by The article talks about issues of road rage in Toronto resulting in cyclist's deaths and the introduction of new licensing restrictions for cyclists including mandatory licensing, helmets, liability insurance, and other restrictions. Something like mandatory helmets I'm sure most cyclists would not be affected by but the other items really seem more like roadblocks for cyclists instead of really being anything useful to the community. When is the last time you hear about a cyclist hitting a car and killing someone in the car or for that matter, even hurting the car much.
Now, licensing proposals are nothing new; Toronto previously had three separate licensing proposals. And calls for licensing cyclists are not just limited to Toronto. Anti-cyclist evangelists regularly proselytize for their unholy trinity of mandatory cyclist licensing, bicycle registration, and liability insurance whenever the internet carries a news item about a law-abiding cyclist being run down by a scofflaw driver, as if clamping down on cyclists will somehow reduce drivers’ negligence.
That may not seem to be a rational response to a problem, but trying to make rational sense of their argument misses the point. The actual intent of the internet shouters who call for cyclists to be licensed, registered, and insured is punitive—they see it as a way to attack cycling. Despite their rhetoric, they don’t really look forward to a future in which they would be sharing the road with fully licensed, registered, and insured cyclists; in fact, quite the opposite. They say “until you cyclists [fill in the blank], you’re not legitimate users of the roads,” but that’s really just doublespeak for “get off the road”; for them, placing regulatory obstacles in the way of cyclists is a means to keep us off “their” roads.
Regulators try to argue that licensing and registering cyclists will help enforce the law and will make sure negligent cyclists can be reported and that it protects victims of negligent cyclists (I would like to know who the victims are...) As Bob explains, this is something that seem logical on the surface but...
These arguments may seem sensible if you don’t actually think about them, but they ignore reality. There’s absolutely no evidence that most cyclists don’t already know the law. In fact, in my experience, the majority of cyclists know the traffic laws, as they apply to cycling, better than most motorists, most cops and most judges. If these cyclists do violate a law, it’s because they choose to, the same way motorists choose to break the law when they speed.
I couldn't agree more and making sure we're licensed isn't going to make us know the law better. As cyclists, we're putting ourselves out on the road with cars that we don't have a chance of winning against in a collision. You better believe we know the traffic laws and pay attention to them more than motorists do. As he said, if I'm running a red light, it's not because I don't know the law, it's because I'm choosing to run it.
...there’s another issue at play here that needs to be addressed—motorist complaints about “law-breaking cyclists” are more often than not based on the ignorance of the drivers, who regularly misinterpret law-abiding cyclist behavior as being “against the law.” Many people do need to learn the law, but usually, it’s the motorists who need the refresher course.
I think we've pretty much figured out already that requiring that cyclists are insured has no merit because as cyclists, we have almost no potential to cause damage or harm to others; or at the very least our potential is very small. What about requiring us to be registered so motorists can report cyclists for illegal activity or ordinance violations? Well Bob suggests trying this the next time you're driving to illustrate why requiring that cyclists are registered wouldn't help with reporting them at all...
..the next time you see another driver going 10 miles over the speed limit, or changing lanes without signaling, or not coming to a complete stop behind the crosswalk, phone it in to law enforcement, and demand that an officer come out and apprehend the miscreant. When they’re done explaining that they have more pressing problems to deal with, you’ll get a sense of what would happen if you reported that you just saw a cyclist violate a traffic law. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that most of what drivers see as “law-breaking cyclist” behavior is actually law-abiding behavior. Furthermore, law enforcement already has the means to enforce the law—they can and already do ticket cyclists for traffic violations.
Overall I think most laws and regulations introduced, like these ones, for cyclists are misguided attacks against cyclists in trying to put roadblocks in their way. These regulations, with exception of a helmet law (which I still feel that anyone over 18 should have a choice, no matter how stupid it is to ride without a helmet), are useless laws.
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