I'm a trucker since 1984. All these motorists and truckers crying about cyclists not paying insurance, registration, and license fees should go pound salt...No cyclist is going to do any kind of damage their 4000lb -80,000lb vehicles cause. They're all just mad because they lost a little of their road space, and are too dumb to realize that bicycles are actually easing the congestion they create. Which is also the main reason why they're crying so much about bicycles to begin with.
I wouldn't cycle on highways because I'm too slow. The more bicycle lanes in and around cities the better it is for smooth traffic flow for trucks cars bicycles motorcycles and pedestrians.
I've come across people who were against bike lanes. I asked them if they'd rather have the bicycles on the road with the cars and they just didn't grasp it
@@weird-guy in the USA, bicycles don't utilize highways, however there are some sections of US highways, state highways, and even interstate highways that are permissable by law, because there are no other options to get from point A to point B. The shoulder lanes of those highways would be utilized in those rare circumstances.... The people I'm complaining about, are the people who don't want bicycles on any streets. They want cyclists to use the sidewalk, which is illegal. And now they're complaining about cyclists not needing registration, licenses, and insurance to vent their frustrations. Misery loves company, even though cyclists actually lessen their misery, including lowering their fuel prices by creating less fuel demand.
I tend to find that the only people advocating for cycle registration are car drivers annoyed at not being able to break the rules of the road and get away with it.
I remember these plates in Iowa in the late 50's. Soon abandoned. Once I was stopped by cops for riding on a sort of busy road and told to get on the sidewalk. Minutes later I was stopped again and told to ride on the road. I saw a very high tech machine in the Netherlands that engraved numbers on the round bike frames. Bike theft is a big problem there and elsewhere. Number plates would be of no use. My former friends in Iowa criticised me for riding on the roads that 'they paid for'. We talked a bit, and it turned out that they all used far more tax money than me. Example, my county taxes paid for their kids schools and they paid nothing.
Don't forget that many people have more than one bike, way a city/winter beater, a road bike and a mountain bike. Perhaps even a cargo bike or sometimes a bike trailer. What an administrative nightmare.
IF YOU WANT TO USE THE ROAD YOU HAVE TO PAY REGO AND LICENSING GRR!!! Unfortunately, thanks to the world we live in, I feel the need to say that was sarcasm.
I once had a dream that I'll never forget. I was walking down the street, and there were monitors counting how many steps I took, and then they wanted me to hand over my quarters at the end of the block to pay for my walk.
And car drivers are operating 2,000 lbs weapons of destruction, not a light frame that weighs like a tenth of the occupant. You can't really cause harm on a bicycle, maybe on an e-bike if you're riding recklessly but I don't think you could kill someone via an e-bike (that can go a reasonable speed) outside of some one-in-a-million freak accident.
the town I grew up in had a registration for kid's bikes. It was just a form to be kept at the police station and a sticker with a serial number to put on your bike. It was just to get back stolen bicycles.
city I live in cancelled their mandatory bike registration October 9, 2014. They never had budget to actually do something with the dozens of forms that were submitted over the decades anyway
Shining video, as always! I find it really funny that car drivers are disgruntled for just about anything a cyclist does. Ride on the road because it's the law? "Get off the road, impeding traffic, get a license plate, etc". But ride off the road and on the sidewalk? "Cyclists always break laws, use the road it's the law, dismount-and-walk every single intersection, etc." Licensing is no different. I like to give the benefit of the doubt so I am now hunting for license plate(s) to put on my bike. ICBC (road insurance) doesn't have that option no matter how much tantrum I throw on the brokers, so I am now looking for courier plates (business license, how unnecessary for a simple bike commuter!). But I am very positively definitely sure that obeying road laws and getting a license plate will not earn road respect among drivers, so why am I even trying to please them and give the benefit of the doubt? And then of course here's the kicker--why fuss about with cyclist stigma and bike plates if I can just get car plates instead and deal with less/no stigma? This is what the short-sighted car drivers often miss: The more hoops/obstacles we put on cyclists, the more car-traffic congestion we all get.
We even had it in the netherlands, a long time ago Bicycle tax: BICYCLE PLATES The bicycle tag was introduced in the Netherlands on August 1, 1924. The end of the bicycle tag came on May 1, 1941, to the joy of everyone, although it was a muted joy because it was a German measure.
