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by ptaipale
4081 days ago
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> Of course, most of these wouldn’t be issues if we treated bikes like cars with the exact same rights and obligations as cars. Hmm, I suppose you did not mean this, but I think that mandating a bike rider's license, registration, insurance and annual tax would not help that much to remove problems. Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars. |
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If that means I can use inner-city roads the same ways cars can use them and that I’m not forced onto shoddy bike lanes the width of a towel, I’m happy to get registered, pay insurance etc. I somewhat expect bike insurance to be less expensive than car insurance on account of you being able to do less damage with a bike; similarly, taxes should be lower as even overland bike paths are much cheaper than anything built for cars. Overall, I’m not unhappy about the idea, though.
> Overall, I don't see how bikes could have the exact same rights and obligations as cars, although overall both are vehicles and should be treated as vehicles, equally. Still, you can't ride a bike on an Autobahn, and neither can you drive a tractor. You may or may not be allowed to ride bike on a road that is dedicated to buses, although you may be allowed to ride a bike there. Etc, etc. Bikes cannot and shouldn't have *exact' same rights and obligations as cars.
Of course there was some hyperbole there – I don’t expect to be allowed to drive on a highway, but not because I am a cyclist but because I can’t meet some minimum speed (i.e. the same rules that mean tractors can’t drive there either). However, I don’t see why I can’t drive on an inner-city road among cars which are at most allowed to drive 50 km/h and instead have to stick to a tiny bike lane next to a series of parked cars.
Regarding bus lanes, I am actually not too fond of them being open to cyclists: A single bus being slowed down annoys substantially more people than even a couple cars being slowed down and passing by a stopped bus is a major annoyance and safety issue. There’s some idea that you can promote cycling by giving out these perks (elsewhere, hybrids or electric cars are allowed to use them, too), but overall that shouldn’t be necessary in a healthy climate.