And I know plenty who don't own any actual vehicles, don't pay any taxes and yet they get to be a nuisance on the road with total impunity just because they are "smaller" than cars.

Pedestrian enough to use pedestrian crossings without even getting off the bike, weave through people on sidewalks and generally be immune to traffic laws, yet vehicular enough to use the road and slow everybody else down, but not enough to get taxed, require traffic law education, licenses. Everything about bikes is a contradiction.