“Man, the other day I hit a bicyclist with my car. I couldn’t see him because some asshole had put a near impossible to remove sticker onto my windshield inhibiting my field of vision.”
What country has parking spaces for cars only? I was under the impression that those were for street-legal vehicles, including golf-carts, pony buggies, motorcycles, boat-trailers, tractors …
Or am I misunderstanding your personal term “car slots”?
Slot car tracks should never be impeded by bicycles.
Never go full potato!
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Why is that? Shouldn’t people pay for what they use?
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Well, in the case of roads, I don’t think that a housekeeper who makes minimum wage should pay the same as I do to drive the same distance. I’m happy to pay a larger percentage of my income in a progressive tax system.
I don’t agree with the system automobile drivers use, which is one of the main reasons why I have always been a cyclist instead.
I have never put anybody in charge to “license” me or other cyclists.
As an experienced bike mechanic myself, the bureaucratic standards of safety will almost certainly be less safe than my own standards.
Not making your proposed registration and taxes commensurate with infrastructure use is a big “GFYS” to cyclists, since this wear upon the infrastructure is the whole reason why cars are taxed. The potential damage and loss of life they can cause is why they are registered and licensed. None of these apply to bicycles, so your reasoning of using this to drag them into bureaucracy is IMO rather insipid. There is not anything preventing people from learning about road safety, regardless. In fact, many cyclists are also licensed motorists, so those of them should have been made aware of the rules of the road as part of that process.
Your remark about not “allowing” fixed gear bikes without brakes seems to suggest a worrying lack of knowledge and experience with regards to something you casually suggest legislation about. Since people use the same cycling motions to brake with fixed gears as they do to move, applying mechanical brakes can injure the knees. The minimal surface area of bicycle tires in contact with pavement means that brakes are hardly foolproof - once the wheels stop turning, bikes skid easily - once the wheel is stopped, you can’t stop it more.
It requires an extremely skilled cyclist to bike in traffic, complying with the same rules as cars. If you expect cars to abide these laws in relation to you on your bike, this would be suicide. Any “enforcement” only happens after the accident. I used to spend about 10 hours per day cycling in the city, and I counted the number of times cars ignored regulations around me on my bike which could have gotten me hurt, and 50-100 times per day was an easy count. Passing in the same lane, cutting off at turns, refusing to merge, bad lane changes - any one of which could easily land me or another cyclist in an emergency room.
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So, in case of the suggested bike tax, do you propose that the licencees-to-be will have to bring a proof of income, to be put into the appropriate tax bracket? Further complicating the bureaucracy, and opening a whole new can of worms of verifying and enforcement?
Would that extend to the shoe tax, too? Would be only fair.
@shaddack’s point is completely valid: it’s an argument by analogy, not a strawman or a slippery-slope.
Why should the city “shoulder the cost of making the streets especially welcoming to [pedestrians]” without charging the pedestrians a license?
Your taxes, and that of drivers, pay the costs of sidewalks, and people who walk a lot don’t contribute a dime more.
The non-facetious answer is that the city has a vested interest in encouraging and allowing the use of pedestrian traffic, just as it does in encouraging and allowing the use of cycling traffic. Pedestrians require a significant investment in sidewalks, lights etc, more so than the majority of painted bike lanes. And bicycles contribute about 0% of the wear-and-tear on the road, as compared to cars.
Plus, the vast majority of cyclists are also drivers, and so they’d essentially be being charged twice.
Entirely unnecessary, and, again, on par with requiring a “safety inspection” of the shoes of pedestrians.
In NYC, arguably one of the homes of the most aggressive and dangerous cyclists, there were 309 accidents between cyclists and pedestrians in 2013, which killed 2 people.
That same year in NYC there were 203,000* car crashes, which killed 356 people and injured 32,000 people.
When the danger is so many orders of magnitude different, it is clear that bicycles are significantly more like pedestrians, and not like cars. So it makes more sense to lump together bicycle and shoe “safety inspections” than it does to lump car and bicycle inspections.
