Everybody’s favourite tax is the kind which doesn’t exist. That certainly must be true of UK road tax, which is a deeply engrained subject of debate in this country but which was apparently discontinued in 1937!

What drivers need to remember next time they find themselves grumbling about cyclists paying no road tax is that neither do they. It is the long-established Vehicle Excise Duty that extracts an annual toll on their pockets. It deliberately does not go directly to maintaining the roads and, at present, is very much based on the pollution emitted by a given vehicle. No wonder at all then that cyclists get away for free!