Goodbye Toronto's Bike Culture

+1 Tea_Bee

Whenever licensing comes up in conversation with my none cycling buddies, I always have to agree with most of their points... in London.

I think this kind of thing is inevitable in major cities where traffic rules need to be enforced so that everybody plays nice and we don't have fatalities and injuries caused by a few idiots without consideration for their fellow man.

This said, I'd like to put it off as long as possible. The DVLA still have my driving license over a fucking technicality, and working for a car club without a license is a hindering to say the least. But I'd REALLY hate not to be able to ride just because of bureaucracy fail.

Ideally, I'd WAY prefer not having licenced bikes, I mean it could be a fwiggin nightmare - would the licence be yours and you had to clip it to the back of every bike you ride, or would every bike be licenced individually? And would you have to pay road tax for every one of them! Aaaargh! That's gonna HURT my wallet. And what about kiddies bikes? Exemption for the under-16's? Under 12's maybe?

I guess the best option would be to have the number stamped into the frame and then display it on the back, so if your bike got stolen, they couldn't sell it with mismatched plate/frame stamp. But that means every bike being liable for some kind of vehicle tax.

On the silver lining side, that would make bike theft a much less attractive option for the thieves. And it would mean the end of having to point out to nobheads who say "pay some road tax" that road tax pays for the operation of the DVLA - and as my bike doesn't have a licence why would they expect me to pay a tax that doesn't apply to me. Building and maintaining the roads gets paid out of income tax as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) and reckon I pay far more towards the upkeep of the roads than any dickeads in an old Sierra who's said that to me. And I cause so much less wear and tear too.

When we get threads where cyclists take D-lock justice to cars who piss them off and then disappear in the traffic, every one of those incidents is a nail in the coffin of licence-free cycling. Sooner or later, the insurance companies who pay for the replacement of wing mirrors, the police who are fed up of the bad stats of unsolved crimes on their books and so on will outweigh the difficulty in making licences for bikes happen. If it has to happen, then we need to at least make sure it works in our favour in some ways. And enjoy the freedom we have while it lasts.