My Pennyworth

Bring back free university education for people taking useful degrees. Science, engineering, medicine, IT etc. Arts graduates can pay for their fucking education. Psychology, Social Science and other numpty degrees can join the Arts graduates as can lawyers.

Make it possible to sue politicians and political parties for breach of promise. Yes, Nick Clegg, I thinking of you, you lying two-faced power-whore.

For something as important as going to war with another country, for sending our soldiers off to fight and die, make it a compulsory referendum. The whole country get to decide if a spat with another country is worth killing for.

If you lose your driving license, for any reason, you must resit the driving test. No excuses.

Drink driving. First offence - you lose your license for three years. 2nd offence - you lose it for life.

Cyclists. They use the roads - they should pay road tax. Those roads don't build and maintain themselves. If the cyclist also has a car and pays road tax for that, they're exempt for the tax on their cycle. The extra revenue raised by this goes to a dedicated team of traffic police who would hunt down the cuntish cyclists who break the law and are danger to themselves and other road users. (Thankfully, a minority)

Lemmings. The lemmings who wander out into the traffic at random, secure in the knowledge that cars will swerve, slow down or stop to avoid hitting them, should have their kneecaps broken with sledgehammers. Try crossing the road now, fuck-tard.

Compulsory implanted birth control for both sexes (when possible). Implants can only be removed when you can prove that you can afford a kid and have the skills necessary to bring it up. Lawyers and Estate Agents should never be allowed to breed. *Especially* with each other.

NHS. Attack or threaten NHS staff while they're at work and you are banned for life from any NHS treatment. Get sick? Go private or die. Doctors, nurses and paramedics have enough shit to put up with already.


Won't fix everything, but it's a start.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 9:51, 28 replies)

and again...
...with the road-tax-for-cyclists crap (although your exemption for those with cars is noted)

ipayroadtax.com

Let's have no more of this bollocks shall we?
(flimflam_machine, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 9:58, closed)

OK
Call it whatever you like but cyclists should still be taxed for using the roads. Cars are.

If you don't use the roads then you don't have to pay the tax. Simple.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:02, closed)

Nope, you're missing the point.
It's nothing to do with what it's called. The issue is what it's for.

You are born with the right to use the public highway (the clue's in the name). What you are buying with your vehicle excise duty (VED) is a license to use your motor-vehicle on the public highway. Bikes are not motor-vehicles so they don't pay (like horses and pedestrians).

Roads are not maintained from "road tax" (actually VED), tax doesn't work like that. Roads are maintained from the centralised pot of cash that all tax (VAT, income etc.) go into. Cyclists pay all of these and (as you point out) most of them pay VED as well.

Also, bear in mind that low-emission vehicles don't pay VED so the VED on bikes would be nil, even if it were imposed.

And, in terms of road wear a 2-ton car causes (conservatively) 10,000 times as much damage to the road surface as a 100 kilo bike and rider. So if I paid £1 VED for my bike, would you be happy to pay £10,000 VED for your car?

When you do all the sums, it turns out that VED doesn't begin to pay for the damage done to society by car use through pollution, injuries, congestion, land use, obesity etc.
(flimflam_machine, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:42, closed)

Would still tax cyclists
And make them take a test and get themselves insured
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:33, closed)

Knee-jerk
Why would you tax them?

Testing and insurance, maybe. But hugely difficult to implement since kids ride bikes and expensive too since you'd have to register all bikes. The reason that you have to take a test to drive and have to insure cars is that they're dangerous and can do a lot of damage. Bikes (except in freakishly rare cases) aren't and can't.
(flimflam_machine, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:37, closed)

A reason to tax cyclists.
To pay for the database tracking the registration number on your bike.

Which covers your license to ride.
Which can be revoked for riding illegally.
Even more fun is the possibility of bike theft becoming harder if bikes were registered to riders.

Cyclists are, in practice if not in law, immune to prosecution for causing road traffic incidents, unless actually caught and restrained at the scene they can just ride off and claim to simply not have been there.
I'm not just taking about incidents in which they are involved in a collision, but incidents in which they are the cause of a collision by means of riding badly and requiring someone else to take abrupt avoiding action.

I often ride a motorcycle* in central London, possibly my experience of cyclists is biased, but to me they are at least as much a hazard as any other road user. Often more so since they have no wing mirrors and the concept of signalling to change direction seems to have passed many of them by. We've already covered the stupidity of running red lights...

Personally I don't care if cyclists have to pay tax, I really think they should be licensed.**
Cyclists are road users, and all road users should be treated similarly.

