adds21
Rider of bikes
- Location
- North Somerset
...And don't get me started on those freeloading school children. Having the cheek to learn at the school *I* pay for. Bet none of them have ever paid a penny in tax. Scroungers, the lot of them.
time to p*** off the motorists again
- Thread starter rowan 46
- Start date
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...And don't get me started on those freeloading school children. Having the cheek to learn at the school *I* pay for. Bet none of them have ever paid a penny in tax. Scroungers, the lot of them.
gaz
Cycle Camera TV
- Location
- South Croydon
Your argument is like stating that we can't live without smokers because they generate so much tax. It is of course bollocks because they generate costs!
I'll add that I will happy pay VED for my bicycle. Oh wait I already do.
ian turner
Guru
- Location
- Leicestershire
The mark up on soft drinks in pubs makes fuel duty pale into insignificance, get off my stool wife beater !!!
I think the OP is quite right about motorists getting complacent. I think we all do from time to time.
I see it in drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Nonetheless, I quite like the current system. It seems to work reasonably well.
I've been hurling my children onto bicycles and encouraging them to ride along sweeping, fast, rural A-Roads since they were tag-along age. They were out there in rain, shine and sleet.
They are now 12, 15 and 18 and all remain extant. All still ride for pleasure on those very same roads.
These roads are populated by vehicles of between one and forty-ish tonnes, travelling at between 50 and 90 mph with only a human being in charge of speed, direction and road position. Human frailty being what it is, I think that as a wider road-using community we do OK.
I am regularly staggered not by the carnage on UK roads, but by how few incidents and collisions there are in a system of shared-use infrastructure that would never get off the back of an envelope if designed from scratch today.
I've been bumped off my bicycle many times and absolutely walloped for six in car and on motorbike... but I glory in the barminess of it.
One test at seventeen* and then only money and good sense stand between you and 500 bhp. That's part of the romance of life, isn't it?
Even better, cyclists can propel themselves into that Rollerball nightmare without even passing a test or an assessment.
(* I refer to the test in place when I was 17)
I see it in drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Nonetheless, I quite like the current system. It seems to work reasonably well.
I've been hurling my children onto bicycles and encouraging them to ride along sweeping, fast, rural A-Roads since they were tag-along age. They were out there in rain, shine and sleet.
They are now 12, 15 and 18 and all remain extant. All still ride for pleasure on those very same roads.
These roads are populated by vehicles of between one and forty-ish tonnes, travelling at between 50 and 90 mph with only a human being in charge of speed, direction and road position. Human frailty being what it is, I think that as a wider road-using community we do OK.
I am regularly staggered not by the carnage on UK roads, but by how few incidents and collisions there are in a system of shared-use infrastructure that would never get off the back of an envelope if designed from scratch today.
I've been bumped off my bicycle many times and absolutely walloped for six in car and on motorbike... but I glory in the barminess of it.
One test at seventeen* and then only money and good sense stand between you and 500 bhp. That's part of the romance of life, isn't it?
Even better, cyclists can propel themselves into that Rollerball nightmare without even passing a test or an assessment.
(* I refer to the test in place when I was 17)
John the Monkey
Frivolous Cyclist
- Location
- Crewe
And you lot, walking between the streetlights *I* pay for, when I hardly EVER go out at nights. I'd put a coin meter on 'em. 5p a light, just enough time for you to walk briskly to the next one. (c) Mark Steele
ian turner
Guru
- Location
- Leicestershire
Can't do that. Health and safety and the possibility of litigation.
A private healthcare provider carried out research about twenty years ago into whole-life healthcare costs for smokers and non-smokers.
Oddly, the cost for smokers was lower, as they generally miss out that bit of life near the end where costs are higher because of the frequent need for constant care.
Although smokers do get ill, they have a habit of getting very ill and dying (COPD, heart disease and various cancers).
I was amazed at the findings, but whenever I mention them a doctor nods sagely and says it is so.
I'd like to add, however, that as a former smoker I've paid all the taxes needed to care for me after the serious accident I'll inevitably had while cycling to regain my fitness after quitting. So there!
John the Monkey
Frivolous Cyclist
- Location
- Crewe
This is the Clarkson position, as I recall, that 3,000 or so deaths a year is something to be pleased with.
I think the "few" incidents arise at least partly from;
1) The motor car has largely bullied all but the brave, skilful or foolhardy from the roads.
2) The motorist has become increasingly well protected by their vehicle
3) A degree of "herd immunity" in which the careful compensate for people on their phones, reading books &c at the wheel. (Punishments for the latter being risible, and there being no sense that this is dangerous behaviour in the way that, say, drink driving is perceived to be).
4) "Forgiving" road design
Um no I think you y are wrong seeing as Asphault is the name given to the binding agent used to secure the aggregate in Asphault concrete which is one of many things that can be used to build roads including Tarmac.
You also have very bad taste on cars.
I am really not using semantics as a synonym for facts. HTH
OP
OP
rowan 46
Über Member
- Location
- birmingham
Annual revenue 2009/10 £8.779 billion (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_receipts/table1-2.pdf)
Cost to nhs £5.2 billion (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5478135/Smoking-costs-the-NHS-more-than-5bn.html)
and of course smokers don't live so long so pensions don't have to be paid for so long. however taking the purely economic costs out that's too many people dying who don't need to
There was some research a while ago that basically stated the government should not be discouraging smokers, drinkers and the unfit as they die younger so the government saves all that pension money and all the associated care costs for pensioners. Non-drinking, non-smoking healthy people are a real drain on the countries finances
5.2 billion refers to the care costs of people who smoke not the care costs of people sufering from health issues caused by smoking according to that article. Its a bit like the fallacy of man made global warming people ,with an agenda can bend the numbers to fit any theory they like.
OP
OP
rowan 46
Über Member
- Location
- birmingham
they put rugby and hockey on the syllabus why not cycling in P.E
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