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Cyclists contribute to congestion and occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits. Cyclists are not l

Cyclists contribute to congestion and occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits. Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists. Cyclists are rarely subjected to traffic law enforcement despite demanding all of the rights that motorists pay for and are licensed for. Cyclists are a danger to themselves and others while operating in the same area as motorists, but are not required to carry insurance or wear safety equipment, while motorists are held to more stringent regulation. In a nutshell, cyclists are free-riding risk takers who are arrogant to boot. When they start acting like motorists and pay taxes like motorists and are fined like motorists for violating the law, I will happily change my opinion.

nostrebored 1y ago
Motorists __DO NOT COVER__ the costs of roads. Your existence as a motorist is entirely subsidized. The cost of driving is borne by government and society. Road infrastructure, maintenance, and space for cars is actually insanely expensive.
- MisterMower 1y ago
  What do you think taxes on gasoline are for? You’re absolutely right, roadways are insanely expensive. That’s why it’s infuriating to see entire lanes expropriated for cyclists.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > What do you think taxes on gasoline are for? Paying for our highways circa 1993 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
    - MisterMower 1y ago
      You realize states levy taxes on gas too, right? And that those taxes are remitted to city governments to build and maintain infrastructure?
      - const_cast 1y ago
        None of what you're saying matters even a little bit if you're not able to provide any numbers on how much you're actually paying. Because we both know it's not 100%, or even 25%. So stop bullshitting.
      - nostrebored 1y ago
        What percentage of the TCO of roads do you think is covered by gas tax? You are using a state service whenever you use the road. It is a subsidy that people who are the largest offenders consistently choose to entrench.
        MisterMower 1y ago
        Not enough. I've been consistently stating throughout this thread that people need to pay for their use. The fact that motorists shoulder some but not all of the cost is not an argument that cyclists should be exempted from paying any of the cost.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Road wear is fourth power of axel weight, so trucks/lorries are overwhelmingly the cause of what repair money gets spent on fixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law Complaining about cyclists getting bike lanes is like complaining about pedestrians getting footpaths.
    - MisterMower 1y ago
      No, it would be like a city building a dog park and then having parents bring their kids to the park and demanding that dog owners keep their dogs on leashes while in the park. By your logic, this is fine because the kids aren’t pooping in the park which degrades it less. Never mind that the park was created for dog owners, and their enjoyment of it is impaired by these new restrictions placed on them by people who shouldn’t even be there.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        Your analogy is the bad one here. To be like that, almost everyone would need to own a dog, and everyone including the non-dog-owners would have things delivered by dog, the dog park would have to actively block access to most places, and the fees for the dog owners pay for the dog park would have to be insufficient for the dog park and the park instead subsidised by general taxation even from the people who only get stuff delivered by dog… which would be quite fair and reasonable because almost all the damage to the dog park that the maintenance fees would need to cover, would be due to specifically the delivery dogs. The actual point of the dog park fees in this scenario would be to reduce the usage of the dog park, due to everyone riding their dogs everywhere. Which is a heck of a mental image. Roads aren't for pleasure, they're economic infrastructure that some people happen to enjoy.
        MisterMower 1y ago
        I'm sorry you aren't able to see the parallels. Let me explain them for you: Dog owners are the motorists. Dedicated infrastructure was built specifically for them to use. Parents with kids are the cyclists. They want to restrict how that infrastructure is used so that they can enjoy it in the way that is most convenient for them, at the expense of the dog owners. Initially, dog owners used the park freely without any interference from parents with kids. But at some point, parents with kids felt they were entitled to use the dog park in ways it was never intended to be used, and changed regulations to restrict dog owners enjoyment of the park. I intentionally left out any discussion of how these things are paid for to highlight the unfairness of this situation. It doesn't matter how it's paid for, since the infrastructure already exists for a specific purpose and is being used for that purpose. To include the finance side of things in this analogy, it would be like funding the dog park with a special sales tax on dog food, which increases the unfairness of the whole situation when it's taken over by the parents with kids, who paid nothing to maintain or build it. In case you don't understand how analogies work, they highlight critical similarities between two situations that are otherwise dissimilar to help understand the underlying concept. They aren't parallel in all respects, nor can they be. If your best argument against my analogy is to introduce irrelevant dissimilarities to distract from the obvious point of the analogy, I'll take that as an endorsement it was effective.
