Bonus points for the irreverent use of the word ‘potato’.
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Welcome to BoingBoing.
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You raise an interesting “whats good for the goose is good for the gander” type question. To wit: why can cyclists legally operate a machine on the ‘highway’ without out a license or proof of insurance? Sounds like a recipe for mayhem.
EDIT: added a word to clarify.
Having both cycled and driven a car in city traffic in Toronto, I would tend to agree with this anecdotally (I got doorprized one time during rush hour, that was pretty terrifying - never been in a serious accident in a car though). But I wonder if it holds up, statistically? It probably does, in terms of “number of fatalities per trip taken”, or some metric along those lines.
The political/philosophical reason is because people can legally do anything, unless there is reason to make a law against it. Laws do not prescribe a small set of activities which are allowed.
Practically, the answer to the question leads back to the reasoning for licensing and insurance of motor vehicles. As I had already mentioned, there is a much greater potential for damage to property and loss of life when one is augmented by a giant engine. It was decided that these were categorically different powers and responsibilities than were involved with walking, bicycles, or horses.
I, for one, do not agree with the practice of license and insurance for vehicles generally. People are not taught to drive them well, and insurance is basically a pyramid scheme. And why “proof” of insurance? Why is not simply being insured enough? The imposition upon motorists was in many ways the beginning of attempts at state control of the average person. Most people didn’t even bother with ID cards before this. Because in a society of equals you can ask somebody who they are, rather than assuming that they answer to somebody else.
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While I’m not particularly a fan of insurance companies in general, my good friend would argue that when he was rear-ended by a transport truck and unable to work for 6 months it was a very good thing that the driver of said transport truck had insurance.
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Which is why mandatory third party insurance is a good thing if you want to drive on public roads.
Covering your own property is your own choice.
I’d go with what (I think) they have in Canada and Australia, state insurance at a fixed price, no vultures profiting off something I have to buy.
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Wheeeee! Bicycle thread!
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It can seem like a good thing, but insurance and mortgages also serve as legitimized loan sharks to stimulate business by inflating what the average person can apparently afford. This is why things such as houses and surgery are routinely priced in the six to seven figure prices. We can all afford it - if we sell ourselves into indentured servitude. If such things were priced normally (according to actual income) then being out of work for a few months would not be so costly.
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Yay capitalism!
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Apparently, cyclists in the UK have 15 times more fatal accidents per mile than car drivers; and 5 times more fatal accidents per hour. That’s for all cycling, not just ‘city traffic’ (though apparently more UK cyclists are killed on rural roads). Still only one death for every 29 million miles cycled.
There is an argument that the health benefits of cycling outweigh any extra accident-related risk- I don’t know if there’s any data to back this up.
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Lots of vultures here in Soviet Canuckistan, sadly.
Damn… you are starting to sound like a libertarian or something. I mean that’s something I would say.
You are not trying to drop a hint are you?
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