Re: When are you too old to drive?

> Privileges such as riding on roads that I have a legal right to? If horses > were more common, would you want them to have tax disks too? The fact is > that VED is not a tax that gives you the right to use the road - it's not > been called Road Fund Licence for a very long time now. It's just a tax on > ownings cars that are taken on the road, to ensure that everyone keeps their > cars registered and to raise a bit of cash.

Argh! You are correct in calling me out on that. I thought about that phrasing when I posted those words, and went ahead and posted them anyway. You are right that the fees are not associated with a priviledge. If your VED though is principled as our road use taxes are, then the intended purpose of the fee is highway maintenance and buildout. Not necessarily to fully fund those, but to contribute to those costs. My point was that each car is subject to those based on the presumption that it will use those roads and be eligible for the honor of contributing to the upkpeep of them. When bike owners say they already pay those fees, so they should be free to use the roads as registered vehicles do, I disagree. It's not the individual who is enabled by the fee, it is the vehicle.

> I imagine the original Road Fund Licence came about due to the fact that > cars and commercials do far more damage to the roads than cycles. >

I would agree based on the underlying principle but I really believe that they came into practice to satisfy the insatiable appetite within politicians for more money.

I stripped all of the cross posting out of this reply - which I had not even noticed on my first reply. Maybe this won't even pass within Doki's field of view now...