Tax, MOT & Insurance

[martynjc1977]

I get the feeling that for one reason or another that the majority of contributors to this thread are against the idea of paying a tax to use the road. Fair enough, but what if the disc was issued free as it is to certain other vehicles?

My biggest issue is at the moment we've got thousands of people riding around on the streets (quite often the busiest streets) and they are totally unaccountable. The riders are trusted to maintain their bikes, trusted to have insurance, trusted not be on a stolen bike! Surely a registration system would protect the cycling community just as much as everyone else?

If you insist on the already cash strapped government shelling out millions if not billions of tax payers money to introduce a free VED disk for every cyclist in the UK then so be it, but where will this money come from?
Cycling is classed as zero emission just like my car, I don't pay VED for that i just have to prove it's insured and maintained. As for insurance I'm covered but thats my choice, if people are daft enough to risk getting sued for everything they have should they be liable, then so be it.

 

[dondare]

Some countries seem to have registration plates on bikes... this is off the 'net, from Sweden (and I've seen them for real in Portugal too)

Not saying it's big or clever, but...

I've known some roadies who get quite hot'n'bothered at the idea of having to attach registration plates to their stripped-down machines.

 

[Foghat]

Foghat, Unfortunately you've completely missed the point of the whole argument as the point of not having 'road tax' is a conceptual one. The problem is 'road tax' seen by people as a tax that is paying for the road, this is a false & the view of VED as a road tax needs to be changed. VED is a licence fee to get access to public roads, one could call it a road access licence, & there are classes of vehicles that are exempt from paying for this licence. The very fact there are vehicles which are VED exempt in its self shows it's not a tax but licence fee.

On the contrary - I haven't missed the point at all. I was addressing the specific fallacy demonstrated in the thread that VED is somehow not a tax on motor vehicles for using the road, and hence a road tax.

The existence of this fallacy, and the attempted promulgation of the niceties and nuances of the legislation to the ignorant masses, are futile diversions from the crux of the matter - which is what you correctly identify as a conceptual one. However, trying to solve the conceptual problem by devising a 'suitable' term for the tax ('tax' being the term extensively used by the government after all, not 'licence') and convey this to the morons who contend that cyclists have fewer road rights on account of not paying road tax is a waste of time - virtually everyone already knows that cyclists are exempt and that the road tax applies to motor vehicles, even the most idiotic, and calling it 'VED' has made no difference to the prevailing attitude towards cyclists. You can call it what you want, but thinking the deployment of semantics is the answer is naïve as the masses will always call it a road tax because that's what it is, whatever else it also happens to be, and whatever the roads funding sources are.

This subject needs approaching more creatively, and getting away from the futile diversions of definitions and semantics which will never achieve anything. It needs a vocal, high-profile campaign to explicitly state that yes, cyclists are exempt from paying road tax on their bikes (which everyone already knows) because it's AN INHERENTLY GOOD THING as is more people cycling (and not drilling on about the technicalities of the legislation or roads funding sources or the utilisation path of road tax revenue, which will make most of the target audience's eyes glaze over in no time), and I would suggest the hot air generated by those futile linguistic diversions would be better spent lobbying the appropriate campaign groups and authorities to incentivise the use of bikes on the basis that, inter alia, one of the benefits is ownership of a road-tax-exempt vehicle permitting free, untaxed (beyond income/council tax) use of the roads.

 

[atbman]

Read
Cyclist licences
http://www.toronto.ca/budget2005/pdf/wes_translicensingcyc.PDF
for a thorough (or thoro) demolition of the arguments for licensing riders/bikes, etc.

 

[slowmotion]

Leave me alone, please. I just want to ride a bike.

It is pretty simple, isn't it?

 

[dondare]

(1) Of course road tax exists.

(2) It exists in that it is part of the general taxation we all pay. Roads are maintained, built, funded by taxation.

So stop your stupid shouting posting and get real. The road system is funded as a result of taxation. Got it now?

It seems to me that (1) contradicts (2).
We do not talk about as Schools Tax or a Defence Tax so why Road Tax?

Because people who use the term believe that it is raised apart from general taxation. [SHOUT]The tax that they are refering to does not exist.[/SHOUT]

 

[swee'pea99]

And none of this has any bearing on the point raised in the OP, to which the only possible answer is a resounding No, on account of anything that discourages cycling is a Really Bad Idea.

 

[mark barker]

We do not talk about as Schools Tax or a Defence Tax so why Road Tax?

WTF!?! If I was required to pay a fee (call it a tax or what ever you choose) that allowed my children to attend school then there would be a school tax. I'm sure you'd call it something else. But there isn't. There is however a tax that is required to be paid to use a vehicle on the road. So its logical to call it a road tax. The tax is nothing to do with vehicles that are not on the road, only those that use the road.

 

[swee'pea99]

*yawn*

 

[dondare]

WTF!?! If I was required to pay a fee (call it a tax or what ever you choose) that allowed my children to attend school then there would be a school tax. I'm sure you'd call it something else. But there isn't. There is however a tax that is required to be paid to use a vehicle on the road. So its logical to call it a road tax. The tax is nothing to do with vehicles that are not on the road, only those that use the road.

User76 is saying that Road Tax exists because a proportion of the money raised through all taxes is spent on roads. I am saying that this is not a valid argument.

VED can be called Road Tax but it is quite different from what people imagine Road Tax to be.
Road Tax, in the form of a fee paid only by motorists which is hypothecated for spending on roads, does not exist.

 

[dondare]

[quote name='swee'pea99']*yawn*[/QUOTE]

Yawn..... now you've got me at it.

 

[dondare]

[quote name='swee'pea99']And none of this has any bearing on the point raised in the OP, to which the only possible answer is a resounding No, on account of anything that discourages cycling is a Really Bad Idea.[/QUOTE]

That as well.

 

[Arch]

Fair enough, but what if the disc was issued free as it is to certain other vehicles?

The problem with that is the cost of the exercise. I saw once, someone worked out that to issue a free disc to all cyclists every year would mean adding a tenner to the cost of the paid for ones - or you have to charge an admin fee to everyone.

So either you can't make it really free, or you penalise others - the latter might be good in some ways, and a good argument against the slackjawed shouty moton, but difficult to get across in the few seconds you generally have to 'correspond' with them.

Do away with VED and slap up fuel, with a decent benefit system to help out those who really do rely on a car, like disabled people. But that'll never happen.

Is there VAT on petrol as well as duty? If so, when VAT goes up, we have an advantage, since our fuel is VAT free (unless you count chocolate biscuits and other luxuries).

 

[philipbh]

[SHOUT]The tax that they are refering to does not exist.[/SHOUT]

You can understand the confusion though

You pay no VED if you make a Statutory Off Road Notification for your vehicle, but do pay VED if you put the car on the road.

So VED = Road Tax (of sorts)

 

[dmoan]

since our fuel is VAT free (unless you count chocolate biscuits and other luxuries).

Change your chocolate biscuits for Jaffa Cakes and you can still enjoy VAT free fuel!