Black Tie means a bow tie not a black coloured tie

[bikeolounger]

To me this smacks of some sort of resentful, "inverse" snobbery which, quite frankly, I don't understand.

I don't care that you (and millions of other folk) ride bicycles on the public road (and often the public foot path) without paying one penny of road tax for the privilege, and without adequate insurance to cover third party damage-- that's what you do, so have at it, even if I am subsidizing, to some extent, your ability to pedal your bike pretty much wherever you want.

You, however, are not being asked to subsidize anyone who wears black tie, or hosts, or attends black tie events. Even, "precious" black tie events. As you have more-or-less admitted that you have no intentions of attending a black tie event, I fail to see what you have to be resentful or snobbish about.

And you, also, neglected to see that I was going for "over the top" to make my point. Note to self--folks around here don't understand my literary devices.

I won't get into the bicycles on roads thing here--too far afield of the topic at hand--beyond pointing out that if all of the road maintenance/construction money came from fuel and other auto-centric taxes, you would be paying more than twice what you currently pay on those bills. Those taxes only partly pay for your privilege of operating a motor vehicle on public property--the rest of the public taxation bears the brunt of the burden. That you even bring up the issue rings of the exact level of snobbery of which you accuse me. You may PM me for citations on this.

For my response to your third paragraph, see my response to your first.