Cyclists are already subject to ticketing in the US. Why would they be otherwise? Do you think a lack of license means the officer cannot give a law-breaking cyclist a ticket?
How often do they get tickets though? I have never, in all my years of cycling, and from the hundreds of road cyclists I know, heard of someone getting a ticket for running a stop sign/light or not obeying other rules of the road. The reason is because it’s hard for a police officer to pull over a bike. If a bike had a license plate or some other way to tie the rider to some sort of system with their information, it’s easier to either track them down or make them pull over.
I don’t know of any other vehicle on the road that wouldn’t be subject to licensing/registration.
Full details here. (California)
Couple of points of interest.
This appears to be ,not a “moped” but a motorized bicycle not capable of over 20 mph.
Thanks running coach, ignorance fought.
Either way, I don’t see an issue with bikes on the road paying a nominal fee for registration and a license plate. It could solve a few problems, including those identified by a lot of the anti-cyclists in this thread.
YMMV of course. What I see as making sense in my city (Calgary) might not make sense somewhere else.
Well, NYC police issued some 50,000 tickets to cyclists in 2011.
Not really. Its much easier than pulling over a large truck in Urban conditions, I’ve seen more than a few cyclists ''pulled over".
That does not follow. If a cop wants to pull over a cyclists he can just pull them over. If the cop just doesn’t feel like bothering that’s an entirely different matter.
Double-Post. Sorry.
Like I said, YMMV. I’m referring to my city, it’s obviously different in yours (I’m assuming you live in NY). A cyclist here would be reluctant to stop for an officer - they’d just continue on their way. A cop in a car won’t be able to follow them.
Wheras I listed over a dozen issues with it.
It really will not. It is a pure punishment tactic.
Wow, you are really jaded, hey? Nothing will work. Everything is bad and there is no solution that will satisfy all parties. Ok, carry on.
Certainly a licensing system will not work.
If I seem jaded it’s because I have yet to see any decent reason given for a licensing system. 99% of the time it is brought up it is done by bike haters or people with a mad-on for a bad cyclists they saw that morning. None of them have ever given it more than 2 seconds of thought to realize how ludicrous it is. Most of them are simply trying to pus it as a way of getting cyclists off their roads.
When I see a badly behaving cyclist My first thought is not ‘wow, a licensing program would have stopped him for sure!’. No, my first thought is ‘that guy is an idiot but Darwin may have to take care of him’. A badly behaved cyclist in a city with a bike licensing system simply becomes a badly behaved cyclist without a license. All you did was tack on a penalty - and given that he wasn’t pulled over for his bad behavior in the first place what are the odds of that? You think that guy who rides in crowded city sidewalks will care?!
The car licensing system barely holds up as it is! How many asshole drivers have you encountered? Did you promptly drop everything to report them to the authorities? How many times have you heard of drivers with multiple DUIs on their records? How many people have caused automobile catastrophes and have been found to be driving on a suspended or revoked license? Do you think the cyclist in the OP would have given a shit about a bike license?
If you want solutions to this I am sorry but they just aren’t going to come with simple answers like ‘bike license’ or other restrictions. Those are simple answers for simple minds and end up being nothing but attempts at punishment. Real answers are going to take time and first step on that trip is a doozy - Drivers have to start respecting cyclists that obey the laws of the road before anything else can be done. Otherwise anything else is futile.
I don’t know if I’d say that. Getting yelled at by drivers for obeying the law is bizarre enough that it happening twice really stands out to me… but then again, twice in all the time I’ve been on the road really isn’t all that often. I don’t know exactly how often the scofflaw cyclists get yelled at, but I have to imagine it’s a lot more often than that.
Now, I have also been yelled at other times by drivers, like the one who yelled at me that I wasn’t visible enough, while I was using a headlight and taillight, with reflectors on my frame, pedals, and spokes, and wearing an orange reflective vest. That driver obviously did just want to be rid of cyclists entirely. But that sort of scorn, I would have gotten just as much, or possibly more, had I been breaking the law.
You were clearly not brighter than his TomTom and the text he was trying to read on his phone, so get with it.
This can’t be right. Do you have a cite for it. Sounds insane.
I know a guy who got a DUI for sitting drunk in the passenger seat of a parked car (that was not running). It was a small town. The cops did not like the way he looked.
Given that walking down the street drunk is not legal, getting a DUI for walking a bicycle is not really beyond the pale.
It isn’t just being yelled at, it’s things like being treated as an obstacle to be passed no matter how unsafely, or how little it gains the driver. Its being passed too closely because you aren’t hugging the curb. Things like people complaining that you aren’t visible enough when you’re wearing a fluorescent yellow jersey (which is usually just drivers who don’t want to admit they aren’t paying attention). It’s being left hooked when you have the right of way simply because they don’t want to wait. It’s being right-hooked because a driver doesn’t want to wait 3 seconds for you to clear an intersection. It’s having cars honk at you when you are in a straight/right turn lane and they want to right-on-red (where there is a sign saying you can’t do that). It’s having a driver pulling to your right at an intersection (where there actually wasn’t really a lane) and trying to pass you illegally, then finding out that you weren’t a slowpoke so they try to push into the lane you are in anyway. Being yelled at is just part of the issue, really.
Scofflaw cyclists avoid a lot of these by simply moving when the cars going in their direction are not moving. This avoids a number of these conflicts (not all of them), but in doing so they are taking awfully bigger risks.
I tend to agree, however, I’d be willing to consider some kind of licensing/registration system if:
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the amount was proportional to the wear and tear inflicted by bicycles vs. cars
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bicyclists receive some sort of incentive reducing congestion, pollution, wear on the roads, etc. such as tax credits
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communities would actively publicize and educate that bicycles are vehicles and do belong on the road and drivers should watch for them
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adopt traffic calming measures for bicycling routes. Whether lower speed limits, stop signs, speed bumps, roundabouts and the like. If a driver feels inconvenienced then they can find another route or maybe leave a few minutes earlier like I do when school is back in session and the school speed zones are in force.
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start actively ticketing bad bicyclists just like bad motorists
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provide racks or places to lock up bicycles
Basically, until bicycles and bicyclists are treated with respect by drivers and local governments, I see no reason to pay any more than I already to do support the road and driving infrastructure.
In other words, bicyclists should be paid to register their bikes?
I’m not sure what good a registered bike is supposed to do anyway – it’s not as if there’s room for a license plate.
I had this happen to me about a month ago – a driver passed me deliberately as close as he could without actually knocking me over. I was going 17mph in a 25 zone, because it was uphill, and this was not a narrow street. It was a wide avenue with opposing lanes and left turn lane totally unoccupied, and I was in fact already riding far to the right. I caught up with him right after the crest of the hill and kicked a dent in his door as I passed.
In retrospect I’m not proud of that reaction, but I was seriously pissed off that this guy had intentionally endangered my safety just for the sake of being a prick.
I also have to put up with idiots like this van driver pretty regularly. (Footage from my gopro, which I wear constantly when I’m biking now.) It’s not really visible in that clip, but in the full-resolution stills you can see that the driver was on his phone.
Sure, why not? Companies get all sorts of incentives for building stores in one place or another. Why shouldn’t bicyclists have some sort of incentive?
After all, we take cars off the road and ease traffic congestion. We don’t take up parking spaces. We put less wear and tear on our infrastructure. We are in better shape so we likely need fewer sick days and trips to the doctor.
Honestly, I can’t think of one negative for supporting bicycling, other than crybaby, entitle drivers getting upset.
You’ve missed both of the important parts of my point:
Gridlock isn’t intentional. Critical Mass is.
People responding to a call don’t get lights and sirens.