BikeTax.... should it be free?

[R1Man]

Why pi55 around? if they want people out of cars then make road tax for bikes free, sorted!

[youngmafbog]

But you have hit the nail on the head. They dont want people out of cars. Governments are using the Green issue as an excuse to tax the living daylights out of us and we cant say anythiung or we are accused of killing the planet.

[Gromit]

Why encourage people to use a form of transport where you are 28 times more likely to be killed riding a motorcycle than driving a car.

[redcrx]

so if no cars on raod paying tax, where will the funding come from to pay for the roads upkeep? The first people to complain if a road surface is unsafe are the bikers.

[vehelpfulguy]

According to this report 40% of motrocyle drivers dont pay a road tax anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7200066 .stm

[vehelpfulguy]

>so if no cars on raod paying tax,

He did not say no road tax for cars, he said no road tax for bikes.

[vehelpfulguy]

>Why pi55 around? if they want people out of cars then make road tax for bikes free, sorted!

Sorted you say, as though that is the end of the problem.

You could make the tax AND the bike free but you would not get me on a motorbike, and I guess millions of others feel the same.

A better suggestion may be to stop companies giving "free petrol" for business AND personal use.

The company I used to work for gave petrol cards (like credit cards) to all managers. They could fill up their car as often as they liked and use the petrol for business use AND personal use.

While there was income tax to pay on the card the fact that all petrol was free certainly encouraged people to take many more personal journeys than they may have done.

[redcrx]

apologies VHG id did mean to put 'bike' but then if everyone moved to a bike to avoid paying tax then theyd be fewer cars paying tax anyway so it still reads ok to me.

I still say no though, and I dont mind biking

[R1Man]

road tax doesn't pay for the roads, tax on fuel does that. Just put 5p on fuel and you'd cover that. Hang on......

[NikkiB]

If the govt want to encourage people to NOT use their cars, they need to nationalise public transport, make it fully functioning and increase bus lanes, bring down fares etc.

When I used to get the bus to work, it used to take me over 2 hours and 3 buses just to travel 10 miles in the morning. It wasn't just the traffic. The buses were so unreliable, understaffed and effectively running a skeleton service. That's bad enough in a rural area but I live in a highly populated region.
I got tired of waiting an hour for a bus in the morning, got tired of bus inspectors telling me that I must have not noticed the bus go by etc.
You've guessed it, I'm back in my car and I haven't been late to work since. I also have an extra 2 and a half hours a day to myself.

[123everton]

Bang on R1.
And according to one of the respondents, it'll help solve the donor organ shortage too!
Although less cars would bring that figure down substantially, as I'm sure you'd testify.