achierius 1y ago
I do pay taxes, just like a motorist might. Where do you live that you think your car or your gas is taxed in a way that contributes to road upkeep? In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades, roadways are maintained out of the common coffers (incl. large federal incentives which come straight out of your income tax payments).
- MisterMower 1y ago
  Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it? What exactly is your point? For the record, I support closing that gap, in addition to taxing the odometer on electric vehicles which don’t contribute to gas tax revenue but use roadways like other motorists.
  - Mawr 1y ago
    > Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it? I don't think you understood what you wrote. Non-motorists subsidize motorists. Feel free to look up the % of funding for roads that gas tax or w/e accounts for in your country. Also look up the fourth power law, that'll tell you how much tax a cyclist should pay compared to a driver in terms of road wear. Say a cyclist should pay $1, how much should you? Then check how many millions it costs to build a mile of highway and internalize the fact that cyclists are not allowed there. Nor do they use car parking. Nor do they cause 40 thousand deaths per year in the USA. What's the cost of human life again? Once you figure all that out, we'll be ready to start talking about pollution and its effects.
    - MisterMower 1y ago
      More than half of the US doesn’t pay income taxes. Your point about non-motorists subsidizing motorists is nonsensical in this context. At least some of the taxes motorists pay are directly used for road maintenance. Roads deteriorate whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use them, they should pay to maintain them. I don’t know why you find this idea so controversial. Adjust the fees commensurate with their weight if you want, but by definition those fees should not be zero. Roads are obviously expensive, hence why it is repulsive that cyclists pay nothing to build or maintain them, but actively increase the danger on them and degrade the efficiency of using them. Pollution? In what world do cyclists not require fuel to operate? Cyclists use the most expensive fuel possible to operate: consumable calories. We burn fuel to operate machinery to produce food, then transport it to stores and then transport it home, cook it, and then use only a portion of the available calories to operate a bicycle because the human body isn’t 100% efficient. You’re delusional if you somehow think cycling is good for the environment.
Mawr 1y ago
> Cyclists contribute to congestion How many cyclists can fit in a space of one car? Or, would you rather that every cyclist was in a car instead? Would that increase or decrease congestion? > occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits So roads get funded in full by motorists and cyclists can't possibly also own motorized vehicles and they don't pay tax that definitely doesn't contribute to the roads that they surely wear down at a rate that's not on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands lower than cars. Oh and 16 lane highways are built because of all the damn cyclists clogging up the roads. > Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists. A cyclist on the road is only a danger to himself. A motorist can mow down a school trip on a pedestrian crossing on a whim. The latter two points just repeat the above. Yes, driving a 2 ton machine at 80 mph is going to have be a little more restricted than a 20 kg bicycle at 20 mph.
- MisterMower 1y ago
  Cyclists travel slower than the prevailing speed of motorists, and they accelerate from a stop much slower. And while they don’t take up much space, the space they consume is not zero. We can argue the magnitude here, but the effect is obvious to anyone who has shared the road with a cyclist. Road wear is not the main issue. Roads will deteriorate whether they’re used or not. They will deteriorate faster with heavier traffic, sure. But deterioration from temperature cycling, road salt application, and weather happens whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use this infrastructure, they should contribute to its upkeep. If cyclists have a car and contribute by paying these taxes and fees, then let’s build a regulatory regime that exempts these users from cyclist fees and taxes. The point here is to make those using the infrastructure pay for their share of upkeep and their contribution to congestion. Deer are only a danger to themselves too, right? People never experience damage to their vehicle or personal injury when they hit a deer? The damage and risk is not proportional to both parties, sure. But it is false to say that drivers experience no risk of damage or bodily injury when in an accident with a cyclist who disobeys traffic laws. Cyclists should be insured at whatever rate is necessary to protect against this risk. Your school children example is not really applicable here. We’re discussing cyclists who want to be treated like motorists but refuse to act like them and obey common traffic rules. That is about as far as you can get from from an innocent group of school children crossing the street with the flashing red stop sign on the school bus activated.

nostrebored 1y ago

Motorists __DO NOT COVER__ the costs of roads. Your existence as a motorist is entirely subsidized. The cost of driving is borne by government and society. Road infrastructure, maintenance, and space for cars is actually insanely expensive.

