[chimprich]

> Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road?

Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence?

In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.

This dual effect would have a number of negative impacts. More motorists lead to more congestion, more CO2 emitted and poorer air quality. Poorer air quality leads to health problems, up to and including deaths. CO2 causes climate change, and greater congestion has an economic impact. Fewer people cycling mean fewer people getting exercise, leading to more health problems, up to and including deaths.

I'm confident these problems would overshadow the small improvements in cyclist safety you might gain with a cycling licence requirement. There are better ways to improve cycling safety.

[papermule]

> Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence?

Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should have demonstrated that they understand and follow these rules by taking some kind of test.

> In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.

I don't think so. I expect the government to continue to penalize use of motor vehicles in cities such as London. The bicycle will remain the cheaper mode of transport.

[rout39574]

> Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow.

What about walking? People can run into other people, knock them down stairs, it's a risk...

I think that most observers find the idea that bike use is a public hazard, and must be restricted to be obviously ludicrous.

[cgriswald]

I don't. In the United States, bicyclists must follow largely the same rules of the road that drivers of motor vehicles must follow. They can even be ticketed for violating those rules although usually the tickets don't have much in the way of teeth (except things like DUI while biking).

Here in the Bay Area, it's a rare bicyclist that actually follows the rules. Talking to other bicyclists, I've found a large number of them are simply ignorant to the fact that the rules apply to them as well; or they have adopted some bizarre version of the rules or a sense of entitlement.

I could talk anecdotes for hours, but one particularly egregious example is a bicyclist who showed up to a 4-way stop after I was already moving through the intersection, cut through my path, and gave me the finger, all without even slowing down, much less stopping.

Requiring bicyclists to pass at least a basic test would go a long way towards clearing things up or at least changing the "bicyclists don't have to follow the rules" culture that exists here, making the roads safer for themselves, walkers/runners, and drivers alike.

[beat]

Forcing bicycles to follow rules designed for cars is often silly and sometimes actively dangerous. For example, the bike route from downtown to my house involves making a left turn on a busy street. For a mile and a half, the street is nice and wide, with generous bike lanes in both directions - sensible and safe. But the moment I have to turn left? By car laws, I need to stop in the middle of the road, with traffic coming up behind me (often at 40+mph), and wait until I have a clear path to turn left, which can take a while. This is deadly.

So I do the illegal. I turn right on the quiet side street and immediately u-turn to the stop sign, to wait to cross both sides. It's not a dangerous maneuver for me or anyone else, although it would be dangerous for a car to do so.

See the problem?

edit: A car waiting to turn left is in considerably less danger. It's much easier for traffic coming from behind to see, so it's less likely to be hit. And if it is hit, the driver is protected by the car itself. At worst, the car gets totaled. But a bicycle hit at 40mph? The cyclist is likely going to be killed. It's not just silly to follow the car law - it's hazardous.

[dabbledash]

That u-turn sounds legal for everybody.

I think one the purposes of traffic law is to make the behavior of all participants predictable. My only issue with cyclists is I feel I can never predict what they're going to do.

[squiggleblaz]

"That u-turn sounds legal for everybody."

There's usually laws about how far you can see, how far you have to be from an intersection etc.

"My only issue with cyclists is I feel I can never predict what they're going to do."

This is not entirely the fault of the cyclists, it's the fault of the law givers

The laws are not written in such a way that it appears safe to people using bikes to follow all the rules, so everyone is compelled to come up with their own rules. The build of roads is the same; a small detour for a person in a car can become quite substantial for a person on a bike.

At the moment the laws get written and the roads get design assuming almost everyone is going to use a car, and then they say "well, is it physically possible to follow it on a bike?" - if they consider bikes at all.

If governments wanted people to ride bikes predictably, they must consider them when crafting the laws. It's probably quite okay for people riding bikes to act differently than people driving cars: just like people walking around behave differently. It will then take some time to spread the word and regain the trust of cyclists. But it's a more helpful solution than saying "they must follow rules and infrastructure designed for cars in the same way as cars, except that they must not delay me: that way they will be predictable and safe".

[Piskvorrr]

Depends on the local law. In some cities, this is bike-legal, and even officially encouraged as "indirect left turn": see the side-street bike box, intended just for this: on your green, you cross the side street, turn right-then-left into the box and wait for a green signal to cross the main road. https://prahounakole.cz/wp-content/pnk/uploads/2013/03/pruhy...

[cgriswald]

Your u-turn sounds legal, even in a car, but I'd have to see the area and know the state to be sure. Regardless, bicyclists are already required to follow the law. Having a required license would simply help make sure bicyclists are aware of the law and provide a tool for law enforcement to keep the most egregious offenders (e.g. stop sign runners, cyclists traveling against traffic, etc.) from causing problems.

[beat]

Why? Requiring a license doesn't seem to make car drivers any better. And most bicyclists already have a driver's license. Those who don't tend to be kids, or poor (having a driver's license is privilege, although a common one). Forcing them to need a license will just create more illegal bicyclists.

Law enforcement can already ticket a bicyclist, license or no license. Bicyclists already know when they're breaking the law.

I disbelieve your proposed solution would actually solve any problems.

[TheCoelacanth]

It's a rare driver that actually follows the rules. Speed limits are almost never followed. I frequently see drivers go through a light that has already turned red, roll through a stop sign without fully stopping or come dangerously close to hitting a pedestrian to whom they were supposed to yield the right of way.

