These opinions are usually expressed by people who are opposed to the encouragement of bicycling on other grounds, such as: it is too dangerous or it blocks traffic or cyclists always disobey the traffic laws. Even senior figures in State road authorities have brought up these arguments when dealing with bicycle lobby groups, possibly as a negotiating tactic or with a stereotyped view that cyclists are usually unemployed or anti-social or "greenie ratbags".
An easy counter to the tax argument, apart from pointing out that the various State Laws and Rules governing roads and vehicles explicitly give cyclists the right to use the roads and have done so for most of the last one hundred years, is to ask whether the holder of the opinion above also holds that pedestrians are not entitled to use the roads unless they pay something toward footpaths and overbridges and so on. Do they also think that children or the unemployed or pensioners should pay to ride bicycles?
A more telling counter is to point out that most roads that cyclists use have been built and are maintained by local councils out of rates paid by residents or businesses and that since most or all cyclists are ratepayers or will be ratepayers in one form or another ( whether renting or owning) there is little for cyclists to feel guilty about. The roads are a community asset built up over many years for the movement of people of all ages and income level by whatever legal form of transport - the current generation of motorists has in no way paid for all the roads they use so can hardly claim some exclusive right to use the roads or even some greater right than cyclists or pedestrians.
Also, most adult cyclists do pay taxes, including taxes on new bicycles, parts and accessories, which go towards general revenue, from where most monies for major new roads and road related expenses (costs of policing, ambulance, road crews, pollution, to name a few) come from. The costs imposed on society by bicyclists is small and the amount spent on bicyclists is small ( around 1 or 2 % of the road budget ). The cost of setting up a registration scheme would be a major fraction of the bicycling budget, as studies by the road authorities have shown, and would be much better spent on facilities. Many cyclists are not opposed to a registration scheme in principle, but it is fairly clear that it would be difficult to administer and would only serve to discourage bicycling, especially among children. Registration for cyclists would however give cyclists more recognition and oblige road authorities to provide better facilities.
Road taxes are generally applied on the basis of size of vehicle and wheel load. Heavy trucks do far more damage to roads than cars and therefore pay more road tax. Motorists do far more damage than cyclists, therefore motorists pay more than cyclists. Many argue that heavy trucks do not pay enough road tax, but it seems not very likely that the costs due to road damage caused by cyclists would be worth recovering, even if they could be estimated.
Many adult cyclists also own cars and pay registration and petrol tax, so these cyclists can be excluded from the argument immediately, unless to say that, by paying for a full car licence and registration whilst not using the car for every trip, they possibly deserve a proportionate refund. Cyclists can carry insurance for third party damage or injury, and many do ( although not a majority), as a benefit of membership of the various State bicycle organisations, and are covered in many cases by other insurance policies. In any event the cost of injury to other people from cyclists is overall small and is much less overall than if the cyclists chose to drive for the same journey. Insurance for cyclists should be more widely promoted and better rates offered.
Another point is that if, over the last thirty or so years, new roads had been designed to cater for all legal road users ( including bicyclists) then there wouldn't be the need for most of the expensive retrofitting that opponents of cycling now say cyclists should be paying for. The complaint against cyclists should really be directed to the traffic engineers who have designed roads in the last few decades. The authorities have recognised this (1), and are now spending more on infrastructure for cyclists to catch up for past neglect. Cyclists could also point out that motor vehicles are in many cases excessively large for the task at hand ( single occupant trip to work for instance) and if they drove something smaller there would be more room for cyclists on many roads and less need for separate bicycle facilities. Governments might well be asked why there is not more incentive for people to drive smaller cars, or greater disincentives to big car use.
A further counter argument is that motorists and owners of vehicles, far from paying too much already in the way of taxes, don't pay enough to cover the real costs of motor vehicle use. Several studies, quoted in Litman, (2) have found that if all the external costs such as those due to death and injury, air pollution ( including possible green house climate change), effects on health from a reduction in walking and cycling, congestion, policing and ambulance resources, productive land removed, destruction of natural habitats, urban sprawl, financial and tax subsidies to road construction companies and so on are totalled then motoring taxes should be at least doubled. Admittedly it would be very hard to disentangle many of the costs from the distributed benefits to society from having roads, ie it could be argued that since all of the community benefits or needs roads and transport then it is fair that not all of the costs are borne by motor vehicle owners.
At this level of argument, one that most anti cyclists would be unlikely to reach, it could then be argued that encouraging more cycling may well be of nett benefit to society, in that it tends to reduce all the external costs above. For individual projects, benefit/cost ratios for bicycle facilities are usually much greater than for new motor vehicle facilities, which often struggle to reach a figure greater than 1. Even at the basic level, if more people cycled to work or play or the shops instead of travelling by automobile there would be a reduction in congestion, which surely is of great benefit to the remaining motorists. ( for a refutation of the argument that cyclists cause congestion see(1)). The potential health benefits of increased cycling are great, as outlined by Mayer Hillman(3) or by Dr Harry Owen, past president of the BFA.
In summary, people who hold the opinion that cyclists should pay registration and other taxes are mistaken on many levels. Cyclists do pay taxes, motorists usually do not pay enough. Cycling has many benefits, including improvements to community health, which outweigh any costs or disbenefits, therefore bicycling should be encouraged. Cyclists have the legal right to use the roads, as the law for many years has recognised there is a substantial principle of equity and freedom of movement involved. Motorists have themselves caused the need for sometimes expensive retrofitting of bicycle infrastructure.
(2) Todd Litman, (November 2000). Whose Roads? Defining Bicyclists' and Pedestrians' Right to Use Public Roadways. Victoria Transport Policy Institute, Canada. http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.htm
(3) Mayer Hillman, (1992) Cycling: Towards Health and Safety. British Medical Association
(1) Carl Scully MPO, NSW Minister for Transport. Foreword to Action for Bikes, Bike Plan 2010
Other refs
P schimek- the Dilemmas of bicycle planning
Wayne rochester/howard pender/radio national show on bfa-oz list nov 2000.