Bicycle Lanes

Dragonslayer
Dragonslayer Online Community Member Posts: 2,164 Pioneering
in Coffee lounge
Where I live the council are building bicycle lanes everywhere, especially on all the main roads. This will all cost 165million pounds and it
is causing great disruption to everyone, drivers as well as pedestrians. The driving lanes are now narrower making driving harder and more dangerous. The lanes have their own traffic light systems and in places, along with the excysting ones there are now so many they look like a Christmas tree and it is hard to distinguish which light to respond too. All this while I and many others drive along over pit holes and unclearly marked roads. I also notice in many places the cycle lane is on the inside, making pedestrians walk nearer the road!!
This has been going on for months now and there is no sign of them finishing soon. So far, I have yet to see any cyclists using them. The one I did see, ignored their red light and rode straight through it.
I along with others pay tax to drive and supposedly be used to repair the roads?
I personally don't think this to be fair?

Comments

  • OverlyAnxious
    OverlyAnxious Online Community Member Posts: 4,923 Championing
    Road tax (VED) doesn't pay for roads...it just goes into the same pot as the VAT paid on a bicycle.

    If they're proper cycle lanes with barriers and lights then that's good...around here it's all just lines drawn on the ground, that even stop at roundabouts, the most dangerous part as the driver is indicating left while looking right for traffic and a cyclist slips along their left hand side as they pull out.

    I find cyclists a total nuisance on both the pavement & the road tbh.  If we had the same infrastructure as other countries where they could be separated from both vehicles and pedestrians it would be far safer and much less stressful for everyone.
  • rubin16
    rubin16 Online Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 955 Championing
    Yeah vehicle tax, isn't used for repairing roads, its council tax that does that. Vehicle tax is based on what emissions you emit from your car.

    It does seem like alot of money, however times are changing and the government is looking into other transport alternatives other than using cars and wants to encourage more to use their bikes. Personally I think the damage is already done to the planet in regards to climate change as clearly the weather is getting worse each year all over the planet. However saying that I would prefer cyclists to have their own lane, as they are really annoying when in the road and holding up traffic, especially when you get 2 of them riding side by side now and then blocking the whole road.
  • 66Mustang
    66Mustang Online Community Member Posts: 15,161 Championing
    Yeah as said VED is just a tax, it doesn’t go directly on the roads any more than income tax or VAT.

    Personally I don’t find cyclists that much of an issue, just wait behind them then overtake when there’s a gap. 2 cyclists side-by-side are actually easier to overtake than if they were following each other. It means you are on the wrong side of the road for less distance/time. Remember, you are supposed to give a cyclist as much room as if they were a car anyway.
  • 66Mustang
    66Mustang Online Community Member Posts: 15,161 Championing
    Cyclists pay the same tax as (electric) cars which consume no combustible fuel and produce no emissions - i.e. nothing. I think that’s fair enough. 

    I do agree they should have some kind of liability though and they should be held to account for breaking traffic laws!
  • Sandy_123
    Sandy_123 Scope Member Posts: 63,123 Championing
    Bicycle lanes are all over my town and have been for awhile, also bus only lanes. Just recently hire push bikes have been dotted about, think they are 5p a min to hire with lots of docking stations to put them after use.
  • Dragonslayer
    Dragonslayer Online Community Member Posts: 2,164 Pioneering
    I am not against cyclists, or cycle lanes. I agree it is the future and as time goes by more and more people will use them. Then along with electric cars the air will be much cleaner. It would also be better, and safer for all, if like other countries they were separated from the main roads. But in most cases, there is not the space to do so. I just wish the planners would think a little bit more about how and where to build them.
    At the moment there is no road tax on bikes or electric cars? . I wonder how long it will be when tax on these doe's come in when we are all riding / driving them? The government will have to get the losses from tax on cars from somewhere.   
  • OverlyAnxious
    OverlyAnxious Online Community Member Posts: 4,923 Championing
    It'll be easy enough to raise the tax on electricity when everyone's stuck using it...
  • 66Mustang
    66Mustang Online Community Member Posts: 15,161 Championing
    I agree with @OverlyAnxious

    VED (“road tax”) isn’t the current major tax anyway, it’s fuel taxes. About 70% of the cost of fuel comes from fuel duty and VAT. Without the taxes fuel would cost around £2 a gallon.

    An average car that does 40MPG pays about 10p a mile in fuel taxes so I am guessing once everyone is driving an electric car they will just have trackers that charge us, say 10p, for every mile driven.
  • 66Mustang
    66Mustang Online Community Member Posts: 15,161 Championing
    That said I intend to get an electric car next and enjoy it while they are cheap to run. :)
  • dkb123
    dkb123 Online Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 169 Empowering
    the only way to stop the bad behaviour of any road users is to identify them by a clearly visible number so they can be held to account 

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