Oh yes, please cover more about insurance in Tokyo. I'd definitely be interested in bringing my bike to Tokyo one day and riding around the Island. Congrats on the "should we tax cyclists" video's explosion! I would definitely hound the comment sections if they brought back license plates for bikes. "What a waste of city resources with a system that will never recover its implementation and enforcement costs."
It's pretty simple to see why bikes aren't registered and directly taxed, if you think about it. Governments tax, regulate, and legislate everything. They'd tax the air you breathe if it were practical to do it. Licensing and registration of bicycles, even if we paid exactly what drivers do, wouldn't even cover the bureaucratic costs of licensing riders and registering bikes, just like drivers' registration and licensing fees don't even cover the bureaucratic costs of licensing drivers and registering cars. If any government thought they could make a single penny of profit off registering bikes, they'd be doing it. The _only_ reason cars are registered and drivers licensed is because it seems _somewhat prudent_ to regulate just what two-tonne lumps of metal we allow on the roads and just who we let move them at 100 km/h. If drivers "paid their fair share", and paid for the roads just like they do in their fantasies, they'd be paying easily ten times more than they are.
One reason drivers aren't paying their fair share is probably because most of us, including legislators, are drivers and only a relative few of us actually would want to pay our fair share for that privilege. At first blush, it seems like a good idea to make driving financially more untenable than it already is by having drivers cover their fair share, but with the current state of infrastructure in North America, it would probably just enrich our government at the expense of citizens who largely will still continue to choose to drive. I'm glad governments don't currently have a financial incentive to create a more car dependent society and that the financial incentives for local governments actually are in favor of better cycling, pedestrian, transit and more urban infrastructure.
@@DizzyDiddy Unlike the people who don't understand just how they aren't paying for their roads, I believe the roads are a "public good". That is to say, paying one's fair share isn't a directly quantifiable concept and shouldn't be pursued, because the roads themselves are generally considered a good for people who don't drive, too. That you should be able to expect a sealed road wherever you'd want to drive is taken for granted, but bicyclists are considered lucky to get a strip of paint next to the gutter, because the notion of the "public good" doesn't extend to them, apparently.
I feel like it should be optional, but heavily encouraged, but first the benefits HAVE to massively outweight the costs. Because: - If I "have" to get a license just to bike, then I don't see myself cycling. - If I "have" to take a test to get a license, then I don't see myself cycling. - If it costs more than just commuting, then I don't see myself cycling. Sadly, if it's optional like I suggested, then less people will get a license, ending in bigger fees. Now, (optional) bike insurance I think should be encouraged.
The fact that the fees would often have to cost more than the actual bike to prevent subsidizing just the administrative costs makes the whole idea untenable for me. There are always going to be much more pressing things those funds should be spent on.
In Switzerland we had for like 20 years stickers instead of plates. It was mostly a liability insurance. Because it was expensive to manage and most people have one which covers bicycle accidents anyway, they abolished it in 2012
My city has a nonprofit bike collective where people donate bikes and bike parts, and people not looking to spend a lot of money go by buy whole bikes, bike parts, or to build their own bikes from the ground up. How would licensing even work in this case?
You made a great point about the strain such a system would have on police resources. Police technically already have the authority to go out issuing tickets to bicyclists who violate traffic laws, as most if not all jurisdictions require cyclists to follow the same traffic rules as drivers. They don't need a driver's license to issue a ticket. They just need your I.D. or the information that would be on a government issued I.D. (name, address, DOB). They don't because their time is better spent enforcing traffic laws for more dangerous automobiles and fighting actual crime.
I fail to see how someone "fleeing the scene of an accident" is going to be IDed by a tiny little plate number anyway. For that matter, when a bike is in an accident, it's normally buggered up to a degree, so no one is leaving in a hurry.
So TRUE. If the suspect is apprehended the police (or even the other person involved) generally have little difficulty in obtaining the correct ID. The 'phantom runaway' from a collision is a common trope.
I have a few of these. I have 3 from here in Red Deer, where I've always lived. My Dad used to try to be the first guy in line at the registry on the morning you renewed. I have only one Red Deer #1, 1980. It is one of my most valuable possessions. I also have a plate on an old CCM from the late 40s. The plate is for Calgary Alberta, 1951. This is the most excited I've been for a RU-vid vid in a while. Thanks.
