Originally Posted by
sauerwald
I am also a strong advocate for educating cyclists, and some sort of a system which allowed for an incentive for a cyclist to become educated in the rules of the road would be a good thing. If there could be some sort of license which a cyclist could obtain which might require showing that they understood the rules of the road, and which could be revoked if they were found to be routinely breaking the rules of the road, and the carrying of this license conferred some extra benefit to the cyclist, then I would be in favour of that.
The trouble is when it is hugely impractical to license cyclists at all how would you go about issuing a license that would grant extra benefits and restrict those benefits to the people who had the license?
Firstly, what benefits could possibly be provided to a selected group of cyclists? If anyone with $100 can visit Wally World and come away with a bike shaped object that they can ride on just about any road, what can you offer them over and above that freedom? Even the right to use expressways and interstates isn't much of a benefit since I can't imagine anyone bothering to get a special license to ride what must be the least bike-friendly roads in the country.
Secondly, if it's agreed that it's impractical to enforce licensing of cyclists how could it be possible to enforce any restrictions that only applied to some cyclists?