*When it's not bent out of shape by being stolen and crashed
**Sometimes I wonder about pedestrians too
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 14:42, closed)

Not so simple
Licensing is a contentious one. Superficially it seems sensible, but in practice it's unworkable and not worthwhile. This gives some good arguments:

ipayroadtax.com/licensed-to-cycle/licensed-to-cycle/

The one that I find most compelling is that minor traffic infringements are almost never dealt with anyway for cars. Your feeling that cyclists "are at least as much a hazard as any other road user" simply isn't borne out by the facts. Although bad cyclists are incredibly annoying, they are simply not that dangerous. The consequences of there actions are in almost all circumstances worse for them than for other road users, so expending a huge amount of cash to police them is a questionable investment. Better education would probably help as would simply encouraging cycling to increase the percentage of the population who regularly cycle. If cyclists didn't feel like a second-class minority it would help to build a better cycling culture.
(flimflam_machine, Tue 27 Sep 2011, 14:58, closed)

I pay some kind of tax for my bike here in Switzerland.
It's something like £5 for the year. Don't mind paying it at all, but I do wish cyclists had some kind of test.
(Shippy likes linebreaks and doesn't care what you think, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:13, closed)

D'you know what?
I'd probably pay something similar if I thought it shut people up moaning about cyclists not paying tax, but of course it wouldn't. They'd moan that cyclists don't pay enough tax. And then they'd moan that they should pay more than drivers, and then they'd carry on moaning.

And then they'd moan about all the traffic jams, which weirdly enough haven't abated once the cyclists are forced to drive.
(Captain Skippy pooed in a bag and left it on your doorstep, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 18:32, closed)

No they're not, isn't it registration tax or something these days?
Road tax went the way of the dodo ages ago.
(Shippy likes linebreaks and doesn't care what you think, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:11, closed)

I just hit reply to get on my cyclists soapbox about the same thing
luckily we were already being represented.
(bobbycutters is a bit ginger, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:06, closed)

Yes, yes, yes......
"The whole country get to decide if a spat with another country is worth killing for." - Yes

"If you lose your driving license, for any reason, you must resit the driving test. No excuses." - Yes

"Drink driving. First offence - you lose your license for three years. 2nd offence - you lose it for life." - Yes

"NHS. Attack or threaten NHS staff while they're at work and you are banned for life from any NHS treatment. Get sick? Go private or die. Doctors, nurses and paramedics have enough shit to put up with already." - Extended to read "attack or threaten any member of the emergency services", I've experienced this as a fire fighter, if someone wants to abuse me or throw things at me I should have the right not to extinguish their property when it's on fire or not to cut them out of their car when I later find them wrapped around a tree....
(FF_Sam is currently on call...., Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:17, closed)

Not Sure On The Firefighter...
As they're generally fit and tough men who have axes. I think it would be fair if they were allowed to use their axes on the cunts throwing bricks and not be charged for any injuries they might cause....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:20, closed)

Like it
I like this idea a lot.....
(FF_Sam is currently on call...., Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:26, closed)

"Lemmings. The lemmings who wander out into the traffic at random, secure in the knowledge that cars will swerve, slow down or stop to avoid hitting them, should have their kneecaps broken with sledgehammers. Try crossing the road now, fuck-tard."
Why do drivers assume that they, and only they, have the right of way? If I'm crossing the road, it's a basic courtesy of you to slow down. I stop and avoid people when walking, is it that much harder to do in a car?
(McChinaman banned, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:28, closed)

Because
it's a road. We do have right of way. If you want to cross the road, do it at a pedestrian crossing or wait until there's a decent gap in the traffic so you don't run the risk of getting hit or forcing a car to take evasive action.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:32, closed)

FUCK YOU!!1!

(McChinaman banned, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 15:30, closed)

alternatively
Speed up and turn your wipers on.
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 16:06, closed)

this place would be a lot poorer without people with arts degrees.
And a lot better without all those who base their opinions on what they read in the sun.
(benito vaselini no not that one, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 10:45, closed)

I agree, but arts doesn't pay much - it's a luxury.
We need industry, medicine etc - sensible stuff.

Theatre choreography is a hobby, not an academic pursuit.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:05, closed)

I work in the arts
Every £1 of money spent on the arts industries in Britain generates £3 of revenue.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:15, closed)

You should call Davey Cameron and tell him you've found the solution to all our economic problems.
( Draconacticus Reject shampoo. Demand real poo!, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:28, closed)

It would go something like this...
..."Dave, I've an idea to fix the economy. Fuck off".
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:13, closed)

"And take Gideon Whip-Boy with you"

( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 12:53, closed)

and?
Get the "spend it all and then some more who cares we won't be picking up the bill" party back in? (Not that you can really distinguish between them all any more)
(manwiddicombe is thinking of something witty to add here, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 15:12, closed)

wtfayboab

(benito vaselini no not that one, Sun 25 Sep 2011, 23:07, closed)

Agree with most of this, although I have to take issue with
'For something as important as going to war with another country, for sending our soldiers off to fight and die, make it a compulsory referendum. The whole country get to decide if a spat with another country is worth killing for.'

I don't think this is practical. We vote for a government to make these big decisions after due consideration and debate. What are you suggesting - a text vote? Shall we turn foreign policy into the X-Factor vote-off? Of course no one wants a war - no normal person anyway - but sometimes they are unavoidable.

"Argentina have just re-invaded the Falkland Islands. Text 'WAR' or 'PEACE' to 63044."

Not gonna happen.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Fri 23 Sep 2011, 11:51, closed)

How about...
...if the vote is 'Yes', then all those that voted for it have to pay for it too? A special one-off war tax of, say, £2,500 each. And once the money's run out, the army come home whether they've won or lost.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 16:24, closed)