🚀 go-pugleaf

Fred McCall (mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com) wrote:
: Steve Kappes (steve@iphase.com) wrote:

: : This thread sure has wide news group appeal.  

: Most of these flame-bait idiocies do.  And of course, there are always
: the clueless, busily adding MORE groups to the thread.  But enough of
: that. Perhaps you should have considered thinning it out?

: : I haven't read all of this thread,

: Seems you should have done that, too.  It would have obviated your
: article. 

I've now read most of this thread, still haven't seen any thing
obviated.

: : but this bikes dont pay taxes reasoning is really bugging me.  I have two cars,
: : one of them gets about 17 mpg.  I'll bet I and most other bikers are covered
: : for our road use taxes.

: Except that road use taxes are paid on *vehicles*, not for an
: individual's use of the road.  Bicycles pay no road use tax.  You and
: most other bicyclists (as opposed to bikers, whose vehicles generally
: do burn gasoline -- just to prevent a bit of confusion, since someone
: added tx.motorcycles to the list) are not covered for your road use
: tax in the use of your bicycle on the road.

I'm interested, where is it stated that road use taxes are fair.  Isn't
the goal simply to come up with a mechanism to collect enough money to
build roads?  Do you really think that I have any more right to the road
when I'm using gas at 17mpg than someone else that is running along at
35mpg.  Does someone that pays twice what I do in income tax deserve to
receive their mail before I do?

Is it possible some people make up stories to support their desired
conclusions?

: This is, of course, an irrelevant issue except that someone who
: bicycled wanted to claim that they had some 'right' to the road, since
: their taxes paid for it.  Of course, they were wrong about just which
: taxes are 'road use' (too), but that's only as irrelevant as the
: initial issue.

Exactly, it is irrelevant.

: : What is it that the bike haters really have a problem with? 

: Being trapped behind a bicycle doing 5 in a 45 and watching a big long
: string of cars stack up as each car waits their '5 or 10 seconds' to
: get by; if you're 20th in line, you just wasted a fair number of
: minutes riding your brakes to keep your speed down to bicycle pace.

I wouldn't ride in a situation like this.  I also wouldn't bother
thinking about it, because it almost never happens.  That's what I don't
understand, as I said, I have been threatened many times when I wasn't
holding up anyone.

It is pretty clear to me that it is mostly a psychological problem for
some drivers.

Steve Kappes  steve@iphase.com

: -- 
: "Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
:  in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.