Dear Readers, I notice that Hnaef has recovered from Sundays' hangover. At least to the extent that, on reading Eileen's comments on cyclists, he noticed that she referred to "road tax". In order not to strain his eyes on an laptop screen for another day or two, I agreed to issue this clarification.
There is no such thing as "road tax". There is Vehicle Excise Duty. This is a tax levied on car-owners to compensate the rest of the country for the pain of having to look at their ghastly vehicles, and endure the damage to the environment that the creation of their personal manhood-extension-substitutes / oversized baby-buggies has caused. We charge more tax based on car emissions because bigger cars do more damage - not because they use more road, and the tax is proportional to the road used.
If the argument that car owners pay "road tax" had any meaning to it, we would have to ban all pedestrians from the pavements on the grounds that they have paid no "pavement tax". Indeed, if the idea of "road tax" had any mileage at all (ho ho), then the only people allowed on the pavements would be motorists, as they could argue that the road tax might also pay for the pavements (which are, after all, down the sides of the roads).
For my American readers, I should explain that pavements in England are what you call sidewalks.Cycles are like motor-bikes, but without motors.
None of the horse riders round our way pay road tax either, although when they take their horses out for a spin they usually take up the whole road. Come to think of it they also emit CO2 and leave steaming piles of poo every 400yds, still, at least they keep our beef industry going I suppose.
ReplyDeleteThey also emit CH4, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. And the horses ain't much better.
DeleteThey also emit CH4, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. And the horses ain't much better.
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