MisterMower 1y ago
What do you think taxes on gasoline are for? You’re absolutely right, roadways are insanely expensive. That’s why it’s infuriating to see entire lanes expropriated for cyclists.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > What do you think taxes on gasoline are for? Paying for our highways circa 1993 [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
  - MisterMower 1y ago
    You realize states levy taxes on gas too, right? And that those taxes are remitted to city governments to build and maintain infrastructure?
    - const_cast 1y ago
      None of what you're saying matters even a little bit if you're not able to provide any numbers on how much you're actually paying. Because we both know it's not 100%, or even 25%. So stop bullshitting.
    - nostrebored 1y ago
      What percentage of the TCO of roads do you think is covered by gas tax? You are using a state service whenever you use the road. It is a subsidy that people who are the largest offenders consistently choose to entrench.
      - MisterMower 1y ago
        Not enough. I've been consistently stating throughout this thread that people need to pay for their use. The fact that motorists shoulder some but not all of the cost is not an argument that cyclists should be exempted from paying any of the cost.
- ben_w 1y ago
  Road wear is fourth power of axel weight, so trucks/lorries are overwhelmingly the cause of what repair money gets spent on fixing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law Complaining about cyclists getting bike lanes is like complaining about pedestrians getting footpaths.
  - MisterMower 1y ago
    No, it would be like a city building a dog park and then having parents bring their kids to the park and demanding that dog owners keep their dogs on leashes while in the park. By your logic, this is fine because the kids aren’t pooping in the park which degrades it less. Never mind that the park was created for dog owners, and their enjoyment of it is impaired by these new restrictions placed on them by people who shouldn’t even be there.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      Your analogy is the bad one here. To be like that, almost everyone would need to own a dog, and everyone including the non-dog-owners would have things delivered by dog, the dog park would have to actively block access to most places, and the fees for the dog owners pay for the dog park would have to be insufficient for the dog park and the park instead subsidised by general taxation even from the people who only get stuff delivered by dog… which would be quite fair and reasonable because almost all the damage to the dog park that the maintenance fees would need to cover, would be due to specifically the delivery dogs. The actual point of the dog park fees in this scenario would be to reduce the usage of the dog park, due to everyone riding their dogs everywhere. Which is a heck of a mental image. Roads aren't for pleasure, they're economic infrastructure that some people happen to enjoy.
      - MisterMower 1y ago
        I'm sorry you aren't able to see the parallels. Let me explain them for you: Dog owners are the motorists. Dedicated infrastructure was built specifically for them to use. Parents with kids are the cyclists. They want to restrict how that infrastructure is used so that they can enjoy it in the way that is most convenient for them, at the expense of the dog owners. Initially, dog owners used the park freely without any interference from parents with kids. But at some point, parents with kids felt they were entitled to use the dog park in ways it was never intended to be used, and changed regulations to restrict dog owners enjoyment of the park. I intentionally left out any discussion of how these things are paid for to highlight the unfairness of this situation. It doesn't matter how it's paid for, since the infrastructure already exists for a specific purpose and is being used for that purpose. To include the finance side of things in this analogy, it would be like funding the dog park with a special sales tax on dog food, which increases the unfairness of the whole situation when it's taken over by the parents with kids, who paid nothing to maintain or build it. In case you don't understand how analogies work, they highlight critical similarities between two situations that are otherwise dissimilar to help understand the underlying concept. They aren't parallel in all respects, nor can they be. If your best argument against my analogy is to introduce irrelevant dissimilarities to distract from the obvious point of the analogy, I'll take that as an endorsement it was effective.

achierius 1y ago

I do pay taxes, just like a motorist might. Where do you live that you think your car or your gas is taxed in a way that contributes to road upkeep? In the US gas taxes haven't been upped in decades, roadways are maintained out of the common coffers (incl. large federal incentives which come straight out of your income tax payments).

