Road tax – two words guaranteed to raise the ire of most cyclists. It's quite an achievement for something which hasn't existed for 74 years. And yet, like the worst kind of film zombie, the more thoroughly the idea is stamped out the more persistently it revives itself.

We've already written about the broad issue before, so I'll keep this short: the link between the annual vehicle tax paid by drivers and the money used to build and maintain roads was abolished in 1937, a process first begun by none other than Winston Churchill in 1926. Since then the money has come from various general and local taxes. Those little discs you put in the windscreen are vehicle excise duty (VED), which based on emissions, meaning ultra-efficient and electric cars, among others, pay nothing.

So, when – as has happened to most cyclists at some point – a driver leans out of a window and yells, 'You don't pay for the road! Get off till you pay road tax!' the most accurate answer for many (probably too verbose to deliver before the lights change) would be: 1/ There's no such thing; 2/ I own a car as well as a bike and 3/ If VED was levied on cycles I'd still pay nothing. If you really wanted to be annoying you could add: "Given that market research has shown cyclists tend to be disproportionately higher earning there's a reasonable chance I pay more for road upkeep then you do. Get off my road.' (Note: I'm not serious on the last point).

Is this mere pedantry? I'd argue not. It's my firm belief that the road tax myth fuels a persistent sense of entitlement among drivers. Left to broil in traffic jams, worked up to a futile rage at the idea of the "war on the motorist", they are more likely to act aggressively, even recklessly, towards those they feel are getting away with it.

That's why it's important to challenge the road tax myth, wherever it crops up. The gold campaign medal and lifetime achievement award on this front goes to cycling writer Carlton Reid, who has used his ipayroadtax.com website to politely but firmly correct everyone from the BBC to the AA.

And yet the zombie staggers onwards, in this case thanks to the idiocy of insurance comparison website Confused.com. In a tactic beloved of thrifty PR exercises, they polled a number of drivers and riders and to produce this press release, which essentially concludes that sometimes drivers get irritated by cyclists and visa versa.

But what's one of the three findings they highlight at the top? "A quarter of drivers say cyclists should pay road tax," it says. This result came from a list of options the polled drivers were given. Other popular notions were the cyclists should have compulsory insurance or pass a test.

Whatever the many objections to the latter two proposals, at least they are theoretically possible. The first is mere nonsense – it's clear the PR folk at Confused were, ahem, confused about road tax.

I asked them for a response, and they came back with this:

We are fully aware of Vehicle Excise Duty, but our research has found that road tax is still the most common term people use today when referring to VED. As we appeal to a mass audience, we wanted to use the term that resonates most, and on this occasion it was road tax.

Now maybe I'm missing something, but I don't really understand that. Confused seem to be saying that they asked drivers whether cyclists should be subject to an emissions-based levy. You might as well ask whether we should pay more tax on any aviation fuel consumed by our bikes.

Even if I accept their response (and I don't; I think it's a badly thought out post-justification) to even ask the question is, at the very least, to invite misunderstanding among those taking the poll. I asked the by now slightly weary-sounding PR lady from Confused if she'd like to expand on the answer but the firm response was: that's your lot.

What are we to learn from this debacle? Putting aside the general point about some PR folk not being the sharpest knives in the cutlery drawer (there's also plenty of excellent exponents - same divide goes for journalists), it is dispiriting how persistent this myth can be – it crops up often enough in comments under Bike Blog posts.

But I'd also argue that Confused are doubly wrong in trying to bluff their way out of it and failing to apologise. The response on Twitter (search for 'confused_com') and Facebook to their press release is overwhelmingly negative. Like many cyclists I also own a car. And when that horrible time comes round again to think about insurance, there's one comparison site I'll be avoiding. If they can't even get a basic fact like road tax correct, what hope do they have comparing deals for my elderly Peugeot 206?