RFL

[slparry]

Guy in work has a 12 month old Nissan 1.6 diesel Juke or something, I was quite shocked today to find he only pays £30 per year in road tax ..... I've just put 6 months on the K12GT and it's £42 odd, just why the hell are bikes so expensive on road tax??

[bikesnbones]

Guy in work has a 12 month old Nissan 1.6 diesel Juke or something, I was quite shocked today to find he only pays £30 per year in road tax ..... I've just put 6 months on the K12GT and it's £42 odd, just why the hell are bikes so expensive on road tax??

It's an area where yet again, bikes have been forgotten about.
The Government are keen to promote low emmisions and so offer substantial tax reductions on vehicles that comply.
Some are even tax exempt.
There is no interest in promoting bikes at all.
Yes, our vehicles take up less space on the road, are more fuel efficient (we spend more time moving in heavy traffic), and take up less space on the road,
Sadly though, where we come unstuck is with our horrendous injury and fatality rate (proportionally)
Bikes account for just 1% of road traffic, but represent a fifth of all fatalities, with a casualty rate that is 61 times greater than that for cars.
We can argue till we're blue in the face about who is responsible, but it doesn't matter.
The last thing the Governement wants is to encourage more of us on to the roads by offering insentives like cheap tax, (although bikes at least were exempt from London tolls, but there are plenty of influential people who'D like to see that knocked on the head)

[McBoxer]

Guy in work has a 12 month old Nissan 1.6 diesel Juke or something, I was quite shocked today to find he only pays £30 per year in road tax ..... I've just put 6 months on the K12GT and it's £42 odd, just why the hell are bikes so expensive on road tax??

It's all relative. I've just put 6 months on my Saab and it cost £154 - and she'll get 50mpg on a motorway run and 42 - 44 on my normal commute.
The Jag tax costs even more, and trucks can cost thousands (I believe).
I remember graduated VED being introduced, and I believe it was sold to us as attempt to move drivers, and therefore manufacturers, away from heavily polluting 4x4's and the like. I guess as there were no bikes that fell into this category they were not included in the legislation?
I wonder how the CO2 emissions of bikes compare to cars? I was surprised when I discovered that fuel economy on many larger bikes was a lot poorer than I expected. Worse than some cars, which kinda negated my argument to wife that I could commute on a bike and save money....

[bikesnbones]

I was surprised when I discovered that fuel economy on many larger bikes was a lot poorer than I expected. Worse than some cars, which kinda negated my argument to wife that I could commute on a bike and save money....

Well to be fair, that's not completely correct.
No you won't get remarkable mpg out of a performance bike, just as you wouldn't from a Porsche 911, but just as you can buy economical cars, you can by the two wheeled equivalent.
Honda claim 75mpg for the NC700, which people really are achieving.
A friend of mine has one, and is averaging just under 70mpg.
If you spend all your commuting time in town, then a 125 will go over 100mpg.
Of course neither of these options are very exiting, but then neither is a small economical car.

Quick edit.
In fairness,
You did say "economy on many larger bikes" was poor.

[conkerman]

Not enough bikers to be worth changing RFL rules.

[bikesnbones]

Not enough bikers to be worth changing RFL rules.

And too many of us crashing to warrant giving any incentives to ride bikes.

[slparry]

Not enough bikers to be worth changing RFL rules.

And too many of us crashing to warrant giving any incentives to ride bikes.

and see there's the answer to the pensions crisis right there

[dave the german]

£1850 (I think) for the 5 axle artic that I drive which in about 16 months has covered almost 500 000 kilometres (24/7 operation)

[conkerman]

A 3x2 was over £3000 in the early 1990's!

[Twinspark]

Be careful what you wish for... if we switched bikes to CO2 emissions based VED, we'd all end up paying more.

What does a Boxer do? - 40mpg on average? - my BMW 120d is doing 50mpg with nearly twice the BHP and 3 extra seats.

[conkerman]

+1

Anything worth riding will be more expensive.

[bikesnbones]

What does a Boxer do? .

Mines doing 55mpg on average, with a best of 58 on a 50 mile return trip on the motorway averaging 75/80mph.

[conkerman]

50 from my R1100.

90ish cruising and slower filtering.

[McBoxer]

I was surprised when I discovered that fuel economy on many larger bikes was a lot poorer than I expected. Worse than some cars, which kinda negated my argument to wife that I could commute on a bike and save money....

Well to be fair, that's not completely correct.
No you won't get remarkable mpg out of a performance bike, just as you wouldn't from a Porsche 911, but just as you can buy economical cars, you can by the two wheeled equivalent.
Honda claim 75mpg for the NC700, which people really are achieving.
A friend of mine has one, and is averaging just under 70mpg.
If you spend all your commuting time in town, then a 125 will go over 100mpg.
Of course neither of these options are very exiting, but then neither is a small economical car.

Quick edit.
In fairness,
You did say "economy on many larger bikes" was poor.

Fair comments - all of them. And I accept that super economical bikes are available - although the NC700 hadn't been released when I had this realisation.
I guess I had always imagined up until that point that a 1 litre bike would have as good as, if not better fuel economy than a 1 litre car - due to weighing a lot less, and was surprised when I found out this wasn't necessarily true! Of course, this was comparing my mates GSX-R with a Polo so you entirely right to point out the error of my ways, and it seems obvious now - but I was young and foolish
Now I'm old and foolish....

[conkerman]

My firestorm give me 28MPG at its worst.

Fuck Yeah!