Newspaper suggests taxing motorcycles off the road

Picture this, it’s 11.00am on a spring day in Sydney. The temperature is already 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) and the Economics correspondent’s Korean staff car is sitting stationary in traffic under the blazing sun. He has been virtually immobile for fifteen minutes and his irritability factor is in the "red zone". A motorcycle courier weaves his way between the static lanes of traffic and is followed by a young well dressed girl on a scooter who joins him in waiting for the lights to change. The lights turn green and and they move off to their appointed destinations. Our correspondent moves a futher 3 cars further up the lane before halting once more. This scenario repeats itself several more times and as he sits in his own sweat a rage is slowly building against those motorcyclists who contemptuously are ignoring his plight and taking his rightful place in the traffic lanes. By 12.15 pm, when he finally reaches the impoverished offices of the Australian Financial Review the temperature has risen to 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit), but is is nothing compared to his fury. Sitting before his terminal he commences to compose a tirade of vindictive vengeance against his perceived persecutors. Under the guise of saving the community from the "horrendous costs" associated with motorcycle accidents he proposes to rid the earth of these pernicious instruments of death and doubtless associated depravity. " Tax them out of existence and save them from themselves" he postulates. Unfortunately for him the very people he derides for their riding incompetencies and rising accidents statistics are the middle aged successful executive classes returning to or entering motorcylcling for the first time. These are the very people who form the basis of the AFR’s readership and in subsequent edtions of the paper has been told by several correspondents just what a poorly researched and uneducated piece of writing he put his name to. The column was reported on several other local websites where it has been condemned in vernacular beyond the capabilities of this writer. One of your forefathers, Thomas Jefferson, said the " price of freedom is eternal vigilance." I don’t think he had motorcycling in mind specifically, but the concept is valid. The small minded will always be with us