dezzy wrote:
robin wrote:
If they were non-car owners and you assessed their contribution to the road system through their income and council tax I think you would find they were subsidising you, but never mind.
Where would I find such information? I'd love to see the figures to back that argument up. As far as I'm aware, the majority of road tax doesn't even go into the roads!
It's just logic. The roads are paid for by something - some of it is your car tax and some of it is your council tax and some of it is your road fund license. As the cyclist consumes negligable road resources, it's reasonable to assume that even though they aren't paying road tax, they are paying more than they're using. The fact that the road tax money isn't spent on the roads just makes this more obvious - your road is built using his taxes ... of course you're paying for his cycle lanes and he's paying for your health care, etc., etc., so it's all tit for tat in the end.
Why would a registration mark that could be used to identify a cyclist be pointless bureaucracy?
Because it would cost a fortune and achieve almost nothing.
Real crimes are committed every day that should be investigated but are not (see the thread on Dom being burgled, for example). Exactly how much police time do you think it's worth diverting into the pursuit of cycling crimes?
So, you take the cyclist's "reggie" and report him to the police and then what? They pop round his house to tell him off only to discover he has registered his bicycle at 10 Downing Street along with 1,000,000 other cyclists
Nothing to stop him doing that without adding further bureaucracy (e.g. an ID card scheme) so he could prove his identity before getting a reggie.
Also, would all bicycles need a registration, or could you have one that you moved between bikes if you had more than one. What about children? Where would they mount the registration plates? What would stop you just making one up for yourself or just copying/stealing someone elses? etc. etc. etc.
We can barely persuade car owners to register their cars properly, and these are supposedly enforced, so I don't think we're going to get far with bikes without significant cost.
What exactly is it that's draconian about asking people to obey the laws that already exist in this country?
There is nothing draconian about asking them to, but if you were to insist that every law is enforced to the full extent possible each time it's broken, the courts would be full, some huge percentage of the working population would be engaged in prosecuting the others (and themselves), etc. The only solution to this would be to make the penalties for breaking the law so high that no one would dare. Why not instead just enforce the existing laws in situations where it matters, and ignore the rest?
robin wrote:
staying off busy pavements
Staying off
all pavements is actually what the law states.
I know, but why bother? If a pavement is empty why not cycle on it. Of course you should cycle more slowly, give way to a pedestrian and of course you should dismount before inconveniencing them.
I just advocate the use of common sense and respect for others over the use of rules and regulations trying to enforce that same behaviour. Think of it this way, if there were no rules to break and nobody to catch you breaking them, would you start doing things that are currently illegal? Mostly not I suspect.
Cheers,
Robin
), I used to do a hell of a lot of road cycling. Would cycle every weekend for hours at a time. So, I do know what I'm talking about from both sides of the argument.