MisterMower 1y ago
Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it? What exactly is your point? For the record, I support closing that gap, in addition to taxing the odometer on electric vehicles which don’t contribute to gas tax revenue but use roadways like other motorists.
- Mawr 1y ago
  > Because motorists don’t fund all road upkeep, cyclists who consume those very same roads are entitled to pay none of it? I don't think you understood what you wrote. Non-motorists subsidize motorists. Feel free to look up the % of funding for roads that gas tax or w/e accounts for in your country. Also look up the fourth power law, that'll tell you how much tax a cyclist should pay compared to a driver in terms of road wear. Say a cyclist should pay $1, how much should you? Then check how many millions it costs to build a mile of highway and internalize the fact that cyclists are not allowed there. Nor do they use car parking. Nor do they cause 40 thousand deaths per year in the USA. What's the cost of human life again? Once you figure all that out, we'll be ready to start talking about pollution and its effects.
  - MisterMower 1y ago
    More than half of the US doesn’t pay income taxes. Your point about non-motorists subsidizing motorists is nonsensical in this context. At least some of the taxes motorists pay are directly used for road maintenance. Roads deteriorate whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use them, they should pay to maintain them. I don’t know why you find this idea so controversial. Adjust the fees commensurate with their weight if you want, but by definition those fees should not be zero. Roads are obviously expensive, hence why it is repulsive that cyclists pay nothing to build or maintain them, but actively increase the danger on them and degrade the efficiency of using them. Pollution? In what world do cyclists not require fuel to operate? Cyclists use the most expensive fuel possible to operate: consumable calories. We burn fuel to operate machinery to produce food, then transport it to stores and then transport it home, cook it, and then use only a portion of the available calories to operate a bicycle because the human body isn’t 100% efficient. You’re delusional if you somehow think cycling is good for the environment.

Mawr 1y ago

> Cyclists contribute to congestion How many cyclists can fit in a space of one car? Or, would you rather that every cyclist was in a car instead? Would that increase or decrease congestion? > occupy road space that was created through taxes on motorists while paying nothing for these benefits So roads get funded in full by motorists and cyclists can't possibly also own motorized vehicles and they don't pay tax that definitely doesn't contribute to the roads that they surely wear down at a rate that's not on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands lower than cars. Oh and 16 lane highways are built because of all the damn cyclists clogging up the roads. > Cyclists are not licensed and their bicycles are not tagged or inspected for safe operation on roads, unlike motorists. A cyclist on the road is only a danger to himself. A motorist can mow down a school trip on a pedestrian crossing on a whim. The latter two points just repeat the above. Yes, driving a 2 ton machine at 80 mph is going to have be a little more restricted than a 20 kg bicycle at 20 mph.

MisterMower 1y ago
Cyclists travel slower than the prevailing speed of motorists, and they accelerate from a stop much slower. And while they don’t take up much space, the space they consume is not zero. We can argue the magnitude here, but the effect is obvious to anyone who has shared the road with a cyclist. Road wear is not the main issue. Roads will deteriorate whether they’re used or not. They will deteriorate faster with heavier traffic, sure. But deterioration from temperature cycling, road salt application, and weather happens whether they’re used or not. If cyclists want to use this infrastructure, they should contribute to its upkeep. If cyclists have a car and contribute by paying these taxes and fees, then let’s build a regulatory regime that exempts these users from cyclist fees and taxes. The point here is to make those using the infrastructure pay for their share of upkeep and their contribution to congestion. Deer are only a danger to themselves too, right? People never experience damage to their vehicle or personal injury when they hit a deer? The damage and risk is not proportional to both parties, sure. But it is false to say that drivers experience no risk of damage or bodily injury when in an accident with a cyclist who disobeys traffic laws. Cyclists should be insured at whatever rate is necessary to protect against this risk. Your school children example is not really applicable here. We’re discussing cyclists who want to be treated like motorists but refuse to act like them and obey common traffic rules. That is about as far as you can get from from an innocent group of school children crossing the street with the flashing red stop sign on the school bus activated.