In article ,
d wrote:
On Tue, 18 May 2010 16:26:37 +0100
Mike Bristow wrote:
In article ,
d wrote:
Except they're not. Everyone who uses the roads (apart from lycra louts)
pays road tax.

Cyclists pay the same VED (not road tax) as all other band A vehicles.

What do you think an "Âexcise duty" is? Its a tax.

Band A vehicles still have to have a valid a tax disc. Do bicycles?

What do you think the V stands for? (It's not "Road"). Still,
it's a minor (and rather pedantic) point that I made.

The substantive point - about bikes being band-a vehicles - remains
true (bikes also do a tiny amount of damage to roads compared to
cars, which is another distinguising feature).

Given that all push-bikes are Band-A it seems like a waste of tax
money to issue them all a tax disc. OTOH, Band-A motor-vehicles
are difficult to distinguish from Band-B ones, so it's probably
cheaper to issue disc to them for £0, than deal with the appeals
when someone driving a Band-A car gets a ticket from someone who
thinks it's a Band-B one.


Ergo we all have equal rights on them.

Paying VED is not the source of your rights to use the road.

Correct, vehicles also have to be insuranced and have a valid MOT. Do bicycles?

No.

Those aren't the source of your right to use the road, either,
seeing as your right to use roads and other public rights of way
pre-date the external combustion engine.

Cheers,

--
Please help Imogen May keep talking - www.imogenmay.com

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

snip

So how does what I think they call "revenue protection" work on this
vehicle?

--
Brian
"Fight like the Devil, die like a gentleman."
www.imagebus.co.uk/shop

On Tue, 18 May 2010 13:37:29 +0100, Bruce
wrote:

That actually sounds quite sensible. If that was the case, I'm not
sure I have total confidence that the system for closing off the
platform would be reliable enough to be opened and closed quite so
frequently.

Why? All it would need to be is a pair of plug-sliding doors that
meet in the middle. It could even be manually operated.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

On Tue, 18 May 2010 11:45:59 +0100, David Cantrell
wrote:

I'm 6'3" and never noticed this supposed lack of legroom on
Routemasters. I notice it all the time on modern buses though - I
suppose the difference is that the RM's seat backs had a bit of give in
them instead of being made of hard plastic shells, and so I could sit
without crushing my kneecaps.

I find the newer buses (Wright, Alexander Dennis and ELC) have fewer
seats upstairs so have more legroom.

By the way, I'm about the same height as you (6' 4"). Perhaps the
ratio of upper to lower leg is different - that can make a major
difference. But I could only sit on the very front, very back
(upstairs) or side-facing seats - at any other I'd need to sit
sideways. And they weren't wide enough for 2 people, really.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
To reply put my first name before the at.

On Tue, 18 May 2010, Mizter T wrote:

There's very little clarity about how often it'll run with a conductor,
how it'll work both with and without a conductor, and how London can
justify the extra expense of conductors particularly given the ticketing
situation nowadays (i.e. the majority of people have a prepaid ticket of
some sort). Or if they're not to be a conductor but a "uniformed
presence" just what form that presence will take.

Does "uniformed presences" mean the ghosts of dead beefeaters?

tom

--
Coldplay is the kind of music computers will make when they get smart
enough to start making fun of humans -- Lower Marsh Tit

On Tue, 18 May 2010 21:22:25 +0200, Neil Williams
wrote:

On Tue, 18 May 2010 13:37:29 +0100, Bruce
wrote:

That actually sounds quite sensible. If that was the case, I'm not
sure I have total confidence that the system for closing off the
platform would be reliable enough to be opened and closed quite so
frequently.

Why? All it would need to be is a pair of plug-sliding doors that
meet in the middle. It could even be manually operated.


If the platform edge was a straight line, I would agree. But the
images clearly show it as wrapping around into the rear of the bus, a
la Routemaster.

The point I was trying to make, but obviously failed, is that there is
a difference between something that is used at the start and end of a
day, and something that is used every trip. The former is quite easy
to arrange. The latter is more difficult, especially given the shape
of the rear platform.

Obviously, it isn't an insurmountable problem, but it can only add to
the already very high cost of the bus, which is beginning to look like
a classic example of design by committee.

(I'd get rid of those gratuitously expensive "swoops" for a start.
What are these people on?!?!)

On Tue, 18 May 2010 18:09:03 +0100
Mike Bristow wrote:
Those aren't the source of your right to use the road, either,

It is if I want to drive a vehicle on it (sorry , but I don't count bicyles
as vehicles anymore than I do skateboards).

seeing as your right to use roads and other public rights of way
pre-date the external combustion engine.

If you think roads are a public right of way then try walking down the middle
of an A road holding up the traffic and see how long it is before plod nicks
you.

B2003

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 03:49:33AM -0700, MIG wrote:
On 18 May, 11:32, David Cantrell wrote:
Supposedly, having uniformed staff makes some people feel safer too.
The security guard aspect was less in my mind than the helpfulness
possibilities.

I don't believe it myself. In the unlikely event of a bunch of chav
scum starting a fight on a bus, I doubt the conductor would break it up.
Nor do I think that the chav scum would wait until they were off the
bus merely because there's a conductor on board.

But whether they actually make good security guards has no bearing on
whether people *think* they do. If people only thought that stuff that
was actually useful was indee useful, then we'd not have anything like
as many CCTV cameras.

--
David Cantrell | Bourgeois reactionary pig

One person can change the world, but most of the time they shouldn't
-- Marge Simpson

On 17 May, 14:12, Tom Barry wrote:

It's not a Routemaster.

Nor should it be. Requirements have changed in over half a century,
and I would hope that we would have made improvements in that time.
The RM was a very good 1950s bus, and since then we've had a whole
series of generally not very good buses from the Fleetline in the '70s
onwards.

What we need is a bus which is quick to load and unload, reliable,
quick, easy and cheap to maintain and which has a long life - things
which the Rm did, without the things that it didn't do as well.

One report that I read said that the new one would have an open
platform; surely that's not the case, is it? I wouldn't have thought
that would stand any chance of passing modern regulations.

On May 19, 3:14*pm, wrote:

On 17 May, 14:12, Tom Barry wrote:

It's not a Routemaster.

Nor should it be. *Requirements have changed in over half a century,
and I would hope that we would have made improvements in that time.
The RM was a very good 1950s bus, and since then we've had a whole
series of generally not very good buses from the Fleetline in the '70s
onwards.

What we need is a bus which is quick to load and unload, reliable,
quick, easy and cheap to maintain and which has a long life - things
which the Rm did, without the things that it didn't do as well.

One report that I read said that the new one would have an open
platform; surely that's not the case, is it? *I wouldn't have thought
that would stand any chance of passing modern regulations.

Where to start...!