Originally Posted by genec
The license is not to access the roads though... the license is to use a heavy vehicle. It is specifically not called a road license, but a driver's license... and they vary not by the type of road, but by the class of vehicle.
I know that seems like a silly semantic argument... but there are plenty of vehicles that can be used on the road without a license... bikes, scooters, mopeds for instance do no require a license for access to the road. I don't believe a horse and buggy driver needs a license. Farm equipment operators do not need licenses.
It really is the heavy fast motor vehicle that people are being trained to operate and for which a license is needed. Not access to the PUBLIC roadway.
OK. But I thought that public roadways had something to do with it too. For instance, I thought that one could qualify for certain types of motorized racing without the legal ability to drive on "normal" roads.
Anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked by my poor use of access and public.
Originally Posted by genec
So you are suggesting that cyclists be licensed under the same system that motorists use.
Whew... I don't want to get into that... but for reasons of education alone perhaps some system is needed. We really don't have a way to qualify cyclists for the road now. This has actually been discussed at length here on BF. Of course cyclists do not like the idea.
Well, I have not come to the conclusion that cyclists should be licensed to operate bicycles on roads; although I clearly have some sympathies towards the idea. We have already discussed what I think is would be a positive result: there would be a mechanism to target the would be "road warriors". However, mandatory licensing would also discourage many from the road--which I believe is safer and more efficient in many settings--and perhaps from cycling in general.
Moreover, I also think that any program should be simple to understand and implement.
"One must have a license to ride a bicycle" is simple, easy to understand, and relatively easy to enforce. But my perception is that most people would believe that such a policy would be overkill.
"One must have a license to ride on any road" is simple, easy to understand, but becomes more difficult to enforce since an officer would have to catch the person riding on the road. Moreover, I don't think that people would want to stop kids from riding up and down their suburban block.
"One must have a license to ride on 'major' roads" is not so simple, less than well understood, and difficult to enforce. The adjective "major" would be a nightmare. However, I gather that this is what many would want from such a program; i.e., to make sure that riders on busy roads understand how to interact with autos.
Anyway, I don't have any quick answer (
although I have some ideas on how to address some of the issues above ... I have not determined the quality of these ideas). Your suggestion of incorporating bicycle education into public education is a promising one. But I gather that education resources are a bit stretched in disadvantaged areas already. I also don't know how much of a life-long skill cycling is to some people.
Back to Bek's suggestion of driver's education of bicyclist's rights and use of the road and the omission of cyclist education ...
My initial perception is that suggesting that another group needs to be educated in some dimension without suggesting some change in the part of cyclists other than a demand for cycling infrastructure sounds similar to the pedestrian hit on the Capital Crescent Trail without taking any responsibility for her own actions.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...crescent+trail
a short snip of the article ...
Postscript: Jamie Ratner was treated and released from the hospital that night and is feeling better every day. Upon reflection, Ratner, who is a security manager at a District law firm, is, like Mark Rubin, very concerned about safety along the Capital Crescent Trail, which runs from Georgetown to Silver Spring.
Specifically, she suggests no bike racing; speed limits for bikers; increased police patrols; emergency phone boxes; and better signs about right-of-way and passing.
She thinks that any rule forbidding headphones would be unfair, asserting that walkers and runners have an equal right to enjoy the trail. A headphone ban, she says, would be misdirected, because it should be bikers' responsibility to yield to those on foot until a bike lane is specifically designated.