@@nicthedoor Bike registration like in Denmark deters theft because it makes it harder to re-sell bikes after they're reported stolen. This seems like a no-brainer. Your arguments against it are really weak.
Great video! I just discovered you through your tax video. I started cycling this year and before then I never realized how much I hate driving. I will walk or cycle because I enjoy it. I feel shackled to my car in the winter.
To be fair, the VIN system only requires bikes sold in Denmark to have a manufacturer-issued frame number. If you privately import a bike then you're free to not have a VIN (although you can get one assigned by the police and pay for stamping it on the frame in a bike shop), but the only difference it makes is for bike insurance, not street legality. It is not a particularly successful system though, as stolen bikes are rarely resold in Denmark and other countries don't care about the Danish frame numbers.
This just seems like a reason to expand it elsewhere. If they did this in all of Europe, then you couldn't just go to a different country to re-sell it. And European countries are more like states here because there's no borders.
My midwest USA city still has a bicycle registration law on the books, with a $5 fee, but I've seen one bicycle ever with the sticker, and even the bike shop owners don't know about the law. I'd be willing to bet that the police don't know either.
License plate does absolutely nothing to stop much more dangerous vehicles from driving in an unsafe or outright illegal way, why would anybody think it would change how a cyclist handles their vehicle? The majority of people I encounter in vehicles will follow the intent of the law providing it benefits them... as they encounter situations where the law conflicts with what they would prefer to do it, they make up rules... such as follow the speed of traffic, something which will never work as an argument while trying to avoid paying for a speeding ticket.
i agree, 20 years then 15, 10, 5. 2. we know that as people get older their reactions slow and they become less confident. If 80 year old Doris hasn't been tested since she was 22, I can only imagine how much she has forgotten
We here in Germany kinda have registrations for bicycles. But only on the Island Helgoland, since the Island is car free, remote and very small. You’ll get a permit for having a bike and therefore a license plate if you’re under the age of 14 to learn it. They are allowed to ride between October and March. In the summer only police, first responders and handymen are permitted to ride and have to have a plate on their bike. Otherwise no bikes and cars, except a police car, a fire truck and some vehicles for the harbor. Most of them electric. The Island is small enough, that you can walk just about anywhere in a couple of minutes. You can get a scooter though, they’re built like a bike but without pedals and a seat, so you have to push them by foot. Other than that we have the opportunity to get our bikes coded by the police, similar to Denmark, but voluntarily. The code is a mix between the frame number and the owners name contact data and you have to proof ownership of the bike. Then they engrave it into the frame and put a transparent sticker on it, that often says „Hands off, this bike is registered“ Forgot to add: S-Pedelecs are registered as a small motorcycle and get treated the same as the
The truth is that the only people who want bicycle licensing, registration, and insurance are car drivers who are angry that they have to pay for all of these things while bicyclists do not. They simply want to inflict their suffering on everyone else, because they see cars as necessities, and bicycles as luxuries. They get particularly incensed when they see a cyclist refusing to obey laws intended for motir vehicles. They believe roads and streets are for cars only, and that bicyclists are inferior users who are obligated to make way for them because their car is the faster vehicle.
Between the 1st August of 1924 and the 1st May of 1941 we had a similar system in the Netherlands, the "fietsplaatje", basically a licence plate for your bike to prove that you had payed "roadtax" for them.If your bike did not have one, you could be fined! Fun fact: during the Great Depresion in the 1930s, the unemployed got the "fietsplaatje" for free! After all, they had to cycle in search of another job! But the authorities punched a hole in the licence plates for unemployed people! This shaming of unemployed people led to mass protest from the Dutch!
@@nicthedoor Bike registration like in Denmark deters theft because it makes it harder to re-sell bikes after they're reported stolen. This seems like a no-brainer. Your arguments against it are weak.
I live in Poland, and we also have something like the Danish VIN code on the frame of our bikes. It isn't required, but some time ago, when I was riding with my friend, the policeman stopped us and checked them. They're just checking if the bike is reported as stolen.
Use of cars and other motorized vehicles is a privilege, managed by the licensing process. To apply this to cyclists is to fundamentally change from having the right to access the roads to that of a privilege, the same as that of cars. Theoretically, if we are licensed, then we can have that access removed in the same way. To me, this is the single biggest issue. Freedom of individuals to travel by means of their own physical effort, be it cycling or walking is a right that should be protected.
