Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson hits out at cyclists: "Work hard and get a car"

thing is, lots of motorists would say that it is a tax paid to use the roads, since they cant use the roads (in their motor vehicles, which is how they do use them) without paying it. it's not surprising that the angry, ignorant people making the comment aren't at all persuaded by (and dont understand) the subtleties of the argument that it isnt a 'road' tax but a 'car/motor vehicle' tax.

tbh, i reckon the best 'road tax' counter-argument is the one used by cyclists who also have cars.

'You dont even pay road tax'

'Yes, I do'

'Oh'.

See?

Well done Dave for posting that Stewart Lee clip. I love it, just like I love the way it prompted this entirely pointless Daily Mail story and some of the comments after it: http://goo.gl/OjlvN

... its clarkson, the other day he stopped on a pedestrianised street in an SLS or SLR or some tasteless merc that only drug dealers buy to let people cross; something most people do not do - he is equally unlikely to knowingly cut up a cyclist... get over it and get a sense of humour...

on the serious note of real cretins in cars/vans, etc and the "road tax" argument: cars do pay a related tax, name unimportant and the simple answer to them is "yes you do pay road tax; based on how much pollution your car producces.... how much polution do you think my bike creates???" and they go back into their little metal hole and drive off.

the other one is to say, "yes, but my bike cost more than your car, so I have already made up for up it in VAT alone", but that tends to just ad fuel to the flames...

He's certainly not my kind of hamster

So, just to summarise, we live in a society that produces, and publicly funds, a Jeremy Clarkson, and yet seemingly cannot afford public libraries, public forests, proper public transport, well-maintained roads, enforcement of speed limits, or to insist that banks act responsibly. To paraphrase Woody Allen, a society is like a shark, it has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we've got on our hands is a dead shark.

BTW, please don't let anyone be fooled into thinking Richard "The Hamster" Hammond (he's not a real hamster) was really defending cyclists rights. The day we accept that little creep as a spokesman for the cycling community is the day we really are screwed.

Thx dave for putting it into perspective!!! As we all know the TG team love hearing their own voices and rants and is best ignoring them for what they are!!! I am still trying to figure out how clarkson seems to think that a cyclist was capable of gouging the paintwork out of the side of his car without actually getting off the bike and then dragging it along said vehicle That said i sure hope he was insured

Clarkson's biggest crime is making a cock-up of punching Piers Morgan in the mouth. For that he can never be forgiven.

Why oh why did I click on this story, I knew what it would be about without needing to read it.

Good night!

It seem to be fairly standard for Top Gear now to try and create some controversy (like the Mexican comments last week). Generates lots of newpaper coverage and higher ratings.

I do wish Hamster had put him right about no-one paying road tax. Although if they do put the facts right next weekend it might bust that myth for some people.

Does anyone else think it's ludicrous that he has a go at Hammond for cycling and then for not cycling?

So we're agreeed, Clarkson is a cretinous, ex-public school bully and some of his less intelligent audience will respond with the usual anti-cycling sentiment and aggression towards cyclists on the roads. I do think it'd be nice to have Clarkson ride a bike across the UK - it'd make for good TV as he's terrified by vehicles being driven poorly. Whether the fat, potato-faced windbag will ever do this is another thing entirely.

All you need is Rapha, 'Road Tax', and Jeremy Clarkson. The topics that launched a thousand comments!

if you haven't seen this, it's a very good waste of 15 minutes... (NSFW)

The irony of the "Work hard and get a car" remark is that if all the research on the subject is correct, most British cyclists already own more cars than the general population, they earn more money too. You'd imagine there were probably a fair few of them in the Top Gear audience – except cyclists are also supposedly better educated and slightly more intelligent than the average… so maybe not eh

Have now realised that I'm turning into the archetypal 'Grumpy'.

Yes I know that Road Tax doesn't exist anymore, I even have the jersey (nice one Carlton Reid) and gawd forbid I'm even a 'petrolhead' depsite being an avid cyclist. A more obvious defintion of schizophrenia there will never be but.......here comes the 'ol grumpy' bit

TG is going to the way of all the other shows on TV which have any amount of popularity i.e. an inevitable dumbing down to the level of stupidity and banality.

Having spent a lot of last year ranting at idiots in their metal boxes cutting me up on my commute to work I've decided to chill out and not dignify their existence with a reply (mainly cursing) or the flipped finger. The adrenalin rush may boost a little performance but the stress, ultimately increased by my response is detrimental and I can do without it thank you.

So Clarkson falls into this category, he's a plank, he's wrong but am I going to lose sleep over it, no

Nuff said.

Complain about this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/forms/

This sort of banter gives support to people who thinks it's OK to mistreat other road users.

Try talking through the dialogue above replacing the word cyclist with children (another group who pay no 'road tax' and also seem to get killed by cars rather a lot).

Quote:

'I don’t mind if cyclists want to come on the road with their silly Victorian distractions, I’m not bothered, but they must behave themselves.'

he's got his silly victorian distraction, i have mine. the car and the bike were invented at more or less the same time, so what's good for the goose... anyway, i have both kinds, as do most people. replace 'cyclists' with 'motorists' and the quote isn't any less true or applicable.

personally i wish cyclists would behave themselves too, as the thing that gives most grist to the mill of the haters is not idiots like clarkson but the idiots we all see riding as fast as they can on the pavement, or without lights, or just badly. I also, of course, wish car drivers would behave themselves, so that i don't die. the pent-up frustration of motorists stuck in a traffic jam who finally realise those open-road ads have sold them a pup is no more or less palatable to me than the self-righteous indignation of cyclists who think conservation of momentum is the first law of the road.

Quote:

Fact is that roads are funded from general taxatrion including VAT on hamburgers, and income taxes. On that basis Clarkson pays a lot towards roads not because he drives a car, but because he is an overweight, overpaid twat.

amen to that.

May just be banter but the old crock about who pays road tax got trhough unchallenged - again.

Fact is that roads are funded from general taxatrion including VAT on hamburgers, and income taxes. On that basis Clarkson pays a lot towards roads not because he drives a car, but because he is an overweight, overpaid twat.

Isn't Clarkson right?
'I don’t mind if cyclists want to come on the road with their silly Victorian distractions, I’m not bothered, but they must behave themselves.'
This seems to me to be both funny and unobjectionable - even liberal (relatively speaking). Cyclists surely hold the same views about motorists.
Of course his comments about the French are thoroughly reprehensible and I will be writing to the French ambassador suggesting that he demands a full apology.

road.cc why have you even brought it up, no need, everyone needs to relax.

I can't work out what the best approach is. Either ignore the fat twerp and deprive him of the oxygen of publicity or tackle his cretinous idiocy head on.

Depriving him of oxygen does have a pleasing ring about it....