travelling in cars, who need to take other drivers in consideration), it imposes dangers on both cyclists and pedestrians themselves. On the other hand, I think it will be ridiculous if they made pedestrians only 'stay in one lane' or not stop suddenly or impose any other rules onto walking.

What I've seen in Coventry and in Berlin is a splitting line on the pavement to separate the cyclist lane from the pedestrian lane, clearly marked. This is a good idea, given that on most sidewalks it is quite unclear which side should the person walk and which side there could be a cyclists, so that might be a good decision for the sharing, if the road is too narrow.

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Brighton sea front has a nice wide foot path with a cycle lane right next to it but separated from the road by a healthy kerb. Various lanes in London also run parallel to the road but are separated by a kerb.

Cars can pull up by the side of the road, never blocking the cycle lane.
Pedestrians can meander with impunity while cyclists breeze through between the both of them.

It's a system that seems to work whereas the bit of paint up the nearside that disappears at every junction is completely pointless.

I am convinced they only exist so politicians can point to them and say stuff like, 'look how green we are! We made 2,000 miles of cycle lane!'.