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VED rates, new Highway Code rules, victim status for cyclists.....

Before you do i will pass on some advice from a friend of mine who lived and worked in Africa a few years .

If you run somebody over then reverse back over them and run them over again because if he dies your unlikely to get into trouble , but if he lives and is disabled your likely to be ordered to keep him and his family for the rest of your days .
I can answer both of these based on personal experience;-

1. In Germany 1997/98 'ish, doing my MOD driver familiarisation to stamp the FMT600 driving the Land Rover Wolf as they were known. I was told, "If you hit a cyclist, make sure you kill them. If you have not, then reverse back over them otherwise you will be paying for the rest of your life"! Its a word of advice but I have never known it to happen ?

2. In Kenya, Africa on exercise enroute to one of the training areas. A local drove his car into one of our stationary 4 tonners and one of our lads was injured. The Kenyan Police were called, they turned up and executed the indigenous driver there on the side of the road. Hmm ?

This place, the UK, is operating a legal system that is becoming more European, thanks to the Tony Blair effect. Furthermore, northern towns and cities are becoming third world with third world driving rules.
 
I saw a real cyclist using it for commuting once or twice so far. Where I live it’s always those exercise or fashion type ones with thousands worth cycle n suite in groups and blocking the roads n riding outside their dedicated lanes.
Many times these also told me to join their group as it’s the trend, the good thing etc etc.
Can’t express what I have for these cyclists
 
Police were called, they turned up and executed the indigenous driver there on the side of the road. Hmm ? Now that's what i call a solution.... Apartheid years was it ?.....
 
I got to wondering what a set rate for all vehicles would be if they actually spent road tax on maintaining roads . Numbers are vague but i read somewhere 11 billion for maintenance against up to about 40 million vehicles so £275 each annually .
 
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If I remember right the road fund licence was introduced during ww2 to fund the war efforts against nazi Germany Question is what are we still fighting for or is it that we are actually funding the nazis who are against all forms of combustion engine transport we are paying for our own demise
 
I think we are still Paying off that Debt Steve, Thats why we have to do as we are Told by the Americans, We will owe them that Debt forever, My Grandad still complains that he never got His cast Iron Railings back or replaced When Churchill nicked 'em' to build Tanks....
 
And not forgetting what we had paid to France for the artillery bombardment of the ports under German control and if remembered correctly was overpaid by some considerable sum
Save em And Pay em no wonder the French hate us so much Haa Haa bloody Haa Haa
 
Before everyone worries about who did what in the war, road fund licensing started in 1909, or even earlier. And was used for, wait for, funding roads. After 1936 the money raised went into general taxation and was not road specific. Given the date I can only assume this was not triggered by the war.
 
Like TV licence even this VED will stay with us LandCruiser lovers. There are very few Landcruisers left in UK. I checked for my model and there are 685 left by end of 2021. In 5 or 10 years time dont know how many will be left. I am now more inspired to preserve this car until I am allowed to.
Not sure how true this data is by we can check

 
@Grimbo I am a Lycra wearer (not one of the louts) but agree there are some real nobs on the rural roads. We have cycling club events round our way and they'll ride the full width of the road even with vehicles coming the opposite way. I run as well with flashing lights front and rear plus a hi-vis tee and always acknowledge politely when a vehicle slows for me on the narrow roads and also when another passes at 60mph (twats!). Its everyone for themselves and my view is I'd rather move over/out the way whether running or cycling and it doesn't spoil my enjoyment but then I'm never going to set any world speed records!
 
I would love the playing field to be more level. Fewer than 1% of pedestrians are killed by cyclists.

1% of pedestrians is a very big number! I assume you mean 1% of pedestrians involved in accidents.

All the others, more than 400 a year are killed by motor vehicles, and cars account for more than half of those motor vehicles. Want to know what kills pedestrians on pavements? It's not bicycles, it's not e-Scooters. It is registration plate clad vehicles though. Of the 100 or so cyclists killed every year 80% are hit by a motor vehicle. Of the 500 or so car occupants killed every year precisely none are killed by cyclists. The playing field is so skewed so steeply it's hard to imagine how much legislation is needed to make it even gently slopey.

Fair points, but we're talking about different playing fields. You're talking about injury / deaths, I'm talking about everyone meeting similar requirements before they are allowed on the road.

I can only assume you have never fallen off a bike. It hurts. When you get hit by a car and then fall off it generally hurts a lot. Drive your car into a cyclists and you won't feel a thing. Plenty of trucks haven't even noticed they were doing it. I just don't buy the accountability-responsibility thing. Cyclists are very reponsible because they really, really, really don't want to get hit. They might ride through a red light, and we can argue they shouldn't, but it usually is a benign action. And I have seen cyclists ride through lights and almost collide with pedestrians and they are idiots of the lowest order. Although when you ride into a pedestrian it also hurts, so you generally want to avoid that too. Again, not a concern for car drivers.

Some cyclists are responsible of course, but many are not. Of course, many drivers aren't either, but at least they can in theory be caught on camera and reported.

I don't drive through red lights becuase I know doing so is really dangerous and there is a good change I will get hit, or hit someone. This has nothing to do with me having a number plate. Idiots will always idiot unfortunately.

I see cyclists going through red lights every day. Good to know you're not one of them!

