JIMBETHYNAME

The city of Poughkeepsie, NY requires all bicycles with wheels bigger than 20" to be registered with the popo.
They can take your bike away legally if you dont have the sticker on your bike.
I choose to ignore said regulation.

rivers

I have insurance for my bike, through British Cycling. My BC membership comes with liability insurance, and I have added theft as I can't afford to replace my bike if it's stolen. Most cycling clubs are affiliated with either BC or Cycling UK over here, and as part of it, we have liability insurance.

manapua_man

How do they handle people from out of town? Sounds like one of those things that could end up being an expensive mess for the city if someone gets bent out of shape and lawyers get involved.

Fishergrad08

I can see DC doing something stupid like this. Cycling is good for heath and humanity. Less cars on the road = less environmental impact to the Ozone. Less parking requirements in the city for cars, etc. DC is all about the $$ though, so if it filters to the 48 contiguous I see DC jumping on that in the front of the line. Insane.

I-Like-To-Bike

If like most other places with a bicycle licensing regulation, itn probably handles out of town people the same as residents, and totally ignores any enforcement of the so-called requirement. Only people who seem to be affected by such licensing requirements are Internet bloggers and worry-worts.

WizardOfBoz

Good point.

I can own a Colt 6920 Magpul AR-15 & high capacity magazine and there's not even a mandatory safety lesson!

But I need a license to operate a 40 year old Schwinn Varsity.

KD5NRH

You mean like BikeRegistry.com - Global Bike Registration does for free? (The reg is free, you only pay if you want stickers.) Also, no need to go through local government to get it registered or check a serial number.

CliffordK

If everybody in the USA (or Canada) was required to have a valid bike license with a serial number that was physically verified by a police officer once every couple of years, then it would reduce the market for stolen bikes, and aid with recovery and returning the bikes to the original owner.

The Bike Registries do help, assuming the owner actually knows the serial number. But, being optional, not all bike transactions are actually verified.

Of course, one could always strip the components and scrap the frames.

Isolation

I have both. Too bad for the busybodies.

deapee

Stopped reading for a brief moment to say they aren't putting one of those on my bike...ever.

VonGutenburgen

they just want your money

KD5NRH

And if everybody in the USA (or Canada) was required to present papers to travel at all, we could cut theft, catch some fugitives, etc. OTOH, we like our private property and right to travel the public ways.

If one is using BikeRegistry.com, the fact that the developer used more than one brain cell in the design of the site means that they can go look at their bike to get the serial number. Unlike several of the others, it's set up to put in the info before the bike is stolen, while it's easy to get a photo and list all the accessories and modifications present.

The vast majority of stolen bikes around here are big box store junk, with the cheapest OEM components available. Not much of a market for a hastily removed Denali derailleur or a Next crankset that was pulled with a ball peen hammer.

Sangetsu

but basically think the license is a money grab

Both license and insurance are a money grab. When the council members pass a regulation requiring that bicycles have insurance, they'll get something in return from the insurance companies. People don't become politicians for a politician's official salary, they do it to become rich. Since they have the taxpayer's checkbook, and the pen which writes the rules and regulations, they exercise valuable influence. And this influence is sold the the highest bidder.

I have insurance on my bike here in Japan. it is not required, but after having two bikes stolen, and playing daily dodge'm with smartphone zombies, it's better to be safe than sorry. It costs me about $10 per month, and it's provided by my cell phone series provider.

corrado33

No offense to those of you here who think bicycles are the holiest thing on the road, but bicyclists can do stupid things too. A cyclist riding the wrong way down a bike lane can cause a motorist to swerve and cause property damage, perhaps even hit little suzie on the sidewalk.

Is the motorist at fault there?

My friend recently made the bonehead move of passing a slowing car on the right on a 2 lane road (one in each direction.) The car turned right and right hooked her. (No bike lane or shoulder.) Was that the car's fault? Both of them did something illegal. The car turned without signaling, and she passed a vehicle on the right. If the same situation occurred with cars, I can almost guarantee you the "aggressive" person trying to pass on the right would have been at fault. There are many, many reasons why a car would slow down without signaling. A kid crossing the street? Being nice to someone turning left? Leaving space for a cross street open in the case of approaching a red light. Road construction? Whiskers the cat running away from Barky the dog? I personally think passing on the right in such a situation was a worse offense than not signaling a turn. Not to mention cyclists should be looking out for their own safety and that was pretty much the classic "right hook" situation. But if she had gotten seriously hurt? Who would have paid?

I think bicycle "insurance" would be more about protecting people from the idiots on bikes, rather than the majority of us who ride sensibly.

But then again, isn't that the whole point of insurance? To protect you/people from sue happy idiots?

wipekitty

My town has an ordinance requiring bicycles to be licensed, but it is never enforced. The license is free. I don't actually know anybody (including myself) who has their bicycles licensed, but one of the advocacy groups does license-a-thons at the local bars from time to time.

