Bike parking tax latest: Truth, lies, rot and lawlessness…

Posted: 15th March 2010 | 4 Comments »

I’ve had a number of thoughts following the most recent official and lawful NTBPT demo ride that was focused by a civic dinner where Westminster City Council spent around £23,000 entertaining the’ great and good’ who might be impressed by such doings.

This has prompted me to think long and hard about the acts of lawlessness and allegations of lawlessness that are linked to moves to extract a new parking tax from motorbike and scooter riders – under the official guise of that blanket for a multitude of sins called road traffic ‘demand  management’. In a nutshell, it seems to me that boundaries between truth and lies get blurred by government officials at times but various recent events have inclined me to take a step back and think again about  what that means for riders if it leads to lawlessness…

One of the things I love about work and play in the motorcycling world is that the vast majority of people in it have a very honest and practical approach to truth and lies. On the whole, that leads to distinctions between what’s right and wrong that are simply based on considering what seems fair and best for those concerned with an issue or problem. In stark contrast, the thing I hate most about some of the folk I meet in the policy world is their seemingly infinite capacity to blur the boundaries between telling the truth and lying.

That’s not to say the UK biking community is entirely populated with visionary saints and angels. Thankfully as far as I’m concerned we have a great range of colourful characters with warts an’ all. But it seems to me that the passion we all have in common for riding machines with two or three wheels, is something that keeps us ‘honest’, in a simple but powerful way. No matter whether you’re a fearless looking Hells Angel or a beady eyed Classic Bike buff, lying about how well you ride will not fool anyone else beyond the first corner in any and every ride.

Conversely, from what I’ve seen over recent years, there is a very different approach to truth and lies among the gang of politicians and government officials who have most impact on the extraordinary range of people who ride motorbikes and scooters. Some of these policy bods are sound. But it only takes one bad apple or two to inject a nasty element of rot that slows progress towards fresh ways to tackle motorcycling issues, or turns tough situations into bad ones. This sort of rot can be hard to spot though. With varying degrees of success, it’s buried in ‘politically correct’ policy-speak language, and is sometimes part of so-called ‘hidden agendas’.

As it happens, the catalyst for rot spreading in policy processing rarely comes from motorcycling. But that does not give UK riders immunity from moves to push them into solving problems that are not actually caused by motorbike or scooter use. In my view this is because we are in an era where there is one big problem and ‘hidden agenda’ above all that clouds government views of all motorised road users. Our governors have far less cash than they are committed to spending. But they are also in the delicate and politically dangerous situation of wanting to win votes by promising to maintain public services – without taxing the majority of voters more.

So, to summarise where we are in my view, I’d say we are in an era of car-crash politicking. This hurls even the straightest thinking policy-shaper into increasingly tricky situations – and ones where simple explanations of why moves are right can be harder to make. Inevitably, there will be trouble ahead for everyone as our governors scratch around for New MINORITIES  to tax. And my big concern is that there may be more trouble ahead for bikers than we deserve. Here’s why.

Now it seems that the key tests of what’s right or wrong for some ‘transport policy’ developers, are critically different to those of bikers. And from what I can see, there is a dwindling amount of evidence to show that the rightness or wrongness of new schemes is being judged honestly by practical considerations of whether they can really solve the problems they are supposed to address.

Worse though, an inconvenient truth about a few ‘motorcycling policy’ developers is becoming increasingly clear. They are decreasingly concerned about whether the things they say are true than what they can get away with saying – and regardless of the real causes of the ‘problems’ or the rights and wrongs of their proposed ‘solutions’. This is not a new phenomenon, but what is new is the extent to which old boundaries are being bulldozed.

The most worrying thing for me about blurring boundaries between truth and lies is what happens when measures are aimed at intelligent and fairness valuing riders when the official ‘reasons’ for them seem to have little or no foundations in the truth at all. Wrongly or rightly this can trigger reactions that exceed the boundaries of lawful protest. Some bikers and scooterists have an absolute limit to their tolerance for what they see as being lied to and unfairly taxed or charged. Recent examples of these limits being exceeded has however forced me to think twice about lawlessness.

In the last few weeks I have seen more and more evidence of lawlessness centred on the new M/C parking charges scheme that is being pioneered in Westminster to prepare for spreading it nationwide. In full public view on many streets, signs to enforce the scheme have been vandalised with paint or taken down. This is clearly in breach of laws we all depend on to keep our highways civilised. But, behind the scenes beyond the public’s gaze, I have seen a far greater range of what looks to me like evidence that other laws we depend on have also been bent or broken. These legal limits are there to ensure that government powers to manage traffic are not used for other reasons – like creating new revenue streams. That’s a job for the tax office, not the traffic department.

I have no doubt that attacks on signs are unlawful. Unfortunately, we will have to wait some time for courts and EU commissioners to judge whether the scheme they give notice of has been introduced by unlawful means. But the biggest problem in the meantime for all who ride a motorbike or scooter on UK public roads is that one type of lawlessness is far easier for all to see than the other. One is also far easier to prove than the other.

However riders are being treated I am always bothered by lawlessness linked to motorcycling and scootering as it looks bad for all concerned, but I understand what drives people to it at times and on either side in this particular battle. All I hope now is that the truth prevails over lies, and that riders and policy-shapers can get on with their lawful business and lives as soon as possible…

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