GRcade

I wished more areas in London just banned cars. And cyclists in lycra. Dress normally you nonce! You're not Bradley Wigwams or whatever he's called.

My Dad was moaning about the number of cars in the road not too long ago. Would you believe it, he blames it on the number of youngsters that have unnecessary cars because they are too lazy to walk to work or use public transport.

Yep, he's retired.

He's right though. Young people are generally more fit and able to walk and use public transport but they'd rather have their own super inefficient metal box to take up 10x as much space and consume 100,000x as much resources to drive into town.

But I'd also blame how rubbish public transport is, how far people have to go for work, and centralising of shopping destinations.

Why do you think young people with cars should shoulder a greater responsibility for traffic? They've got as much right to be on the road as anyone else.

The hypocrisy of his "It's OK for me to drive around in a car but not youngsters"-esque comment clearly escaped him (but don't worry, I was there to keenly point it out to him).

Yeah, but it think the idea of getting a car by default when you're 17 is nonsense, and that's where it starts. It's another kind of privileged ideation, a lot of people I know don't think about whether they actually need a car, they just have one anyway.

This wedding tomorrow between...strawberry float, I don't even remember!

Yeah but who wants to get the bus like a povvo?

Drumstick wrote:Why do you think young people with cars should shoulder a greater responsibility for traffic? They've got as much right to be on the road as anyone else.

The hypocrisy of his "It's OK for me to drive around in a car but not youngsters"-esque comment clearly escaped him (but don't worry, I was there to keenly point it out to him).

I agree with your dad, use public transport you young upstarts and let us older folk have some enjoyable drives.

Seriously though, if we had invested in a decent public transport service people wouldn't want/need to use their cars and then this wouldn't be an issue.

...and I'd be able to enjoy driving again.

Green Gecko wrote:

Jenuall wrote:There's no such thing as road tax! And 99% of roads used by bicycles are maintained out of funds that cyclists pay into as well (e.g. council tax)

It's motorways and emissions isn't it? So London aside it's toll free.

Pretty much, car owners pay vehicle excise duty based on the emission rating of their vehicle and it goes into the governments general pot of funding to be used on pretty much anything.

This idea that car owners pay for the roads and cyclists don't is just bizarre. To my knowledge it was the uptake of cycling that forced the development of properly surfaced roads as standard:

Cyclists paved the way for roads

Fewer young people are learning to drive nowadays.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/0 ... ures-show/

Moggy wrote:Fewer young people are learning to drive nowadays.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/0 ... ures-show/

Drumstick's dad has been having a word with them.

Jenuall wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:

Jenuall wrote:There's no such thing as road tax! And 99% of roads used by bicycles are maintained out of funds that cyclists pay into as well (e.g. council tax)

It's motorways and emissions isn't it? So London aside it's toll free.

Pretty much, car owners pay vehicle excise duty based on the emission rating of their vehicle and it goes into the governments general pot of funding to be used on pretty much anything.

This idea that car owners pay for the roads and cyclists don't is just bizarre. To my knowledge it was the uptake of cycling that forced the development of properly surfaced roads as standard:

[url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads]Cyclists paved the way for roads[/url]

But there is no cycle tax to fund this. Vehicle tax used to be road tax, this is just a convenient way for the government to take the money without justifying what it is used for.

...and fuel tax is more BS, tax on tax which is ridiculous. With all the money the government take from drivers we should have a world class transport infrastructure.

We have 2 cars, one of which I only use once a week as a break from cycling every day. I'm getting the worst of both worlds

Ad7 wrote:We have 2 cars, one of which I only use once a week as a break from cycling every day. I'm getting the worst of both worlds [emoji38]

I don't have a bicycle anymore so I contribute to cycle lanes but don't use them. FML.

Death's Head wrote:

Jenuall wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:

Jenuall wrote:There's no such thing as road tax! And 99% of roads used by bicycles are maintained out of funds that cyclists pay into as well (e.g. council tax)

It's motorways and emissions isn't it? So London aside it's toll free.

