Hey, like I said. I can care less but I am with Raginduck on the yahoos that zip around little kids and in parks with lots of people traffic. The car will always win the fight.
Why is the vehicle/bicycle on the road not mandated to have proper head lights and tail lights.
It's pitch black and they are wearing black riding around. I have seen a few times downtown driver missing a bike my a few inches or braking at the last moment because the Ninja bikes just popped up.
All I am saying is if you are using the road then you need to pass a basic written test like the rest of us and ensure your bicycle is subjected to the same standards as the other vehicles on the road. It makes it safer for all involved.
There's some merit to that idea, but it discounts the value to all of us of getting more people on bikes. It produces less healthcare demands, less infrastructure demands, less pollution, and less dependency on oil. The tradeoff is that drivers have to share the road, which can be a nuisance especially when cyclists are just taking up space when joyriding on weekends rather than removing a car from the gridlock during the commute.
Keep in mind, this is not entirely cyclist's fault. Roads were always designed almost exclusively for cars and trucks, and sidewalks were designed almost exclusively for pedestrians. The law has tried to patch that gap by splitting bikes into each of these two pavement types according to wheel diameter. It's a very unsatisfactory means of accommodating cyclists, and luckily most people ignore these laws. Unfortunately, they often don't substitute their own common sense in place of the law. This pretty much explains all these aggravating encounters between driver, cyclists, and pedestrians.
So in principle sure, every road user could be required to pass a written test to be licensed for the road, but given the disincentive it would bring to cycling, would that offer a net benefit versus say, road users just making an effort to share the road? I'm not sure. And where do we draw the line as to who can use the roads with a license? E-bikers? Inline skaters? Segway riders? Skateboarders? Wheelchair users? Joggers? None of those modes of transport are particularly lethal so licensing the vehicles like cars are licensed clearly wouldn't serve any purpose.
What about that sidewalk. Who should and shouldn't use it?
There's a lot to consider just on the infrastructure side and on the vehicle side with transportation technology evolving very rapidly (Honda U3-X, Lit C-1, Piaggio MP3, Monotracer, Velomobiles, Carver One, self-driving cars, homebuilt gas bicycles...) It would be too easy to strictly regulate everything thereby falling into the same trap that left bicycles in the lurch over the past decades by ignoring these novel modes of transportation and thereby stifling innovation and progress.
So maybe cyclists should be licensed, but even in the best case scenario is that going to have any impact on all that's happening out there now?
