Biker grove

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Biker grove

Last year due to soaring petrol costs, and the difficulty of parking at work, I bought one of Honda's new Eco bikes, the CBF125 for my daily 40-mile commute. It returns a genuine 135mpg, takes up half the space of a car and weighs only 130kg. Baby's breath wafts from its huge catalytic converter. Why then do I have to pay VED, when a Prius at half the mpg, does not? It's only £15, but that would get me another 400 miles down the road.

Asked on 27 March 2010 by N.M., Nottingham

Answered by Honest John

There is no eco reason, but you are 20,000 times more likely to die on a bike than in a car, so the disproportionate cost of scraping up motorcyclists and all the paperwork that involves might be the argument they use. In the UK, which has about 500,000 bikes, 400 bikers die every year. In Thailand that has at least 30,000,000 bikes, about 9,500 bikers die every year.

Tags: car tax motorbikes owning ved

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