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"congested roads cannot cope with both bus lanes AND cyclists"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "

    "As much as I applaud cycling as a form of exercise and past-time [sic] the already congested roads cannot cope with both bus lanes AND cyclists.

    "

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ban-unemployed-roads-ease-congestion-5017896

    Posted 10 years ago #
  2. Nelly
    Member

    "Common sense policies" is what UKIP stand for....

    Posted 10 years ago #
  3. Instography
    Member

    Indeed. Remove the least space efficient mode and there will be plenty of room for the bus lanes and cyclists. And you might join the cyclists you so admire.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  4. crowriver
    Member

    I live near a very congested road: Easter Road.

    The congestion is caused by queues of single occupant cars.

    If they got the bus or cycled instead, there would be very little congestion...

    Posted 10 years ago #
  5. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    UKIP will never thrive until they learn to follow a thought all the way to a conclusion.

    If the unemployed are to be forbidden access to taxpayer funded infrastructure then they must use neither road nor pavement. Unemployment should lead to administrative house arrest. If the house in question is a council house then the unemployed person should take up residence on the foreshore until an employer seeks them out.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  6. Min
    Member

    On cyclists, Mr Yates said "John Major made it unlawful to ride on the pavement. Since then the roads are twice as congested.

    Genius!

    Is he the one running that anti-20mph Facebook campaign?

    Posted 10 years ago #
  7. algo
    Member

    @IWRATS - brilliant. You should extrapolate all their policies in this way - combine this with the abolition of maternity pay, and lack of immigration and we'll have a blissfully "uncongested" country.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  8. gibbo
    Member

    @crowdriver

    I live near a very congested road: Easter Road.

    The congestion is caused by queues of single occupant cars.

    If they got the bus or cycled instead, there would be very little congestion

    Don't be coming around here with your facts and logic.

    Lynton Yates - the man with no first name - isn't interested in these sorts of things.

    He wants to get to the golf club as quickly as possible... and creating conflict by sticking pedestrians and cyclists on the same narrow strip of concrete will shave 30 seconds off his journey.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  9. acsimpson
    Member

    "What do you want, less cars on the road or not? Road tax is ridiculous anyway. It should have been put on fuel."

    Baring the ignorant mention of Taxes which haven't been charged since The Hobbit was first published there's a ray of sense in that.

    Abolish VeD and raise fuel duty by an equivalent amount. Thereby taxing people who cause congestion rather than occasional motorists who only drive a few thousand miles a year. That sounds far too sensible though so can't possibly be what he means.

    In other news:

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ukip-suspends-candidate-who-called-5025029

    Posted 10 years ago #
  10. neddie
    Member

    The thing about VED is that it allows the authorities to check the vehicle has an MOT and is insured at the time of purchase

    Posted 10 years ago #
  11. steveo
    Member

    Its not really required any more. If your car is on the road is must be insured and it must have a valid MOT, these can be checked by ANR at dozens of points a day.

    If you wish to not insure your car you must inform the DVLA that the vehicle is off the road, they've already ditched the easy visual check that the vehicle is legal so it would be trivial dump VED altogether but retain the rest of the database and the SORN process.

    I wouldn't expect the cost of VED to materially impact the cost of petrol though.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  12. neddie
    Member

    If you start arguing to abolish taxes, then you could also argue to abolish VAT and instead applied the equivalent to income tax.

    After all VAT is a tax on the poor.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  13. acsimpson
    Member

    I guess there are ways for the super rich to avoid most taxes but VAT seems to be more a tax on consumption than the poor.

    A large number of everyday essentials can be bought entirely VAT free. Although sometime the vat system can be seriously messed up, such as chocolate biscuits vs chocolate cakes.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  14. Min
    Member

    A large number of everyday essentials can be bought entirely VAT free.

    Especially if you are wee and can buy children's clothes. :-)

    Actually, the more I think about it, the more I agree with him on the unemployed, so long as you also banned the employed, the retired, UKIP councillors and students. That would REALLY cut congestion.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  15. chdot
    Admin

    "That would REALLY cut congestion."

    Except that there would be 'extra capacity' again - soon filled up with people driving more (especially those put off by previous 'congestion'.)

