Top Gear and Clarkson

[WALKERMAN]

I watched Top Gear last night and Clarkson commented on cyclists using video cameras.

One thing he said was that motorists pay for the roads by Road Tax. Now I am sure I read something in the past that stated Tax Payers are the ones who foot the bill for the roads which would mean that most cyclists pay their share!

I am right in thinking this?

 

[dmcgoldrick]

some cars dont even pay road tax........its a 'con' that road tax is spent on the roads.....if you are a taxpayer then you will certainly be paying for the upkeep of the roads. many cyclists also have cars/motorbikes and pay the 'pollution' levy for having cars with powerful engines.
clarkson as usual speaking from his (infantile) rear end......

 

[tillson]

I don't know who pays for the roads, but I do know that it isn't those who pay Income Tax. 100% of all income tax is spunked (excuse the crudeness) away on benefit payments. The roads are probably funded from a proportion of VAT, petrol duty, national insurance, capital gains tax, alcohol duty, tobacco duty and whatever other tax you can think of.

I liked the comment Clarkson made regarding if the cyclist worked harder, he might be able to afford a car in the future.

 

[Streethawk]

As i understand it, road tax, or more correctly vehicle Excise Duty goes into the big pot of general taxation, together with your income tax and a million other sorts of tax. Council tax pays for more roads than VED, but things like motorways are paid for by central government from that pot of general taxation.

 

[HarryB]

It was meant to be a stupid comment - Hammond (who is a cyclist) could have pointed out how stupid it was but chose to go along with the joke to make it a joke. Nobody pays road tax they pay VED based on CO2 emissions so the joke is that if cyclist paid it it would be zero rated anyway. I don't pay any "road tax" on one of my cars but funnily enough people don't shout "you don't pay any road tax" when I am cut up or run off the road .

 

[detec52]

What do you expect from a complete dickhead!!!!!!!!!!! Wish i had the funds to drive flash car's, anyway what would he know about riding a bicycle? Rob.

 

[Streethawk]

He's playing a character, he tries to offend as many people as possible. Really, dont take him seriously, i really dont think he intends you to.

 

[RoadieRoger]

Clarkson

Seem to remember on that jaunt in Vietnam he moaned and whined all the time . The polite expression for him is dickhead as stated .I can`t stand to watch him and the other idiots on that programme , but being a biker I made an exception for the Vietnam one .He`s always professed hate for bikers and that probably extends to cyclists as well !His trade is to cause maximum upset to everyone , but you can overdo this and he has . His column on cars in the Sunday Times as a result doesn`t get read in my house !

 

[Tex]

Same debate here. Here some cogent arguments against the clarkson's: Cyclists' rights to use the road - Bicycle Victoria

 

[_g_]

Typical Clarkson with the tiresome 'offend as many as you can' thing. Sadly it DOES work and he's one of the highest paid people that are mostly paid by the tax payer I believe.
With four 4 wheelers and a load of motorbikes all paying tax, yet probably doing less miles than the average prius owning commuter, by rights I should be able to run any of Clarkson's cars off the road with my 7.5t lorry with the amount of 'road use' I'm owed .

 

[Scimitar]

JClarkson had always seemed to be a publicly tiresome tw*t, but he's in the 'entertainment' business. I saw another side of him when he did the programmes about the St Nazaire Raid and his father-in-law's VC, and I also enjoyed watching his episode of "Who do you think you are?"
I'm now less inclined to throw something at the telly when he comes on

 

[Bikealot]

I wonder if Clarkson might go the same way as Jonathan Ross.

It was perhaps a little ironic that he was the 'star' in the reasonably priced car last night. Both of them have made their fortunes sending up and patronising a whole spectrum of things - pushing the boundaries of acceptability (and some would say going beyond). Mr Ross was even making comments yesterday that he thought he had been paid to do this and seemed to be suggesting he had been hard done by.

They may be bright guys on Top Gear but I guess the public and the BBC will eventually tire of what is becoming a hackneyed formula - driving like idiots around a track in cars that most people can't even dream of and with a carbon footprint so large that probably an acre of trees is required for every mile on the track; driving like idiots in locations (often in third world countries, areas of outstanding natural beauty and/or in cultures that are just not British and allowing the running 'joke' that they maybe don't understand they are behaving like idiots and contriving schemes involving building Frankenstein motors, blowing them up, dropping them out of aircraft, or trying to send a car into orbit (actually that was quite interesting). Anyway, men behaving like idiots (and badly) is apparently what a lot of people want and, perhaps to my eternal shame, I watch it too despite knowing that inevitably we will see more negative treatment of cycling.

 

[indalo]

It occurs to me that some of those passing comment on this thread seem to have had a sense of humour by-pass.

Believing everything you hear from the Top Gear team is just ridiculous. They're role-playing and the show is squarely aimed at the lowest common denominator in the TV-watching demographic.

