My Tax Disc Rant

Off-topic
1

Bikes for many a moon have been marketed to us punters to make us feel like we are buying a bike that breathes fire, shakes buildings, makes us kings of the road. When we ride down the high street we expect small children & the elderly to dive for cover otherwise they would just explode due to our sheer biking toughness. A sort of Chuck Norris on wheels.

We buy bikes with macho names, the sort of names they give to jet fighters.

We can, if we so wish, spend huge wads of cash making our bikes louder/faster/more gaudy & out do anything on the road. You can buy leather outfits that cost a fortune that make you look like A) an imperial stormtrooper or B) a power ranger C) a gay.

But, and it’s a “big” but, once a year we have to make the pilgrimage to the local post office, hand over 60 odd quid, for some mere mortal to pop this bubble of biking godliness we have bought into, by giving us a small paper disc with the details of our road going behemoths & in capital letters they write that we actually own a “bicycle”, not the high powered jet bike we thought we owned or the kind of machine Judge Dread rides. And to add insult to injury we are expected to display this fact on our “bicycles” for the world to see, so they can laugh & mock us openly in the street.

I bought mine yesterday, and to be honest I felt quite deflated when I left the counter.

When you read reviews of Easy Rider, do they says it’s a film about hippies on bicycles? No. When Rob Halford of Judas Priest rides that Harley on stage & screams “Hell bent for leather”, do the crowd shout “ooh, look at that big bicycle”, No.

I don’t ride a “bicycle”, that’s what local policemen, district nurses & people with clips around the bottom of their trousers ride.

Perhaps I should start one of those government petitions to have this travesty changed!!

It’s an outrage I tell you!! :smiley:

2

I like the fact that my tax discs say “bicycle” on them - it means I can give real bicycle riders what-for if they shout at me for sitting in a green box at the front of traffic lights (this is on the rare occasion that said bicycle rider hasn’t jumped the red light)… “Can’t you say that my tax disc say this is a bicycle?!” :smiley:

3

That is a very good point, maybe we are allowed in the green boxes and bus lanes after all :stuck_out_tongue:

4

thats a bloody fantastic point - if i ever get a ticket im going to contest it on those gounds.

I’ll sacrifice myself for all the other bikers out there - mmmmmm hang on…only if they all cough up 50p each to help with the enourmous fine i’ll get when they throw the book at me.

Still…at least we would know! You’d go down in history as the one that changed the tax disc terminology - it would be case law!!!:w00t:

Who wants to be famous then?

5

Taking it one stage further it could be said that bicycles are allowed in bus lanes:cool:

6

Good theory, like it! Not going to be the one to test it though…

7

Wot? Motorbike needs a tax disc???:smiley:

I keep my tax disc inside my top box to stop eejits nicking it.
Old bill seem quite happy with me doing that, as its all on computer nowadays anyway

8

I’ve never displayed the disc on my bike - the guy I bought it from didn’t after he had his nicked and said the police were understanding when he explained that on a subsequent ‘random’ stop (for obviously and audibly having been caning it along a country lane but luckily slowing down to turn right exactly at the point the copper was about to jump out from behind the hedge with his speed gun!!!:P:P:P )And as said - it’s all on computer now and when I was not so fortunate in my encounter with a certain speed gun,:angry: I wasn’t even asked where the disc was…

9

Having had a couple of tax discs stolen in the past, I use a colour photo copy with “Original with owner” written on it. The last two random checks I’ve been pulled in on, both coppers were happy that I could produce the original from under the seat. (No front number plate meant I had not been pre checked by the 'puter.)

Original point. Does this mean I can start riding in those green strips marked “Bicycle Lane”?

If so, can I also ignore people on Zebra crossings, red traffic lights and ride on the pavement? Will Ken Livingstone massage survey data in my favour?

Oldguy.