    Posted 10 years ago #
  16. kaputnik
    Moderator

    This guy is clearly off the party (Nigel's) line. AS we all now know, congestion is caused not by the unemployed but by Eastern European immigrants.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  17. Ed1
    Member

    Why ban the unemployed from the road? Because the claim more in state goods and services than they pay in tax? This many working, retired, or low income people also cost more in state services than they pay in tax.

    Those claiming unemployed claims less tax payers money than many who do not claim unemployment, unemployment benefit JSA is only what 4 billion a year compared to say 30 billion paid to subsides unfunded public sector pensions to use a benign example.

    Housing benefit, can be claimed by the unemployed, but also working people, pensioners etc women with young children its means tested not unemployment status based.

    What is actually paid out specifically for unemployment is tiny part of so called benefits bill. Housing benefit, so called council tax benefit, is income based and although some unemployed may claim it may others may do likewise.

    Even if we just use a straightforward frame of what someone gets from the government and what someone contributes on an annual basis, then many more people than the unemployed who are not net contributors in respect to tax paying services received.

    The estimate in this study households have to earn between 35 and 38K before pay more taxes than take in services.

    Many of the people complain about the unemployed costing them tax money are not really net contributors.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/10638283/How-much-we-give-the-state-in-tax-and-how-much-we-get-back.html

    Smith & Williamson taxes paid benefits received IFS

    People claiming Unemployment JSA pay fuel duty also pay, road duty, in fact the same as everyone else. The JSA is less than many other state.

    Many working people claim more in state goods than pay in taxes.

    This “study” by Smith & Williamson just use what people pay in tax and what services cost this does not convert cost of delivering to market rate, no consider income received in respect to market rate.

    It does not consider the cost of delivering the state goods, in respect to market rate, nor does it consider the market rate in respect to income earned that tax paid on.

    For example if cost of delivering say a school place is 15k (made up) but the market rate for delivering this service is 8K (made up) then what benefit has the public received? . If don’t use a market rate, then the lower productivity from say inefficiency increases the value of the good received.

    Under this thinking if government was less productive public would receive more benefits, imagine if it cost a million pounds for a school place someone would receive 1 million in benefits. Of course this is ridiculous the cost someone delivering something does not equal the value they may be delivering it badly, it would be what it costs to buy something in some hypothetical market , so have to use market rate of costs of delivering as this is what would the person would need to spend to achieve these services not what actually cost the government.

    So in theory need to use market rate or otherwise, measure of value of good.

    The same is on the taxation side, imagine someone is paid 50K by the government for a job that is the market rate is only 25K. On tax and benefits they are contributor. Yet they are only a contributor as paid the additional 25k above the market rate which in effect is a benefit.

    If the government paid them 25k then in the Smith & Williamson they would be net taker, yet if government paid them 50k then be a contributor. Of course by market rate they would be more of a taker if market rate was 25 as would have the same benefits costs plus 25k on top. With the state being large part of the economy this can apply even in private employment or things that appear far removed from government.

    This applies to government contracts, benefits government employment pensions, any payment from the government would need to convert it to market rate.

    So even if use the tax and price of state good received figures without converting to market, it just about choice of classification.

    I tend to think there is a lot of propaganda about the unemployed being peddled in to the public consciousness through the likes of the Mirrow or even on state TV, a lot of the people that complain about their taxes being used to pay for others are possibly not net contributors, it seems divisive politics to draw attention away from larger failures.

    Even higher payer tax payers on paper have often experienced some state subsidy from people in finance who are only in business due to state support of the sector, to lawyers who can command high fees because government regulation reduces supply, legislation advocates uses lawyers , to the overpaid GPs paid above the EU counterparts. To those that have benefited from special loan arrangements from the governments.
    It would be difficult to unravel and price what state “benefits” people have, and then to work out if net contributors. In anything but superficial sense using government criteria’s but not including a lot of the non-officially priced benefits such as restrictive barriers that allow economic rent to be earned in certain roles akin to a transfer payment from others.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  18. acsimpson
    Member

    Should we also be digging up a little bit of the road every time someone looses their job, after all their taxes paid for it.

    Posted 10 years ago #
  19. Rosie
    Member

    Come back "On your bike" Norman Tebbitt.

    Posted 10 years ago #

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