Letters from Daily Newspapers re Cyclist Registration

Letters from Daily Newspapers re Cyclist Registration

February 9, 2008, 6:36 am
Filed under: bicycle commute, cycling | Tags: australia, bicycle, bicycling, bike, bike news, bike tracks, biking, blog, commuter, commuting, cycle, cycle news, cycling, cycling news, gippsland, news, rail trail, ride, riding, today, victoria, wordpress

Bicycle registration is a weighty issue – about eight kilograms, in fact

I object to Pat Farmer’s ill-informed call for a bike levy (“Cyclists should pay, says MP”, February 8). Like many cyclists, I also own a car. Despite choosing to cycle to work, I pay rego for a minimally used vehicle, helping to pay for roads on which Farmer can waste no end of natural resources driving from Mosman to Campbelltown. Instead, I suggest Farmer pays an extra levy for speaking without thinking.

Briony Bowman Marrickville

So cyclists “saved more than $82 million in public health costs, almost $64 million in traffic congestion-related costs and $9 million in greenhouse gas-related costs”. I reckon the Government should pay us.

Anne Wagstaff Oatley

I understand that vehicle registration is based on the tare weight of the vehicle, hence heavier trucks, which do more damage to the road, pay more than a small car. My 1984 Corolla, which travelled a little over 2000 kilometres last year, just cost me $51 to register. Given my car has a tare weight of 921 kilograms, and my bicycle weighs a little over eight kilograms, who should I send my 44 cents to ?

Bernie Carpenter Winston Hills

The levy Farmer suggests is to “legitimise cyclists’ place on roads”. He may be surprised to know that cyclists already have a legal right to ride on roads in NSW. To impose a levy and/or registration system on cyclists would simply create yet another barrier for cyclists to exercise that right.

Matthew Taylor Kotara

Farmer perpetuates the myth that registration pays for infrastructure. It is a weight tax (check your rego form, Pat). Perhaps he means that our taxes should be more equitably spent to fund cycling infrastructure. The current measly 0.2 per cent of the Roads and Traffic Authority’s annual budget for clean, green transport keeps NSW well behind the rest of the country.

Fiona Campbell Marrickville

Rather than charging cyclists a levy, let’s get rid of car registration charges and third-party insurance and instead collect the required amount by increasing the taxes on petrol and diesel. This is a simple user-pays system; the more you drive heavy vehicles that degrade infrastructure and destroy the environment and health, the more you pay.

This has to be a better method than slugging cyclists with a levy as well as having them pay registration for the car in their garage.

Paul Gittings Russell Lea

Why pick on cyclists? Each day millions of pedestrians walk on footpaths without contributing a red cent to the cost. A levy, administrable through shoe stores, could help legitimise this shameless behaviour.

Scott Ratcliff Strathfield

While you’re at it, make runners using the roads pay registration. And dogs.

John Garrett Northbridge

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