Another reason to licence, MOT and insure cyclists

Lowpug- I see where you are coming from, not sure that I agree entirely.

I already pay for the upkeep of the roads and so forth in my income tax and council tax, etc etc.

The suggestion you are making is that I pay some additional tax, however using VED as a guideline it would not be spent on making the roads better for cyclists.

Also taxing five bikes each year at £40 (averaging your figs) would be an annoying £200, £15 more that it costs to tax the car.

I would expect (going on how efficient the gov is normally) for this to turn into a nightmare- coppers stopping people checking their licence, fines handed out willy nilly, and the system growing to be a ziggurat of bureaucratic incompetance that ends up pissing away hundreds of thousands of pounds per year.

Spot on...

Making people fit little registration plates to their bikes, paying for a bike MOT and taking tests is ridiculous.

If people buy a bike, put it together incorrectly and aren't worried about the possibility of the brakes not working, then they'll get hurt. They won't cause a mass pile-up and kill hundreds of people.

It's the freedom of cycling that makes people's spirits soar when they jump on a bike. The reason so many people on this forum reacted negatively to the legislation idea is because it would destroy that freedom.

(Apologies in advance for any grammatical errors.)