I personally like the idea of bicycle insurance - uninsured motorist and roadside assistance would be nice, in addition to liability insurance. I dumped my car a few years back and got nice bicycles instead, and my homeowner's policy only covers so much.

On the other hand, it seems that it would be difficult to enforce an insurance requirement with any consistency. My town is full of uninsured drivers and folks driving around with a suspended license, and I personally know people who drove cars for several years with no license or insurance. They usually get caught doing numbskull things like going 15+ over the speed limit, driving drunk, crashing into people, and using drugs in the car. A city with more proactive enforcement might be able to catch more (drivers and cyclists) running stop signs and red lights, but I doubt that the cops would be able to check up on cyclists just riding around.

prathmann

Not really clear why the motorist would need to swerve because of a cyclist who stays in the bike lane. But sure, people in general, including bicyclists, can sometimes cause property and/or injury damage to others and can be held liable for it. But it's only because of the greatly increased likelihood that came with the introduction of powerful motor vehicles that this became enough of a societal problem for insurance to be required by law.

I'm already covered for accidental damage I cause to others while cycling, hiking, lawn mowing (could cause a rock to hit someone), dog walking, etc. by the general liability coverage of my home owner's insurance and many tenants have similar coverage under renters insurance. But there's no legal requirement to carry insurance against such risks which are far smaller than the risk of causing damage while operating a motor vehicle.

scott967

My state (Hawaii) has mandatory bike registration (wheels over 20" i.e., not "toy" bikes). It is enforced at retail sale as a fee on the retailer. If you bring a bike in you are supposed to go to our version of DMV (city hall handles all licenses) and register it. I don't know what fraction of bikes are actually registered. You get a decal that has to be on the seat tube, and a registration form that has to be transferred if the bike is sold.

For insurance, my state is a "no fault" state and minimum requirement is for $10k medical (this covers your medical, not the other party). So any required insurance if modeled after MV insurance would not be a trivial expense.

scott s.
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northtexasbiker

I'll admit that I do like the smell of my own farts, but I don't think a cyclist being at fault is a very very rare situation. Cyclist are just a subset of the general population. The amount of jackasses in a group of 100 cyclist is no different than the amount of jackasses in some random collection of non cyclist. They are more than capable of doing something stupid.

Chief

How exactly does a homeless, penniless person do this?
Answer: they don't, and just become a criminal due to an inability to comply with a stupid law.

Chief

Are homeless people doing this? Or do they just get their property confiscated because they haven't followed gubmint red-tape?

scott967

Well, the city is going to clear out the homeless along our bike path next week so we will see. There is a "stored property" ordinance that is enforced. The city holds all property for 48 hours to be claimed or sent to the landfill. Yes, if the bike frame doesn't display registration HPD can seize it. I don't know if they actually do, though. The bikes I see in the camps aren't worth much, seem to be more parts bikes than functioning. There's one place where an enterprising homeless has about a dozen wheels on display, I assume for sale but haven't inquired.

Overall though, on the list of annoyances the mandatory bike registration is pretty low on the list. For liability insurance I suspect they would go after mopeds first (this year they changed to annual registration with inspection for mopeds).

scott s.
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cyccommute 

There is some truth to that but, here in the US, the people want to grab the money are usually the people who yell the loudest about the "Government" grabbing money.

But the biggest problem is that those people wanting bicyclist to "pay their fair share" don't understand how unfair the share paid by motorists is throughout the US. For example, I have a 1999 SUV. I pay $90 per year in registration fees on a 6000 lb vehicle. That works out to $0.015 per pound. Gas tax could be included in the cost of taxes on my vehicle but since I don't use much more fuel in on my bike than just breathing, it's difficult to charge me a fuel tax.

For a 25 lb bike, my "fair share" is $0.38. There in lies the problem. There's no money to be grabbed. Collecting $0.40 per year per bike would cost much more than they would ever collect. It's a money losing proposition.

The people who want to charge me to use my bike often throw around a $25 per year per bike registration fee but how is that my "fair share". Why should I, who does zero damage to the road, pay 1600 times what an motorist pays? When they pay $1 per pound per car, we can talk about collecting a fee on my bicycles but, even then, $25 per bike would hardly pay for the administration of the program. And, if people were paying $1 per pound for their cars, there wouldn't be any need for collecting a fee on bikes...other than the fact that there wouldn't be any cars on the road

JIMBETHYNAME

I've never seen them stop anyone to check reg during dalight hrs. After midnite, you're getting stopped andd searched. Happened to my friend last week.
I have seen them take an ex neighbors 2 bikes from his backyard for no reg andcthey were there for something else.
FTP!!!!!!

WNCGoater

..

WNCGoater

Yeah, then once a claim is filed, you're considered a "bad risk" and you get cancelled or worse, your premiums go up.

Has no one on here ACTUALLY HAD TO DEAL WITH AN INSURANCE COMPANY?