Wait, what?

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I pay it as without it, I am not allowed to use the road. It's really as simple as that.

Nothing on the roads should be able to use them for free.

Calling it by another name dies not change what it is.
 
Tute said:
I pay it as without it, I am not allowed to use the road.
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Yes you can, you know you can, there are cars on the market that is allowed on the road without car tax or VED or whatever you want to call it.

It's linked to emissions, not a licence to use the road.
 
So what? If I don't pay it i'm not allowed to drive my car on the roads. The fact that people out there pay none doesn't stop it being a road tax.

Income tax works by the same mechanism, and is still a tax.
 
Tute said:
So what? If I don't pay it i'm not allowed to drive my car on the roads. The fact that people out there pay none doesn't stop it being a road tax.

Income tax works by the same mechanism, and is still a tax.
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But it's not judged by whether you are using the road, it is judged by emission. The car you choose to drive is your choice, no one else's. choose one that is emission exempt, then you can still drive on the road, without the "road tax". Income tax applies for everyone, no one is exempt from it, hell, even the Queen pays it.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/Taxation.aspx

Your argument that "you don't pay it and not allowed on the road" is incorrect.

You can not pay it and still allowed to used the road, ergo, not road tax. It is car dependant, not road usage dependant.

Call it a car tax, emission tax, but it's not road tax.
 
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The fact that it is judged by emission does not stop it being a tax! As I said, income tax, among others, work by the same mechanism.

People with low emissions cars don't pay any tax (don't get me started on that crap either) but it is still a tax as it is the removal of money to pay for the use of a service.

A similar thing is TV Licencing. It is also a tax, despite it being dressed by a different name.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Wouldn't it be safer to give the cars a head start? That way cars are already ahead of the cyclists, rather than doing an overtake.
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You want to cross the junction before any cars start turning left into your path when going straight on. When turning right you want to cross the opposite side of the road before they start moving, being stood in the middle of a fast junction is not a pleasant experience.
 
Tute said:
So what? If I don't pay it i'm not allowed to drive my car on the roads. The fact that people out there pay none doesn't stop it being a road tax.
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Of course it does. You're free to use the roads without paying any tax, you don't even need any sort of license it's just if you you want to do it in a motorised vehicle that emits more than a given amount of co2, or is between certain ages you have to pay. The money you pay for this just goes to central government, it's not ring fenced for roads at all.
 
The emissions nor what it is spent on is not important. It is a tax to pay, in order to drive on UK roads. The fact that you can SORN a car and use it on private lands also suggests it is a road tax, not a car tax.

The fact that some pay nothing does not stop VED from being road tax.

If I don't want to pay income tax, I am free to earn under the ~£9000 threshold.
If I don't want to pay VAT, I am free to not buy the product.

It does not stop either from being taxes.
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
When I visited Cambridge I found that there can be so many cyslists...
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I'm sure this is the main reason as this junction is just unusually busy with cyclists, if you're heading into stop/start traffic then it makes no odds.

However councils across the land will now try to out Green each other and it'll spread like wild fire, Bristol will probably convert the A4 into a cycle lane and change the A38 to a bus lane.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Yes you can, you know you can, there are cars on the market that is allowed on the road without car tax or VED or whatever you want to call it.

It's linked to emissions, not a licence to use the road.
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Cars which have zero rated VED still require a VED License to legally use the road.
 
I think that in the right locations this can work well. A junction I used to have to deal with daily would see me behind cyclists as they take up station at the lights in the priority lane and as they turn right I'd just drive slowly behind until they've made the turn and teken up their lane before looking to pass. Most drivers though just overtake mid corner and assume that the cyclist won't want to go into lane two for the roundabout up ahead which always made me wince.

Five seconds for them to get themselves sorted doesn't make a jot of difference to your journey time and gives everyone a fighting chance.
 
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