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Comment by ptaipale | Hacker News Reader

>Statistics show that in the large majority of cases of accidents between cycles and motor vehicles, the driver of the motor vehicle is at fault. Requiring a license for cycles will do just about nothing to fix this.

As a regular cyclist, I would say that requiring a license from cyclists would certainly do something to fix this: make cyclists more aware of it.

Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle and bicycle are fault of the motor vehicle driver. But that leaves 1/3 where cyclist errors or breaches of traffic code are reason, which is also significant.

And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.

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> Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle and bicycle are fault of the motor vehicle driver. But that leaves 1/3 where cyclist errors or breaches of traffic code are reason, which is also significant.

You are assuming that this 1/3rd is due to lack of knowledge - I question that assertion. And still, regular retraining of motor vehicle drivers would still be a better investment. They choose to move a ton of steel around in a manner that's potentially dangerous to others and they cause twice as many accidents, despite having a license requirement.

> And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.

Those tend to be less severe. Last years stats for Berlin: All cyclists killed were killed in an accident with a motor vehicle. Most common causes: dooring, right turn accidents, mostly trucks, one cyclist running a red light.

Likewise, that 2/3 is mostly not due to lack of knowledge. Over here (Finland), driving license training and testing nowadays has increased "attitude" training, as that is seen becoming more important than knowledge of traffic rules etc.

Here, a motor vehicle was involved in 62 % of all bicyclist deaths over the period 2011-2015 (116 cases). Motor vehicle was not the guilty party in all of those (but in roughly 2/3 of them). So, motor vehicle driver was at fault in about 40 % of cyclist deaths.

> So, motor vehicle driver was at fault in about 40 % of cyclist deaths.

Without any breakdown of who was at fault in the other accidents your stats still indicate that in comparison between bikes and motor vehicles, motor vehicle drivers are still twice as likely to be at fault. Retrain them before you retrain cyclists.

> Retrain them before you retrain cyclists.

Why can't we retrain both? Do we have to pick one or the other?

Because it’s an inefficient use of time and money. All that you’ll achieve is less people cycling and that’s exactly the opposite of what you want. Think about the practicality of a cycle license: do you expect a 6 year old to pass a test before cycling? A ten year old to carry along a license when he goes out? You can’t even fine them because the statuary limit in germany is 14. You can’t fine the parents either because parents are not obliged to keep their kids in sight all the time. Adults are already very likely to have a drivers license, should they now need a cycling license on top.

So make better use of the time and money: create safe infrastructure or - as a better investment train those that already have a license requirement and that insist on moving around tons of steel. Maybe increase the number of hours in school that deal with safe conduct in traffic. Or - gasp - fine the people blocking cycle lanes and otherwise endangering cyclist hard.

Education is generally far more cost efficient than building new infrastructure like roads.

No, not in this case. It's not like people don't know the rules and the majority of people get killed despite being absolutely in the right and having done nothing wrong. How do you fix that with education? The dooring accident that nearly killed me happened on a cycle lane that I was by law required to use. The car driver just opened the door into the oncoming cycle traffic. How could you educate me better in a way that would have prevented me from making a hard impact with that door? Witnesses told me they didn't even expect me to get up again. How would educating me help prevent the three close passes I had today, especially the one where the car driver thought I'd have to squeeze into the dooring zone? The one that passed me when I was doing 30 in a max 30 zone? The close pass yesterday where the car driver didn't manage to pass me before the oncoming traffic was there, squeezing me against the parked cars? I was in the right, still I'd be the one dead. Should I yield and crawl? Cycling isn't a sport for me, it's my preferred mode of transport, I really want to get somewhere and I don't want to spend ages doing so.

Calling for education of cyclists has a strong smell of victim blaming. Oh, sorry, he's dead. If he'd been better educated, he might have known that he was in the right.

So the conclusion here is that cycling is fine just how it is, based on a cost/benefit analysis, and that motor car users need to be regularly examined and educated to ensure good road safety for everyone?

no, that's not the conclusion. I didn't bring up the "let's have a license requirement for cyclists idea." My point is that this is not a change that would improve cycling in a way that outweighs the negative effects. It's a bullshit idea that gets floated from time to time.

Improve cycling by all means, but use something that is effective: better infrastructure, education, enforcement. The Berlin police introduced a police squad on cycles a few years ago in one district and that has proven to be a very effective method: For one, they enforce road rules for people on bicyclist, but the major effect is that they remove cars from infrastructure dedicated to bicycles which in turn actually enables cyclists to use that infrastructure and makes people less likely to ride on the sidewalk, for example.

In a large majority of the remaining cases it is the cyclists who is at fault. There are a few cases where a pedestrian causes a cyclist death, but they are rare. The list includes those cyclists who are run over by a train, for instance, but we don't really expect trains to swerve to avoid cyclists, and such a collision is the cyclist's fault.

I don't necessarily say that requiring a license from cyclists is what I want. However, I do think that some training and education of cyclists would certainly help. I also see some cyclists who have clear attitude problems. So retraining - or perhaps re-orienting - everyone would help.

I'm pretty sure elementary schools in Finland have a cycling lesson or two. Mine certainly did.

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