Bicycles are actually licensed by the four county governments in Hawaii, not by the state. Metal tags / plates were issued for bicycles by the territory (before Hawaii became a state) from at least 1910 up to 1923. After that, each county issued its own, but these ended in the 1970s and were replaced by stickers. These were annual for years but eventually became permanent.
In the 70s my brother and I would get up early annually on the day that bike lincenses were issued for the next year. Our goal was to get #1. We never did, I think the lowest I ever got was #7. This was in Berkeley, CA, USA. I can't remember if there was a cost, but if there was it wasn't much (my family didn't have much money). There were adults in line too, so it wasn't just for kids.
I bet the people who cry about cyclists not being registered haven't put two brain cells together and thought "maybe there's a reason that we don't have such a system in place." Not just the costs and how stupid it is there, but it would also just be a hindrance to freedom. Imagine needing to get a license to do anything, walking, cycling, riding a kick scooter; it's government overreach and that would just make our lives miserable.
In my country I think licenses were mandatory until the 80s because in the eyes of the law a bicycle was compared to a motorcycle and they were probably a more popular mode of transportation but then bicycles were compared to peons so no need for it, the government would like another tax revenue😂,bicycles have a serial number already although bicycles and scooters users increased is still a small percentage, so maybe the police just enforce more the rules but both for cyclists and motorists a lot of people don’t know how to drive a car, in my city cars aren’t hostile to bicycles , they need to give 1,5 m from a ciclist while overpassing them, the more problematic are the lycra boys even then most aren’t a problem
Can you cover the topic of e-bikes with higher speed limits and licensing for those, like s-pedelec e-bikes abroad? My e-bike is speed unlocked and I'm technically not allowed to do that, but it's extremely important for me that I don't have the 32 km/h limit because it doesn't make sense for where I am in a rural place. I would like it if it was more accessible for other people to not have a speed limit on their e-bike.
The use of the bike license plate wasn't so totally removed from more recent decades as this seems to say. When I was kid in the 1970s in Northern California, our fairly new city had the police department issuing them. I don't remember if they were mandatory or not. They'd come with an adhesive back and you'd stick it on your bike frame. As long as they're optional, and the fee is low, and it's a one time thing, they aren't a bad idea with the registration component. Not every thief is going to think about taking that sticker off or have cigarette lighter fluid to do it with. For me personally, it added a little customization to the bike.
Yep. Did you not see the dates on the plates that he displayed? 1975-76. 1969-70. Yes some were back in the 30s but as was stated, many cities only abandoned them during the '70s. For some this was the late '70s.
I find any argument for licensing bicycles to be laughable in the extreme when I see drivers breaking the law on a daily basis. Hell, I have a friend that uploads dashcam footage of other drivers breaking the law on a near daily basis, and have stopped bothering to report them because the police doesn't have the resources to pursue the cases if nobody got seriously hurt despite the concrete evidence of the law being broken. I even remember reading about a particular speed camera that is actually only turned on for something like 4 hours a day outside of rush hour because if they kept it on any more than that, the backlog of speeding violators from that one camera alone would exceed the department's ability to issue tickets. Apparently it was on a street where a dozen or so people get killed a year specifically because of speeding there as well.
I am a bit unsure about the price of bureaucracy. While bureaucracy is always more expensive than it seems, surely in the age of computers it should not cost hundreds of dollars to register a bike? I mean, we get this done for cars and motorbikes, so the infrastructure is basically already there.
Generally car drivers and motorcyclists, riding their $10K to $200K vehicles are not too phased about paying $500 - $1000 to register and insure their vehicles.They don't like it but they see the price as a small proportion of the costs of their motor vehicle. But for a woman riding a $100 bike to the shops, or for a kid riding same to school, this becomes self-defeating. And the admin costs ARE pretty much the same for each type of vehicle. Registration just KILLS the idea of routine bicycle use by the every-man. Elite sports-people and real enthusiasts may just pay it.... or not?! 🤔
@@petesig93 Not sure where you live, but registration for a car is like 40-50€. That does not seem that much for a bicycle, especially considering that a 100€ bicycle is just a heap of junk and absolutely unsuited for everyday use. Insurance for bicycles is a lot cheaper than for cars as they are both cheaper and a lot less dangerous. Here, bicycle accidents are also covered by general liability insurance which is pretty cheap. While I do not see much advantage in having bicycle license plates, I do not see that killing the idea of cycling at all. After all, nobody claims that paying for transit is killing transit
@@foobar9220 where I live there is NO registration for a bicycle. My car registration is due; it is $A876. About $600 of that will be the TAC charge (no-fault insurance) so the registration admin cost is ~$200. That sort of figure would be required for a bicycle as it is just the costs of administering a recording & tracking system. Truly terrible cost to impose on the lowest hazard vehicles on the roads. But IF it was introduced, even 40-50 Euro ($A70-90) certainly would deter many people from riding their bicycles. We have the mandatory helmet laws, and when that was introduced in 1990 the price of buying a helmet ($A70 at the time) was a significant factor in most teenagers, and many adults just ceasing riding bicycles. Anything that deters bicycle use is a very large societal negative. It should NOT happen; use of a bicycle rather than a motor vehicle should alway be encouraged. Incentives are more appropriate , not added cost barriers.
