The Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, recently mooted the idea of imposing tighter regulations on cyclists in the UK.
He raised the possibility of introducing registration plates for bicycles and insurance for riders, suggesting this would be an effective way of preventing the extreme minority of riders who break speed limits or pose a more serious threat to pedestrians and other road users...
Obviously this is a totally ridiculous, ineffective and unenforceable policy, it's such a bad idea even my Dad and I agreed on the fact this is nothing than a narrow-minded, shallow attempt to raise more money via taxation.
A terrible idea...
There is currently only one country in the world which forces cyclists to have registration plates - and that is North Korea. There are few other countries which have tried - such as some cities in America and in Fascist Switzerland but such policies have always been abandoned, because there are just so many problems with the policy...
Firstly registration plates need to be visible which means it's not practical to fit them to bikes, unless you have some kind of wearable vest thing with the 'plate' on which isn't going to be great in summer, or wearable over clothes in winter.
Secondly, if you're going to impose bureaucratic restrictions and insurance you are disenfranchising the poor from riding bikes as these are the people who generally struggle with forms and won't have the money for insurance - you know, the people too poor to drive cards!
Thirdly, what about children? You can't make 14-15 year olds get insurance, so are they exempt, but often look like they are older, so do we force children to carry IDENTITY CARDs to prove their age?
Fourthly, there are currently 1 million uninsured drivers in the UK - probably the problem cyclists this policy is designed to target would just remain uninsured themselves meaning the policy wouldn't be targeting those mooted anyway.
Finally, when similar policies have been tried in the past all they did was force people to stop riding their bikes, some of whom went back to car driving, and cars have far worse death and accident stats than bikes: in the UK cars are linked to 1700 deaths annually compared to 2 for bicycles.
So all this idiotic policy would do is take scarce police resources away from policing the real death machines (cars) and distract them by getting them to police cyclists, most of whom are no threat to public safety at all!
Postcript... it's maybe a policy from the Horsey-set, disgusting....
Sources/ Find out More...
Cyclists Welcome - you have just become the latest target in the culture wars
I would get one and then demand the government to upgrade cycle paths and lanes to make cycling better.
That is absolutely fair enough!
Pretty dense idea
As an aside, isn't Switzerland very democratic?
I've never been myself but I thought that was the case...
A quick glance of the wiki article shows a decent system of direct democracy
¯\_(ツ)_/¯Yeah I was sort of joking about Switzerland, I guess it's just the people voting for lots of rules, it's a very conservative country, probably because it's so wealthy.
Haha, ok yeah... gotcha 👍
We should just get rid of governments.
They get more stupid and out of touch every day.
Although thankfully I think this is a case of one very dim minister
There's a lot to be learned over there. You might like this mini-documentary:
Hey cheers I'll give it a watch when I get time!
About 60 years ago, my parents had to get me a license for my bike in the town we lived in at the time. My memory’s not clear on this, but it might have still had training wheels. 😂
That is bonkers!
Can you imagine living in a world where you can't even ride a bicycle without being hassled for some extortion money in the form of a license and/or permit. Then add insurance to the mix. People need to put their foot down. Enough is enough already.
I couldn't agree more!
They really seem determined to solve the wrong problems with crazy solutions. They are pandering to a tiny minority. What a shambles. It isn't going to improve if Truss takes over.
I think his idea's been widely shot down thankfully!
They are really scraping the barrel for talent lately. The smart ones didn't want to get involved with the Cult of Brexit.
There is always an urge by government to impose their will on something, even when there is absolutely no reason to. It sounds pretty crazy to me
It is just bonkers!
Meanwhile in the US I'm like "fuck y'all, I still ain't wearing a helmet"
Seriously? What a joke / farce? Am I reading a play or is this reality?
No it's real, dim minister
As always, authoritarian impositions against good people are justified by Karen-ism and magnifying the examples of a few bad folks who wouldn't be deterred by the proposed laws anyway.
Yeah precisely, the ones who it's trying to stop would just ignore any registration system. Pointless.