Hacker News Reader

Comment by papermule | Hacker News Reader

> What is the actual gain to society from requiring a cyclist license? Today, without licenses, police can and do hand out moving violations to cyclists.

I could, as someone who doesn't have a driving license, or has never learned to drive, go out on the road with my bicycle and more or less ride whenever and wherever I like.

I don't know what any of the road signs mean and I have no experience or training in hazard perception and collision avoidance. The law doesn't require me to. If I tried to do the same thing in a car I'd be arrested.

View on HN

Kinetic energy = 1/2 m v^2

In a typical city scenario, a car has KE of 1/2 (2000 kg) (50 kph)^2 ~= 2e5 Joules. A bicyclist has 1/2 (100 kg) (30 kph)^2 ~= 3.5e3 Joules. Almost 100x less capable of inflicting damage on a typical pedestrian. Add onto this that bikes are way more maneuverable, less collision surface area, are totally exposed to the same forces exerted on the pedestrian with which they may collide... your comparison with cars is intellectually dishonest because you are comparing a human on top of a 10-20kg machine with a human inside a 2000kg metal box with an incredible array of safety features for the driver and hardly any for pedestrians outside.

Also, 30 kph is practically the top speed for a majority of cyclists - there's a level, narrow, short (200 m), 30-max-speed, all-traffic (except pedestrians) tunnel on my usual route. Do I temporarily reach 30 kph there, in order to be polite and get out of there as fast as possible? Yes, with some difficulty. (Do drivers honk at me for being unbearably slow while going the max legal speed? Yes.)

So, I'd say a typical city scenario is <20 kph, more than halving the estimate.

> I could, as someone who doesn't have a driving license, or has never learned to drive, go out on the road with my bicycle and more or less ride whenever and wherever I like.

Sure. Realistically, how much danger do people doing this represent to society? There are plenty of dangerous things that people could do, but the heavy machinery of law should be reserved for actual problems rather than hypothetical ones.

> If I tried to do the same thing in a car I'd be arrested.

And quite rightly, because if you weren't there's a good chance you'd kill people. Car drivers kill a lot of people, they're something like the 4th biggest cause of death in the UK IIRC.

For 5-19 YO it is 3rd most common, but when you look at the whole population it doesn’t even make the list.

source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-profile-fo...

Ah ok, I guess that must've been specific to my age range. (3rd most common there now).

If you choose to venture out onto the roads with no idea what the signs mean or how to avoid obstacles, good luck to you.

Realistically, every 5 year old knows what the colors on a traffic light mean and what a stop sign tells you.

There are many more rules that just red, yellow green and the stop sign. It would be nice if the highway code was that simple though.

For example, how to navigate a busy multi-lane roundabout safely as a cyclist, such as Old Street roundabout in London, which looks like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Old_Stre..., or this roundabout in Bristol, UK: http://c8.alamy.com/comp/B2NMCH/aerial-view-looking-down-on-...

Driver or cyclist, if you fail to navigate that intersection safely and correctly you will be cited (or injured or killed). How does requiring a license for cyclists solve this problem? You mentioned that driving without a license will get you arrested. This is true, but only after you've committed a violation, unless your country has random driver's license checkpoints (mine doesn't). We can already cite cyclists for moving violations today. Licensing doesn't change anything.

> How does requiring a license for cyclists solve this problem?

Well, would you argue that requiring a license for motor vehicles is unnecessary? The benefits should be similar and identifiable.

The law does require you to understand road signs and behave accordingly. It doesn't require you to get a piece of paper from a bureaucrat to attest to it.

I very much doubt that you would be arrested if you tried to drive a car without a license. Anecdotally, I've never had my driving license checked by a traffic officer. The large number of undocumented residents who are presumptively driving without a valid license is another point.

> I very much doubt that you would be arrested if you tried to drive a car without a license.

Without a valid driving license you will not be able to get insurance, unless you stole an insured vehicle from your parents or off the street.

Patrol cars in the UK and Europe have cameras that read number plates and check a database against all insured vehicles. If the car is not insured you will get pulled over, upon which you will be asked to present your driving license.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com