Here is the issue that must be decided before a certification or licensing program can be put into place: Is cycling going to be like driving, where to bike, one must pay fees and cross a significant financial barrier to entry, or is cycling going to be like walking, which everyone has the implicit right to do on most roads.

Diving is unlike cycling in one respect. Diving is an absolutely optional activity. There is no one who dives to get to work if they cannot afford to drive. Because it is purely optional, financial and temporal (spending significant time in classes) barriers to entry are accepted.

Cycling however, is an activity which can be listed as necessary. Our towns and cities in the US are very spread out in accordance to the ability of cars to drive long distances. Walking to anywhere outside 2 or 3 miles is so inefficient to do on a daily basis that one must have bicycles as a way for people who cannot afford cars to get places. If we place financial and temporal barriers to entry on cycling, then these people's lives will be made harder.

There has been talk of making any training purely optional. First of all, isn't this how it is already? And second of all, how would optional training make an impact on cyclists who are outside the mainstream cycling community, and who are probably responsible for most of the traffic accidents for which the cyclist is at fault?