Daily Express campaign calls for cyclists to ‘pay their way’

I'm pretty sure there is already a network of 'superhighways' for motorists (I think they all start with M). Now, I drive so pay 'road tax' but I'm pretty sure that even if I didn't have a car I would still be paying for these motoring superhighways through my income tax etc. Thus it's fair that Mr Rutherford should help pay for a cycling superhighway. Maybe he should feck off back to Genesis. 

It needs cyclists to get organised and all leave their bikes at home on a certain day and drive instead. Publicise the protest and repeat weakly anti the petrol heads get the message. We are reducing congestion, easing your journey. We are not an inconvenience.

This is incitement and a form of prejudice and hatred based on ill informed personal opinion. How is it permissable to print this, try a similar slight against an ethnic group for example and watch the backlash.

Cyclists and other vulnerable users have had to tolerate extreme violence and death at the hands of the motoring die hards for decades and frankly his bile is deeply offensive to a group of people who face greater levels of intimudation than modern day sexism, racism or any other ism you can think of.

Ok, someone called you a name or you lost a promotion because the boss is a chauvanist. Least youre alive, cyclists face discrimination daily to far worse levels and where is the government response to tackle that?

Cyclists are discriminated against so why can we not collectively demand change or take UK government to the European Court? 

Hopefully this sad individual will get run over by an uninsured 'poor old motorist' and get a reality check.

FANTASTIC!!! I am really glad that this serial masturbator (shame his father wasn't!) is so agitated. To me it obviously means that the cycle infrastructure is significant enough to be having a negative effect on motor traffic. For too many years cycling infrastructure was just a bit of paint on the roads, with no effect on motor traffic (and hence, of no real benefit to cyclists), so they were not really bothered by it. Now that it's disruptive, they're getting pissed off (perhaps understandably so). I think these cries of dismay from motorist lobbyists are a sign of progress for non-motorised traffic. 

Don't waste your breaths talking about what car tax is and how the roads are paid for, or that most cyclists also own cars and therefore pay the same motor-related taxes. Anyone with a braincell can do a little research and find this out. 

This dope's head seems to be suffering from severe congestion, caused by a jam of polluting old bangers of ideas.

If I paid a tax to use the roads on my bike in proportion to the VED paid for cars, I should end up getting a rebate. As has been pointed out so many times, roads are paid for from general taxation and local rates. I pay income tax already, plus VAT on my expensive bikes and accessories which more than covers the cost of the road use - please remember cyclists don't use any of the expensive aspects of roads, e.g. motorways and complex junctions, cycles don't cause wear or damage to roads, they really don't need much at all compared to cars. Cyclists are often saving car use. They are not polluting and not causing expensive accidents, they don't cause congestion, in fact do a lot to ease it. Cycling should therefore, oviously, be encouraged, not discouraged by having to be registered and pay even more 'tax'. VED is an extra contribution to compensate for the amount of pollution and damage to roads paid for by tax payers.

I'm not surprised it's a Daily Express campaign. Their readers are made up of an army of negative Victor Meldrews who have nothing better to do than find fault with anything and anyone. No doubt they published this rubbish to try and increase their sales figures.

It's nothing more than populist clickbait except rather than one article which will fade away after a couple of days, people will sign up to this one! And they'll keep clicking back. Winner!

The actual petition is so vague as to be completely meaningless:

"I call upon the Department of Transport to act now to significantly reduce the unacceptable traffic congestion blighting Britain's roads"

Um, OK how? And what does "significant" mean? 10% reduction? 20%. Everyone who doesn't read the Express?

Also, they can't even get the name right, its Department for Transport, not of Transport. Clueless fuckwits.

The Express sums up that awful layer of society, the section that believes that they are perfect hardworking rose-tinted middle England and everything is the fault of others (usually immigrants, benefit cheats or cyclists) and that someone else should sort out all the mess but without taxing or charging them anything. That selfish, self-entitled person who will rant and moan about traffic congestion then get in the car to drive half a mile to the shops without seeing the irony in what they're doing because the problem isn't "them", it's all the "others".

Still, they'll go back to predicting weatherpocalypse in a couple of days and maybe find some evidence that Madeleine McCann is alive and well and living with Princess Diana.

Cycling for local commutes and local shopping is probably the most ideal form of transport.

Imagine-(looks longingly into the sky dreaming) if the cycling community had a cast iron guarantee that all their 'road tax' money was spent solely on creating a segregated linked cycle network, from town to town, city to city. I would be stood at the front of the queue offering to pay and I'm sure other's wouldn't quibble.

Cycling for local commutes and local shopping is probably the most ideal form of transport.

