What follows is a list of what I pay:
Insurance
Buildings Insurance (my home)
Home Contents Insurance (contents of home and third party insurance that covers 3rd part liability when riding a bike)
Mortgage Insurance (If I get sick or die my family will have somewhere to live)
Car Insurance (Shock Horror! Yes I do have a car)
Life Insurance (Thinking of the family again!)
Cycling Insurance (3rd Part Cover from the CTC. In effect, I have two lots of 3rd part cover!)
Tax
Income Tax (Higher Rate)
VAT (Huge amounts of that!)
Vehicle Excise Duty (Not Road Tax!)
Council Tax
Fuel Tax (Car of course)
Bike Fuel Tax (Tax on buns)
I suspect that on average I pay above average Tax (my insurance might be lower due to having low insurance premiums at the moment, but that money just goes into the corporate black hole anyway... ).
Therefore, contrary to what a proportion of Youtube 'pundits' would suggest, it is in fact me who owns the road, so.....
I've bought the whole of my cycle commute route with this money.
GET OFF MY ROAD!!!!
Thank you.
;-)
I agree that your typical serious cyclist probably earns more than average and contributes more than average to the upkeep of the roads.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it gets better... Damage done to the road surface is a function of the weight of vehicle and number of wheels / axles it has. As such we cause far less wear and tear than motorised vehicles.
Cyclists are in fact subsiding drivers to use the roads!
That's very true Mark, but I think it is important to keep the concept as simple as possible.
ReplyDeleteIt is I that owns the road. Fact...ish!
:-)
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ReplyDeleteThink of YouTube as an excellent way of flushing out the worst morons that the world has to offer. Nothing sadder than keyboard warriors who have actively wasted hours of their lives searching for cycling videos to leave their poorly-spelled, grammatically nonsensical, ill-informed & ignorant comments on. If I was as thick & illiterate as they are, the last thing I'd want to do was bring attention to the fact that I was.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow - I also own the roads so you'll just have to share them with me!
Always remember - we use the roads BY RIGHT, as do pedestrians and horse-riders. Cars don't automatically have that right; they have to be LICENSED to be allowed to use OUR roads, so we have more rights that they do :-)
love it - first class!
ReplyDeleteJust delete their bollocks, Dave. You wouldn't let a KKK Wizard in your house to rant at you if you were coloured: so why should cyclists be the same with youtube.
ReplyDeleteStuff like this isn't helped by cycling-traitors like Mathew Wright who admit to running lights and calling for registration, taxation, compulsary helmets, yadda yadda...
A word of advice - Be careful having two lots of insurance for the same thing...
ReplyDeleteI have heard of someone being in this situation before (car insurance, one started at 1200 the other ended at 2359 on the same day, there was a car accident in those 12 hours...) both companies will want the other to pay out and you end up in this horrible mess as the insurance game is to wriggle out of anything.
Hmm, I think that both the accusation (you don't pay "road" tax so get out of my way) and the reply (I pay so many taxes/insurances, so yes, I can use the road as much as the other road users) don't really make sense to me. The roads are for everybody to use. Car users know very well that paying insurance and disk is a prerequisite to use their cars whereas the bike users do not have to. For this reason I believe it's only a matter of jelaousy and nothing else. On the other hand, by replying and making a list of all the insurances and taxes that you pay, means nothing to me simply because you don't have to pay any tax to use your bike, after all. Someone can follow your logic (as you often say that you pay tax/insurance for your car but prefer to leave it back home and use your bike INSTEAD) and say "well I have two cars, I'll pay insurance, etc for only one of them and I'll use both, one each time.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I might be wrong but this is my opinion. Keep cycling. Νους υγιής εν σώματι υγιεί (Ancient Greek saying translated as "Keep a healthy mind in a healthy body").
P.S. @Grant - Three From Leith.
Please bear in mind that youtube is an international website and not many people are native English speakers. People can choose to comment in their own language if they wish but they prefer to use English so they can communicate with the reset of the world. Our mistakes are honest one despite our best efforts. Thanks.
Hi Yannis,
ReplyDeleteYou may have missed the fact that the article was written with my tongue firmly in my cheek (i.e. a joke). I was trying to show how ridiculous the whole 'Tax' argument is. I completely agree, the roads are for everyone.
Mind you car drivers are only there by licence, everyone else is there by right.
I know Grant outside the virtual world, and I am sure he is very aware that sometimes English is a second language. However, there are plenty of native English speakers who do post on my youtube videos who advertise their lack of intellect in the way they write. I think that is who Grant is referring to!
Cheers
Dave