Pretty much, car owners pay vehicle excise duty based on the emission rating of their vehicle and it goes into the governments general pot of funding to be used on pretty much anything.

This idea that car owners pay for the roads and cyclists don't is just bizarre. To my knowledge it was the uptake of cycling that forced the development of properly surfaced roads as standard:

[url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads]Cyclists paved the way for roads[/url]

But there is no cycle tax to fund this. Vehicle tax used to be road tax, this is just a convenient way for the government to take the money without justifying what it is used for.

...and fuel tax is more BS, tax on tax which is ridiculous. With all the money the government take from drivers we should have a world class transport infrastructure.

Did you read the linked article? Cyclists were the ones who lobbied for what we know as roads today to be built, they funded the establishment of the early roads, they created the organisations that prompted the continual development of the road network!

Bicycles cause little or no damage to roads, there is no maintenance cost associated with their use of them, what exactly would this "cycle tax" be for? Helping to keep the roads less busy? Helping to alleviate parking problems? Helping to keep people healthy?

I don't disagree that our transport infrastructure should be far better than what it is - but it's not something that is paid for by drivers, infrastructure is maintained through general taxation which (virtually) everyone pays for because, directly or indirectly, everyone benefits from it.

One of the big issues to hit transport infrastructure was the road protests of the 1990's, it made improving the network politically toxic for a time, and so not only were planned improvements abandoned, but overall spending on the roads was cut considerably.

You only have to look at the state of the A27 between Portsmouth and Brighton to see the effect this had (especially around Arundel where the dual carriageway is only half finished).

It's only been during the last couple of years, that the govt decided that maybe some of the improvements might well be needed after all (hence the recent news articles about Stonehenge and the like).

It's total nonsense to blame one generation for the abundance and intensity of traffic and not others. You could argue that retired folk shouldn't be on the road in the mornings (or at all) as they don't have anywhere to be rushing off to like work. But that's just as stupid as the original comment.

I don't disagree with that, but I think people new to the vehicular market have more information and alternatives available to them that are in some ways empirically better for them and others, and so the idea of owning a car by default is in some cases, irresponsible and costly to the individual, society and global resources. You have to consider individual's decisions to take on luxuries based on the degree of need present at the time. I'm not sure that even adjusting for lower relative wages, higher cost of living (where money can be better spent elsewhere) and environmental conciousness, transport infrastructure considerations etc, less people are deciding to own cars. I don't think it's an extreme statement to suggest that the majority of care ownership today especially in cities is pointless and is only done to satisfy individual cravings for status and easier living. And saying that doesn't automatically discredit the legitimate reasons for adding another vehicle to the street and running one, and the impact that has over time. What I'm saying is that from a broad perspective it's a 0 or negative sum for car ownership in too many cases and in that sense yes the younger generation has more opportunity to be aware of the costs (not only in a financial sense) associated with driving rather than pretending they don't exist because it makes life easier for them.

Around the end of September I received a letter from eon (my energy supplier) to tell me that my current tariff ends 9th November and I can either change to a new one (a few hundred pounds per year more than the current one) or if I do nothing, they will move me to some BS standard one (about £600 per year more than the current one). After checking on uSwitch and realising that although the new one is BS (slightly fed up with utility costs going up a few hundred per year) decide to switch to the one mentioned in the letter. After waiting 15 minutes to talk to someone, turns out the one in the letter is no longer available and I must check their site or uSwitch to see their best offer as the person on the phone apparently has no access.

Of course, their new offer is pure BS and a few hundred quid worse than the best offer in their letter. Clearly I'll be moving provider but feel we should stick it to the man. Can I ask that you all refrain from using electricity and gas for a month? At the end of this time all the suppliers will drop their prices desperate for someone to use their precious gas and electricity units.

For my part, I will selflessly continue to use electricity and gas allowing me to track the fate of the suppliers and post here so when you are all back, you can see what happened, as it happened.

Thanks and see you all back here next month!

Death's Head wrote:Vehicle tax used to be road tax,

While true, road tax hasn’t existed since 1937.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23694438