@@foobar9220 people "pay for transit" by paying the fare. It is a service. People pay for cycling by buying their bicycle. It is a vehicle. WE ALL pay for the roads through paying general taxation. Even people who pay NO taxation may use the roads; even some who pay no registration fees (eg. vehicle passengers, foreign visitors who rent a car for travel).
If we only just used for anti-theft & return purposes w/ addresses is it still too much cost to bare? Correct me if I'm wrong you seem to be conflating the flaws of impractical other purposes & administrations w/ the only practical anti-theft & return purpose.
I don't think he's conflating anything. Voluntary bike registration schemes exist in many countries, and they can help to get stolen bikes returned to their owners. All the problems described in the video come from mandating registration.
Bicycle Toll Roads/paths, if governments don't want to make better infrastructure what about private funding. If there's money to be made I'm sure there would be an effort to be made.
i find that untrained cyclist behave like pedestrians while out on the road, and thats A BIG PROBLEM, car drivers are(supposed to be) learned that they need different decisions than a pedestrian so, why cant peddle-files also. Like the video said, over half of them failed a 'road worthiness' test, to me it shows.
@petergibson7287 what i meant was they "dont know their place". Did you ever see that video of the kid playing hockey and they have no idea where they should be in the scheme of things ? well just like these cyclists with a little training, maybe a certificate or license/test of some sort we could remove this ignorance from the cyclists. certainly we would'nt let the ignorant child operate a vehicle? then why let the ignorant operate a bicycle on the same road ?
@@youtube7076 Because it's never about the road, it's about the vehicle, and since it's a bicycle it shouldn't be so hard. Remember; almost everyone is a car driver that has supposedly already passed a test. If they can't ride a bike correctly then they certainly wouldn't be able to operate a car correctly, but I bet they still drive. Prior to a person being old enough, the parents must teach the children to ride properly; my parents taught me and I've taught my kids. It's just a bicycle, it's not that hard, it's lighter than the person riding it, it can't cause danger, and it certainly doesn't require a certificate or licence.
@petergibson7287 all i know for sure is that when we have a ride event at the trails over here, that its painfully obvious by looking at their riding behaviors , that the people who don't have a car license exhibit really bad habits when they ride bikes, they follow too closely, they don't check blind spots which also leads them to, make erratic moves(changing lanes without looking). they ride too close to parked card doors even when people are in the parked vehicles(yikes!) and sooo many more bad behaviors. Since not all people were fortunate enough to have bike skills passed down from their parents to pass on their own children, and unfortunately also don't know how to drive a car... then i wish there was training so these people could learn their "place in; traffic or in a peloton or a crowd, w/e). I am sick of being rear ended or side swiped by a grown ass man who rides a bike like they walk, and just dose not know any better and exhibits consistently ignorant behavior. I guess that cycling is neither walking nor driving. Cycling needs dedicated and enforced training all of its own. People simply CAN NOT ride like they walk, its a different set of 'rules'.
I think it would make sense for ebikes that can exceed the limits that we have already. My ebike can go 20 mph on the motor alone, and about 24 mph on pedal assist. I think the 20 mph motor speed is fine not registering and licensing, ebikes are a great tool that should be encouraged (and operated safely, with power comes responsibility). Needing to register everything because of a couple delinquents causing harm is not a reason to implement bureaucracy.
Bike registration like in Denmark deters theft because it makes it harder to re-sell bikes after they're reported stolen. This seems like a no-brainer. Your arguments against it are weak.
