[xandrius]

To verify any of the words of your long comment, one would simply need to compare deaths caused to others by cars vs deaths caused to others by bicycles (could even add in motorised bikes) and see how many order of magnitude of difference we would find.

Once we have established the danger level of each vehicle then we can go into detail on how to decrease the fatalities of the most deadly one. I'm pretty sure, requiring a license for bicycles is not going to change a thing.

[hilbert42]

"…deaths caused to others by bicycles"

By simply doing that you'd just fuel the belief in the saying "there are damned lies and statistics". It does not make sense to compare the killing potential of a motor powered vehicle with one powered by a human.

The issue is simple and straightforward. As I've mentioned elsewhere, many cyclists have unpredictable riding habits and a high propensity to violate traffic law at the drop of a hat—which, on a per capita basis, is much more frequent than that of licenced drivers. There's no disputing the accuracy of that statement although there's argument over the actual numbers.

By their unpredictable riding habits and regular violations of the road rules, cyclists put motorists into invidious situations where they are more likely to have an accident with a cyclist (or pedestrian, or other vehicle or thing whilst desperately trying to avoid the cyclist).

Licensing cyclists won't solve everything but it'd sure improve their safety. If cyclists knew they could lose their license thus not be allowed to drive on public roads then their riding behavior would be more predictable and we would see many fewer traffic violations (such as running red lights which I see happen regularly). Moreover, motorists' behavior would be more predictable with licenced cyclists on the road because their behavior has become more predictable through them being licensed. All up, licensing cyclists would mean fewer accidents.

[buran77]

> compare deaths caused to others by cars vs deaths caused to others by bicycles (could even add in motorised bikes)

Not the commenter you were answering to, but this is exactly the kind of thinking I was highlighting earlier myself. People constantly put themselves in dangerous situations that they rationalize to be fine just because the law doesn't explicitly incriminate that behavior. So being the ones who planted the seeds of that dangerous situation just doesn't register. Not trying to generalize but there are many, many situations where disaster could have been avoided if either side bothered to do better.

Too many people live as if the epitaph "but I was technically correct" will keep someone warm. Let me put it another way, if one of these "above average" people chooses to always floor it on the Autobahn at 300+km/h because it's technically legal, when they eventually crash and die even because someone else made a mistake you know you'll think "well, he had it coming". Same if a cyclist crashes due to someone else's mistake while riding a barely road-worthy bike or because they banged their head and weren't wearing a helmet. Sure, it wasn't legally their fault but welcome to the statistic. It's like dying from the perfectly legal smoking.

Everybody should try to do their best in potentially dangerous situations. But too many people on the road expect only others have to do it because [insert rationalization here]. And people without an airbag filled metal cage around them are the ones least able to justify the relaxed "it's their responsibility" attitude. Nobody else on the road will care about your life more than you. If even you keep putting yourself in situations where any minor mistake from anyone has no chance to be corrected, you're writing your place in a statistic. But of course, if you know what you're doing that will never happen...