I would love the playing field to be more level. Fewer than 1% of pedestrians are killed by cyclists.
1% of pedestrians is a very big number! I assume you mean 1% of pedestrians involved in accidents.
All the others, more than 400 a year are killed by motor vehicles, and cars account for more than half of those motor vehicles. Want to know what kills pedestrians on pavements? It's not bicycles, it's not e-Scooters. It is registration plate clad vehicles though. Of the 100 or so cyclists killed every year 80% are hit by a motor vehicle. Of the 500 or so car occupants killed every year precisely none are killed by cyclists. The playing field is so skewed so steeply it's hard to imagine how much legislation is needed to make it even gently slopey.
Fair points, but we're talking about different playing fields. You're talking about injury / deaths, I'm talking about everyone meeting similar requirements before they are allowed on the road.
I can only assume you have never fallen off a bike. It hurts. When you get hit by a car and then fall off it generally hurts a lot. Drive your car into a cyclists and you won't feel a thing. Plenty of trucks haven't even noticed they were doing it. I just don't buy the accountability-responsibility thing. Cyclists are very reponsible because they really, really, really don't want to get hit. They might ride through a red light, and we can argue they shouldn't, but it usually is a benign action. And I have seen cyclists ride through lights and almost collide with pedestrians and they are idiots of the lowest order. Although when you ride into a pedestrian it also hurts, so you generally want to avoid that too. Again, not a concern for car drivers.
Some cyclists are responsible of course, but many are not. Of course, many drivers aren't either, but at least they can in theory be caught on camera and reported.
I don't drive through red lights becuase I know doing so is really dangerous and there is a good change I will get hit, or hit someone. This has nothing to do with me having a number plate. Idiots will always idiot unfortunately.
I see cyclists going through red lights every day. Good to know you're not one of them!
I also just think it would be very difficult to police. I stick ABC123 on my Colnago C64, and an ANPR camera pops up it's a Trek Domane. Would anyone know? Of course I wouldn't do this, but the idiots likely would. If they flee the scene of some indiscretion how is it going to help?
Policing it is a separate issue. There are cars driving around with false plates, but we dont ditch the whole registration system just because of that.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
No one can claim unless they can show the thing happened. Got my door mirror taken off by a skip lorry a couple of years ago. Got the number plate. Got the skip company name. Not me says the driver. Not interested say the police. There we go.
The lack of evidence is a different problem. If you dont have evidence it becomes a he said / she said and the insurance cant be bothered with it. If you've got some evidence, and nobody wants to know, sue them in the small claims court. There are more and more cameras around every day, so maybe more evidence around as we go forward.
If the Cyclist doesn't even have a number or any way of identifying them, there is exactly zero chance of any action even if you have evidence.
It is. If number plates for bicycles were mande mandatory, and fortunately I think there is almost zero chance of this in the foreseeable future, it is aimed at every bicycle owner who will now incur the expense of licensing. I only argue that to impose this on the millions of bicycles in the UK we should take a logical look at what we are trying to fix and think about whether this would do it, and if it did what is the cost to the population? I rode 9000 miles last year (and drove 4000), not a big cost per mile for me. Pain in the backside when you and the missus go for a ride twice a year in the summer.
If you don't want a plate, how about a number on the back of your bike hat - that would be cheap?
It still doesn't seem fair to me that most road users have to have some sort of basic training, pass a test, license themselves and their vehicle and are effectively 'publicly identifiable' when they use the roads. Cyclists don't have to do any of those things. It doesn't seem right to me, but then I am not a cyclist.
I hope none of this comes across as at all acrimonious on the forum, because I think it's a reasonable question to ask. I just also think there are good reasons it doesn't get us anywhere much for a very significant administrative effort. For cyclists it's a position that gets trotted out regularly.
Not at all - as I said, I appreciate your view and you're obviously an expert if you do 9000 miles a year - respect for that.
In fact one nice lady took time out from her busy drive only last weekend to slow down to 20mph while sat on the opposite side of the empty road to chastise my friend and I for riding 2 abreast and telling us we don't even pay road tax. I assume she meant VED but my response to her was less pedantic.
That's terrible - unfortunately cyclists wind up motorists and motorists wind up cyclists - realistically, I don't see it changing anytime soon.