I also just think it would be very difficult to police. I stick ABC123 on my Colnago C64, and an ANPR camera pops up it's a Trek Domane. Would anyone know? Of course I wouldn't do this, but the idiots likely would. If they flee the scene of some indiscretion how is it going to help?

Policing it is a separate issue. There are cars driving around with false plates, but we dont ditch the whole registration system just because of that.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

No one can claim unless they can show the thing happened. Got my door mirror taken off by a skip lorry a couple of years ago. Got the number plate. Got the skip company name. Not me says the driver. Not interested say the police. There we go.

The lack of evidence is a different problem. If you dont have evidence it becomes a he said / she said and the insurance cant be bothered with it. If you've got some evidence, and nobody wants to know, sue them in the small claims court. There are more and more cameras around every day, so maybe more evidence around as we go forward.

If the Cyclist doesn't even have a number or any way of identifying them, there is exactly zero chance of any action even if you have evidence.

It is. If number plates for bicycles were mande mandatory, and fortunately I think there is almost zero chance of this in the foreseeable future, it is aimed at every bicycle owner who will now incur the expense of licensing. I only argue that to impose this on the millions of bicycles in the UK we should take a logical look at what we are trying to fix and think about whether this would do it, and if it did what is the cost to the population? I rode 9000 miles last year (and drove 4000), not a big cost per mile for me. Pain in the backside when you and the missus go for a ride twice a year in the summer.

If you don't want a plate, how about a number on the back of your bike hat - that would be cheap?

It still doesn't seem fair to me that most road users have to have some sort of basic training, pass a test, license themselves and their vehicle and are effectively 'publicly identifiable' when they use the roads. Cyclists don't have to do any of those things. It doesn't seem right to me, but then I am not a cyclist.

I hope none of this comes across as at all acrimonious on the forum, because I think it's a reasonable question to ask. I just also think there are good reasons it doesn't get us anywhere much for a very significant administrative effort. For cyclists it's a position that gets trotted out regularly.

Not at all - as I said, I appreciate your view and you're obviously an expert if you do 9000 miles a year - respect for that.

In fact one nice lady took time out from her busy drive only last weekend to slow down to 20mph while sat on the opposite side of the empty road to chastise my friend and I for riding 2 abreast and telling us we don't even pay road tax. I assume she meant VED but my response to her was less pedantic.

That's terrible - unfortunately cyclists wind up motorists and motorists wind up cyclists - realistically, I don't see it changing anytime soon.
 
I'm talking about everyone meeting similar requirements before they are allowed on the road.

I would argue everyone has to demonstrate a level of competence commensurate with how easy it is for the thing they are in charge of to kill someone. And it's so difficult (not impossible) for bicycles and horses and pedestrians (no footpaths where I live) to kill other road users it's too much hassle to try and do something with them. I would also argue motorists get off very easy when they do maim and kill. A lot of dangerous driving and suspended sentances. Not fair on me as a firearms user, who has to reapply for his license every 5 years. Bet if I tried the sorry m'lud the sun was low and I didn't see him defence I wouldn't get very far, well as far as Belmarsh perhaps. I appreciate we will disagree on this. But luckily for me I don't see legislation on the horizon. If bicycles start to cause 1% of the damage cars do maybe it'll get looked at.
 
A bicycle will soon be the only form of transport available to anyone for whom electric cars aren't a viable option .

So whats that about 80% of the population ?

They will tax that for sure .
 
^^^^^^^^^
Mick W ....the voice of the sensible majority who suffer because of a very vocal and stupid minority..... as is the case with most things

Nowt against lycra.....sensible clothing .... I did a few time trials and was appalled by the behaviour of the idiots who used the road as a race track and were cycling 3 or 4 abreast as they raced round small rural roads.....

The point you make about "thanking" people who pass you is a good one.....be it cyclist , horse rider or runner being polite to other road users is easy and has a noticeable affect on how that driver behaves when they encounter the next bike /horse / runner......

One thing is sure.....our taxes are going only one way .....up and up by a lot as the ever reducing amount of people who work and pay taxes to fund those who don't want to work increases and we have to pay back the millions borrowed to pay for covid measures....... we're well and truly stuffed .
 
Only in England have I come across such a hostile and parochial attitude towards one of history's most democratic and liberating inventions. Only here do you seem to find the dangerous urge to categorise and label people who for one reason or another choose to get on a bicycle.

I can't help think that some of the animosity stems from the fact that recreational cyclists routinely exude enviable doses of good health, confidence and affluence. If that's not the case and you are genuinely struggling to share the space with less protected road users when you're out motoring in your three-ton truck then you probably need to lower your speed and have a long, hard look in the rear-view mirror.
 
For those of us that Ride Motorbikes.... I think it's a good measure of what's what and who's who out there on the roads..... Biker's themselves can be the worse of the worse sometimes..... There are too many of us all competing for the same shrinking piece of Tarmac, Cyclists, Bikers, Truckers, Caravan Puller's, Tractors.... Even Rambler's /Walkers can be a pain in the Arse on the Back roads,.... It comes down to humans getting worse and worse as the population grows, No one wants to give an inch, Everyone has a F%&k you attitude... Everyone has to be Flat out everywhere they go...And we will never change, It's too late, We are all to Blame, Whatever we are Driving /Riding....... Be nice Folk
 
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