SdZ wrote:
Ive never had a car driver to tell me to get off the road because i dont pay taxes before. In retrospect i should have just cycled really slowly to piss her off but at the time i was more confused by her.
GL, your a fellow (push) biker do you get this sorta shit ever ?
I’ve had work colleagues mutter about “taxes”, but thankfully not too many problems on the road.
However I am Asian and normally wear sports/street wear (i.e I look like a young Asian chav); I get the impression from the looks on their faces that motorists hate me just as much but are too frightened to challenge me in case I may be a crackhead with weapons/terrorist or whatever the current stereotype is.
I also usually have a pannier bag on my bike – for a week after 7/7 drivers were actually stopping and letting me pass!
As for taxes, there are two serious misconceptions a lot of people have. (I work in public sector finance and have had these facts confirmed by senior staff at the Department for Transport).
The first is that vehicle excise duty pays solely for roads. It does not and has not done so since the 1930s….
VED is put in the general taxation pot with all other taxes and the money is doled out by HM Treasury for whatever purposes the country needs.
The actual money raised from taxes on motoring including fuel taxation does not go anywhere near compensating for the other costs caused by cars such as pollution, wear to road surfaces from large vehicles, clearing up after road traffic collissions or dealing with extra risks to society caused by storing such items as petrochemicals in bulk to meet demand for fuel (something citizens round your area have learnt to their cost recently!)
The other misconception is that cyclists somehow “evade taxes”. They do pay tax which contributes to transport infrastructure – they pay VAT on bicycles, spare parts and accessories, and their Council Taxes which also contribute to infrastructure….