In its earliest gestation, TG was actually quite boring with such humourless broadcasters as Raymond Baxter. They produced a programme which mimicked the somewhat stuffy motoring magazines of the period like Autocar and Motor. Some of the motoring journalists of that time were crushing bores and the doyen of that genre, LJK Setright, was mad as a hatter, breathtakingly arrogant although gifted when it came to prose, and eternally prone to explaining the finer dynamics of oversteer, understeer, yaw angles etc to a readership who, for the most part, couldn't give a toss about such things. All they wanted to know was 0-60, top speed and could they afford one!

As for the Top Gear of that time, not too many viewers really wanted to know that a Cortina had 1.5 cm more rear legroom than an Allegro or that a Princess had 10.9 cubic litres more boot capacity than a Datsun Bluebird. The viewing figures declined so changes were brought about by the programme makers and the show that we get to watch today is largely down to Clarkson's influence.

You can watch it or not watch it but there's no denying that in its current format, it's an extrememly popular show. Clarkson, May and Hammond play to the audience and while some of the stuff they get up to is downright ridiculous, there is some witty banter on the show. I cannot for a moment believe that any of those presenters really hate or resent the presence of cyclists on our roads. Unfortunately, the audience, (millions of them) believe that the show's presenters articulate their opinions and that's a worry.

For what it's worth, I think the show has moved too far away from the original format but somewhere in the middle there would be a happy medium for me. As it is, I just take the buffoonery for what it is and I don't let the bits I find disagreeable offend me.

Indalo

 

[Genesis750]

good actor then

He's playing a character, he tries to offend as many people as possible. Really, dont take him seriously, i really dont think he intends you to.

It has to be said they're all (3 of em) very good at playing juvenile d***heads. I reckon holiwood beckons - they're natural wan**rs

 

[Scimitar]

Some of the motoring journalists of that time were crushing bores and the doyen of that genre, LJK Setright, was mad as a hatter, breathtakingly arrogant although gifted when it came to prose, and eternally prone to explaining the finer dynamics of oversteer, understeer, yaw angles etc to a readership who, for the most part, couldn't give a toss about such things.

You bounder, Sir. How dare you insult the great LJKS!
Btw, did you ever read any of his articles or books?

 

[flecc]

When introduced the "Road Tax" was actually called the Road Fund Tax so the intention was clear at that time. However, it all goes into the central pool of taxation.

That central pool is not the only source for road repairs, the Department for Transport are responsible for most main roads, even in some cities, but local authorities create and maintain the other roads. In turn they are part funded from the central tax pool, so it's impossible to say with accuracy who pays for what.

However, given the swingeing UK taxes on fuel, tobacco and alcohol, car owning drivers who smoke and drink can safely be said to pay the most for everything. Non-smoking, non-drinking cyclists (he said, adjusting his halo) must pay the least.
.

 

[easycommuter]

I'm afraid I don't have the figures but a while back, I remember hearing on the radio, how Road Tax raises far far more, than the government actually spend on Roads.

 

[Pob]

JC is a journalist / entertainer. He says things for fun most of the time and has always had a brilliant way with words - sort of sarcastic mass exaggeration and big tongue in cheek rolled into one. I think he is brilliant and should not always be taken seriously. We all pay for everything it's just the labels they use to collect the tax in first place.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Steve Coogann's comments were funny:
Writing in the Observer this weekend, Coogan accuses Hammond of acting as a sycophantic sidekick to the programme's chief bully, Clarkson. May does not escape scorn either. According to Coogan, he is guilty of effectively holding the coats of his two co-presenters while "they beat up the boy with the stutter".
My thoughts are that they're all acting and getting very well paid for making a popular program. Jonathan Ross suuddenly became unpopular when the puplic found out that they (we) were paying him £16million, which was a bit embarrasing for the BBC. I think Top Gear is starting to loose its way. Perhaps time to give way to younger, cheaper presenters with new ideas. All the smashing up caravans, busses, trucks, etc is starting to get boring along with all the sliding sideways round a racetrack. The best show they did was when they travelled through Vietnam on motorbikes. It was funny and informative. I think their days are numbered unless they change their format soon.

 

[indalo]

In answer to Scimitar's question, no I don't think I've ever read anything by Setright other than newspaper/magazine articles. I know he was quite a prolific author for a while but I'm not an avid reader and get bored quickly by books unless they really stimulate my little brain.

I have one silly memory of him and that concerns the first time I ever saw ZZTop on telly. My immediate reaction was, "They've got to be Setright's brothers, made good in America!"

He was eccentric, had few friends I believe and his first wife committed suicide though I'm not aware if he was in any way contributory in that event. I quite enjoyed some of the pieces he wrote about cars as he was certainly non-conformist and probably had some kind of hold over his editor. I think maybe he just liked to buck the trend but he got away with it somehow....(not too different from Clarkson perhaps!) He drove a Bristol, chain-smoked and made himself thoroughly disliked in a variety of overpriced eateries.

All in all, a strange bloke but I'm certain he'd have been a champion of ebikes were he still around.

Indalo