Drivers routinely kill other drivers or pedestrians through carelessness. Few if any cyclists ever kill someone else. If anything we need more rigorous tests for drivers, not for cyclists.

[mc32]

What I loathe most about cyclists as a pedestrian, (I am also a cyclist and also a driver) is when they ignore pedestrians crossing a street and simply swerve between people --at speed. Kids are unpredictable and they don't have the same sense as adults, yet, I've had prickish cyclists ride on through as if nothing.

[cornyNetHandle]

In a world where there were only pedestrians, would you want them to start having licences? Per mile, walking is exceedingly dangerous compared to other modes of transport.

[papermule]

No, I don't think so?

1. Pedestrians move at much slower speeds than bicycles. If two pedestrians walk into each at 5mph the damage is much lower than if two cyclists collide at 30mph.

2. Since pedestrians move much slower than bicycles they can manoeuvre much faster. The stopping distance for a walking pedestrian is less than 1m, the stopping distance for a bycicle travelling at 30mph is much greater.

3. If two pedestrians walk into each other the chance of collateral damage is quite low. It's quite easy to walk around two people that just walked into each other.

If two cyclists collide, there is a good chance that cyclists on each side of them will get caught up in the collision, crash and injure themselves too. A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.

Of course, if people started running as a mode of transport it would become increasingly dangerous, and you'd have to start separating the walkers from the runners as the damage from a potential collision would be much greater.

[TheCoelacanth]

> A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.

Basing rules for cyclists on the Tour de France is like basing rules for automobiles on F1 or Nascar. Normal commuters just don't reach anything close to Tour de France speeds. Most would be lucky to even maintain a third of that speed without the help of a hill.

Most commuters will be going about 10 mph. Even getting hit with a car at that speed will only cause an injury at all about 25% of the time, a serious injury about 15% of the time and is almost never fatal[1]. A bicycle will barely do anything at that speed.

By all means add special rules for using bicycles at unusually high speeds, but don't act like normal commuters are going to be going that speed.

[1] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...

[cornyNetHandle]

Ok, so licences for runners then, as you may need to have a test to see that people know the rules and presumably ban people from running if they break them.

[papermule]

Since running is largely recreational most runners avoid congested areas on purpose. If this changes it will have to be revisited. Nice strawman though.

[cornyNetHandle]

Was trying more for reducto ad absurdum. I didn't come up with the idea of having laws to separate runners from walkers, you did. I was just exploring the enforcement mechanism for such a suggestion.

[belorn]

In so many discussions on HN I see this silly myth of 30mph bicycles.

Did you know that in Sweden, the legal maximum speed of a electric bike is 15mph? Anything faster and it is classified as a moped and you need a driving license. Did you also know that the average speed of a bike in a city in the Netherlands is around 9mph? In context, a common running speed is 8mph.

So here is the stage. Two bikes are traveling more than 300% faster than the average speed and about 200% the legal limit of a electric bike, and they collide. My question would not be if that situation is safer if two pedestrians walk into each other, but rather why two bikes is traveling that fast in the first place.

[mc32]

Not all cyclist ride one speed "gentleman/lady" bikes. Many travel upto 30mph. That's a safety concern. There have been a number of cases of cyclists running over pedestrians resulting in serious injury, so it's not inconceivable to require licensing.

[squiggleblaz]

Licensing doesn't stop people driving cars from charging into others, killing them. It's not going to stop bike riders who are inclined to drive with such recklessness that they endanger their own life from driving with that recklessness

[cgriswald]

> In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.

Most cyclists are licensed drivers, and a test for cycling licensing would, at worst, probably be no more difficult than that for driving. The impact on the number of cyclists would be minimal.

A bicycle can injure or kill a pedestrian or cause a motor vehicle accident. What is the justification for licensing motor vehicle driving but not bicycling when done on public roads? I cannot think of anyone who fails a motor vehicle licensing test that I consider competent to not cause others harm while operating a bicycle on public roads. I would much rather suffer the 'dangers' of increased carpooling or public transit use.

[ck425]

No, they are not. Atleast outside the US they're not. I know a significant number of people, myself included, who are experienced cyclists who have never driven a car in their life. Cycling is far more common in urban areas where driving is impractical or amongst young people who can't afford or don't want to drive.

[dabbledash]

>Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence?

No. Why do you think this is relevant? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of your argument.

[chimprich]

You are correct in pointing out that it doesn't have much to do with the rest of my argument. I posed it as a question because I think a lot of the opinions around this issue (like many or most issues) stem from emotions. In this case I think this argument comes from a sense of fairness: motorists have to pay tax / have insurance / pass a test; so why shouldn't cyclists? I think if you consider whether we would even be asking that question if there were no motorists, you can get around the "fairness" point of view.

[dabbledash]

Interesting. I wasn't coming from that angle. I think cycling would be less risky if there weren't cars on the road, so I would see less of a reason to have cyclists take a test and get a license if they didn't have to mix with auto traffic.

[pc86]

You're suggesting that requiring bicyclists to be licensed would kill people?

[cornyNetHandle]

Requiring licensing for cyclists could indirectly result in more deaths depending on the change in other behaviours.

Off the top of my head, walking is more risky per mile for the traveller than cycling while driving is safer per mile, but increases your risk of obesity and DVT and is more dangerous for everyone else in terms of pollution and accidents.

[scatters]

It would have that effect, obviously. Is this not something you've thought about before?