On 26 Jun 2003 04:14:13 GMT,
[email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote:
>>- the cost of collection almost always makes up most of the fee
>The same argument could be applied to passenger car registration.
Only if the amounts are similar. If the bike fee is anything like rational - proportional to the
damage the bike does to the road, say - the bike fee would be several orders of magnitude less than
the car fee.
>Any bets on what percentage of that money goes to pay for the otherwise unnecessary licensing
>agency's overhead? ;-)
It should be accessible from public records, I guess.
>>- enforcement is difficult (is that bike out of service? or only used on private land?
>If the law is written properly- "All bicycles upon a public roadway must be registered."
>enforcement is a no-brainer....
Except that most bikes spend most of their time off a public roadway. Do you include trails? What
about crossing the road while moving between trails? How about riding 100 yards of public road to
the start of the trail?
>You don't have to register your car until or unless you actually drive it on a public road.
Or park it there, yes. The proportion of cars (other then Oldsmobile Hencoops) never used on a
public road is small, though.
>>- it discourages cycling (which is a healthy form of exercise)
>There are entrance fees charged at US National Parks. Those fees haven't discouraged park usage. On
>what do you base your assumption that nominal bike registration fees would discourage cycling?
Simple: I have a bike. If I want to ride it, I get thje bike out and ride. Now there's a
registration fee. Before I can ride the bike I have to pay the fee and register the bike. It's a
nice sunny day but it was raining yesterday so I didn't think to go out and pay the fee. So the bike
stays in the garage. Last year I didn't ride it because I never got round to getting the
registration sorted out. Perhaps I should get rid of the bike, I never use it.
It places a barrier between the owner and the activity.
>>- many bikes are rarely used
>I own a 12' jonboat that I use maybe three times a year. I still pay the $18 registration fee so I
>don't see your point.
What proportion of the cost of the boat does that $18 represent?
How about if you had a $100 bike? Would you still pay $18 to ride it three times a year?
>>- bikes are an accessible form of transport for those on very low incomes, and raising the cost
>> risks restricting their mobility
>The municipal bike registration fees I've seen have all been in the $2 to $6 range. That's about
>the price of a Big Mac, large fries, and large drink at McDonald's. That's hardly a "restrictive"
>dollar amount.
It may be a spit in the bucket to you and me, but if there was a choice to make netween eating the
Big Mac and evading the tax or going hungry so you could ride your bike legally I wonder what
someone genuinely poor would choose?
>The municipality keeps all three registration records. The most current registration is Zoot's
>proof of ownership. Where's the "prohibitive expense" involved?
What if Zoot lives in the next jurisdiction?
Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony.
http://www.chapmancentral.com Advance
notice: ADSL service in process of transfer to a new ISP. Obviously there will be a week of downtime
between the engineer removing the BT service and the same engineer connecting the same equipment on
the same line in the same exchange and billing it to the new ISP.