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Ok, I give in. You and others make an excellent argument for the status quo. I’ll continue to carry an absurd amount of insurance and do my damnedest not to cream a cyclist. Cycling seems like an excellent way to keep out of the DMV, which I applaud anyone for managing!
As you’re an expert I would like to know, what should I do if I see a cyclist do something unbelievably dangerous in traffic? Short of collaring him or her and lecturing on road safety, I can’t think of any recourse. A lot of this comes down to my fear - I am an excellent, defensive driver. I have never had an accident that was my fault. I have prevented many accidents that wouldn’t have been my fault through skilled and careful driving. I am understandably terrified that I will one day kill a cyclist through no fault of my own. Cyclists absolute deserve to be on the road and share the infrastructure with me, but that doesn’t keep me from being afraid of them.
First, I’d need to point out that cycling in traffic is always “unbelievably dangerous”, that’s just the nature of it. Next, I’d qualify if what they were doing was dangerous for themselves, or for others? Are we just talking about them doing something stupid which hinders traffic?
So, what is your recourse usually for motorists who do something unbelievably dangerous? Have you ever tried giving somebodys license plate number and explaining “this person drives like a fool?” I have never gotten police to act upon such things. They typically need to witness something egregious themselves, and then they’ll act, regardless of the mode of transit used. Otherwise, you can be vocal, or intervene as time and circumstances allow. I have done everything from risking arrest by chastising a bike cop who knocked down a whole crowd of pedestrians on a sidewalk, to throwing a drivers keys off a bridge after they deliberately tried to run me over. Ideally, people only put themselves at risk, and accept this.
Afraid of them? Or afraid of yourself and what you might inadvertently do to them? This might be when you just need to be vigilant, aware, and be the best driver that you can. It sounds exactly like how a professional cyclist feels in the city. It is often a white-knuckle ride. Frequently I would be changing lanes in multiple lanes of 30-40 MPH traffic, and people around me were often visibly skittish. What could anyone do but do their best? Most of the complaints I got were about me doing things which were completely legitimate driving. If they had a means to report me, I would have been put out of work years before for complying (often more rigorously) with the same laws as those around me.
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Why is it we park in a bike lane, but bike in a park lane?
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Can I get some stickers for the bicyclists that think they’re special snowflakes and don’t stop for stop lights or stop signs? Every state law says that bicycles are considered vehicles yet I’ve had plenty of jerkoff cyclists blow through them and have the nerve to flip someone off when they almost cause an accident. Goes both ways really, if you want respect, give some respect.
Cyclist who think that they’re snowflakes? Sounds like some sort of tripped-out Rankin-Bass winter special for television.
Good luck dealing with the implausibility of putting them on moving cyclists. Same reason why cyclists don’t have any made for speeding cars.
Apparently not. In Massachusetts, where I did research on bicycle law, bicycles were categorized as a mode of transit, as distinct from a vehicle.
Sounds a bit tit-for-tat to me. Somebody wants to remind about a specific safety law which many disregard, but people should blow this off because some other people disregard yet a different safety law? (If you can’t be bothered to use your seatbelt, them I’m not buying a fire extinguisher) As I had to remind many people who liked to get vindictive with me by lumping me in with other cyclists - your personal respect or lack thereof does not exempt you from the rules of the road. This goes for anybody on the road.
i’d prefer a stencil…stickers come off too easy.
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Way to move the goalposts, there. You originally said “I need one for cars that wait for a right turn by blocking the bike lane.”
Y’all drive on the wrong side anyway. No wonder there’s so many accidents.
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Depends. Am I gonna be taxed for my splendidly stout army boots the same way I would if I drove a military truck?
That depends if you are a local civilian or an occupying military force.
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As a fully paid-up member of Western Europe, I’m already paying taxes for both of those things, dammit. Hands off my shoes!
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Damn straight. Driving a car is a LOT easier than staying alive on a bike in city traffic.
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Hey man, I am a very important… something.
I cant waste my valuable time turning on all kinds of printers… pushing all kinds of buttons.
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