According to Chris Hodder, the BMF’s Government Relations Executive, writing in Motorcycle Rider – of which your humble scribe is an occasional contributor – (no online copy, I’m afraid) the DVLA thinks that a third of motorcyclists are criminals:
Thirty-eight per cent of all motorcycles are being ridden without tax, according to the DVLA. That means that every third motorcycle on the road doesn’t have a valid tax disc. Somehow, I (and many others) find that very hard to believe. That would mean that over a third of all motorcyclists are criminals.
Well, quite. So how did they reach this figure?
The DVLA sent people out to take down the registration number of every passing vehicle and they then checked this against the tax database. This yielded a figure of 16 per cent evasion for bikes. They then ran this through a computer model working on the assumption that untaxed bikes are ridden less and arrived at a figure of 38 per cent.
To those of you who may be struggling with this; they made it up.
Their proposed solution for this outrageous criminality (that they made up)?
Apparently, as a third of all motorcyclists are habitual criminals, we all need tagging like a paroled prisoner. Move forward a short while and we reach Electronic Vehicle Identification (EVI) ankle-tags for motorcycles. EVI is the DVLA’s latest plan to catch the untaxed motorcycle. All motorcycle number plates would be fitted with a chip which could be read with a roadside reader flagging up the untaxed and uninsured motorcycle as it passes, and alerting police to the criminal.
Of course. Naturally. I expected nothing less. The DVLA are a bunch of incompetent, lying fuckwits and their solution to a problem that they have exaggerated for their own nefarious ends is to treat us all like suspects and tag us like criminals. I have come to expect just that from what is rapidly becoming a fascist state. It never occurs to these incompetents that they might have got it wrong – oh, no, they invent a figure from their own deranged imagination and assume it to be accurate and then propose a “solution” based upon that error. Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick! Is it any wonder I have come to despise absolutely the machinery of government?
Chris goes on to point out some flaws in this proposal:
Now, ignoring the potential expense of replacing every motorcycle number plate in the UK and equipping every police force with readers we reach the next problem of accuracy. As the DVLA has already proved, it does not appear to have a way with numbers.
He is being too kind. I would use the word “fraud”, but then, I’m not feeling particuarly charitable.
Personally, I don’t have a great deal of confidence that the DVLA even knows that I have a valid tax disc, let alone that it has the correct details for the 1.62 million motorcycles it thinks it has details for.
Indeed – still, if they can invent one set of figures, why stop there?
Then there is the potential for technological problems. The readers are not yet 100 per cent reliable and sometimes have problems reading anything that is concealed or obscured. Then add on the fact that they are easily disconnected. As a substitute for Automatic Number Plate Recognition, it is hardly inspiring.
Quite. Disconnecting it is exactly what I will be doing. I will not, absolutely not, have my bike tagged. It is road legal and despite resenting every penny of the road fund licence, I pay it. Any attempt to tag either me or my machine will be met with vigorous resistance and if it is made law, I will break it. There is a line and these bastards have just crossed it.
Apart from being incompetant dickwads, the DVLA wield great power over us whilst remaining completely unnacountable. This in turn allows them to be more unhelpful (indeed, downright obstructive sometimes) than I thought possible.
We need to be getting rid of this nest of twats, not giving them ever more powers. Especially ones which manifestly wont do squat to solve the problem they’ve just made up.
Tell me Longrider, even thought you are on the left of the political spectrum, will you be voting for wonder boy Dave at the next election? Or Ming the mild? (I’m assuming you won’t be voting for the Stalinist dear leader that you seem to despise as much as me from the other side of the spectrum!)
At the council elections, mine was one of the votes that trounced Labour and replaced all of our Labour councillors with Tories. So, given no real alternative, I’ll be voting Tory at the next election.
My hero! (Seriously)
I’m not convinced by the current opinion polls. Its easy for someone to /say/ they will vote labour/lib-dem/ukip but come the voting booth it’s a little more serious…
Our constituency was held by the Tories until 1992. Not exactly a key marginal, but an upset is achievable. The trick is to vote tactically and in this case, that’s Tory.
I’m not much enamoured by Cameron. But, we need to get rid of the current bunch of fascist bastards and if that means Cameron, so be it.
That maths is brilliant!
Especially as it is probably true that untaxed bikes are ridden less, because they have been stuck in a garage for years waiting to be restored or something.
As a bloke who has just (Saturday) received a letter of apology from DVLA for their total and utter hopelessness, I’m with you (and Centaur) on this one, even though I have been “between bikes” for the last 25 years or so.
What’s particularly stupid is their overreach. The tax disc is really just a mechanism to try and ensure every motor vehicle is insured and road worthy – which is why you have to take your insurance certificate and mot certificate to the post office – why do they need to embellish on this so much other than control freakery I wonder?