Imagine-(looks longingly into the sky dreaming) if the cycling community had a cast iron guarantee that all their 'road tax' money was spent solely on creating a segregated linked cycle network, from town to town, city to city. I would be stood at the front of the queue offering to pay and I'm sure other's wouldn't quibble.

I have insurance on my bike, and I'm pretty sure bicycles haven't ever caused a pothole to develop. I pay my purchase taxes and my council tax and  my household has two cars. Is this guy asking me to pay *more* in order to ride my bike- to pay more for getting exercise, for keeping my car off the road and reducing congestion and wear and tear on the roads and thus subsidising all the twunts like him who have to be surgically extracted from their cars.

I count 26 bicycles in space equivalently used by two cars and a motorcycle. Way to much congestion.  

This guy hasn't got a clue has he! Does he really think that most cyclists don't own cars and cycle because it's much easier too. Like the responsible cyclist I am I'm also insured but mainly because I know at some point some in a car will drive into me and I'd like to be able to get my bike repaired as soon as possible. 

I'm not sure when it happened - at least a decade ago. Probably more. But "stupid" became a legitimate point of view - one that required media time in the interests of balance.

I suspect that part of this is due the rise of the internet and places where people only discuss with a self-selecting group, write and read articles supporting their opinions - however wrong. If you point out that someone is wrong, they will just come back with links to a whole bunch of websites that are also wrong. If these websites cite any sources then they are also links to websites that are wrong. 

And we end up with vast swathes of people who believe that the most common name for new baby boys in the UK is "Mohammed", that the earth's climate hasn't warmed in the last 15 years, that "a tax disc" pays for roads, that "cyclists are a bigger menace than cars" and that Michael McIntyre is funny.

Well, seems fair to me - so long as we have a pedestrian tax.  All those people wearing out the roads which they cross, especially old people who shuffle and youngsters who drag their feet. Some people even want us to pay for lights to help them cross the roads which us motorists have paid for!  Outrageous..now where did I put the Mail. 

I just ate a really bad curry, I'm pretty certain tomorrow's ride won't be emission free. I have concerns about my methane footprint and need to know how much road tax I should pay to address this. Probably also trauma counseling for any unfortunate wheel suckers tomorrow.

Stop taxing drivers, start taxing drivel.

This oik is off to his local MOT station tomorrow morning to check my emissions.

Question:

Where will the hose go? All of my noxious gases are emitted from my exhaust, but my CO2 emissions usually come out the other end, as I huff & puff my way up the hills.

I am not allowed to ride on motorways.  I expect a discount.

A person can drive a car and pay 0 VED so what sum does this Einstein suggest is a reasonable amount?  £50 he says, well if a person has to pay £50 to cycle and £0 to drive then some people will decide to drive instead and he can sit behind them in traffic - well done.

Alternatively he can ask all road users to pay no less than £50.  But then he is asking motorists to pay more so thats an immediate fail.

I'm quite happy to pay "Road Tax" as it doesn't exist. I would not be happy to pay "Vehicle Emission Duty" (which what I think they are referring to) because I do not produce any - the odd fart aside.

I have just looked it up and as we are all in the under 100 threshold band for CO2 emission (g/km), our VED will be zero. I suppose they will need to up the price for polluting vehicles to pay for the extra administration?

I like this. Following the great blogpost over at https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/cycling-needs-a-bac... I can totally get with the "if you're not causing a furore you're not doing it right" . If the Express are up in arms about biking, well then biking is moving in the right direction.

Has the Express run out of Lady Di conspiracies and scare stories about catastrophic weather? 

At least now, with the Cycle SuperHighway, Lord Alan Sugar has an alternative if he wants to go much faster and not loose his precious time standing still in the traffic jams.

I suggest him to have a bike ready at the back of the Rolls-Royce so he could jump on it in case of emergency; very classy ... and contrary to all those poor loosers motorists he has a chauffeur to repatriate the car; a real privilege ...

Is this an argument that stories like this are actually incitement? 

Which i seem to believe is Illegal? 

All this is doing is reinforcing the idea that might is right, that cars and there drivers should have free reign and be allowed to trash the environment. 

As for £50, my car costs me £20 a year, so £50 is way over the top by any measure! This is before you consider how much money is actually spent on cycle provision and how much i pay in VAT on bike bits per year etc. etc. Or how much of my council tax goes on roads and how much on cycling etc

Does anybody actually read the Daily Express?

Two things:

1st Many cyclists have cars, so I am happy to pay a cycle tax if I get a rebate on my expensive car tax and insurance when cycling to work. (i cycle 4 day out of 5)

2nd if all the people in picture above drove cars then the congestion would be worse and average journey would increase

Um, what about when Alan Sugar is riding his bike, like he often does?