Cycling in Ottawa

So, the other day I made a reasonably sarcastic post about an entirely meaningless web-poll that was up on the CTV Ottawa website.

Anyway, Marcus Gee over at the Globe takes the time to offer a more serious and detailed reason why bicycle licensing is a silly idea. The key part, emphasis mine:

That is the key objection to Mr. Walker’s proposal. There is no proof that licensing would persuade wayward cyclists to pay any more heed to the traffic laws. They already fall under the very same laws that motorists do and police can charge them accordingly. In one safe-cycling drive this summer, Toronto police handed out 1,373 tickets to cyclists for infractions from running red lights to failing to yield to pedestrians. Police can stop an unlicensed cyclist as easily as they could a licensed one.

Nor is there any proof that a testing regime would make cyclists more aware of the rules of the road. Many of them are motorists as well as cyclists and all of them are pedestrians when they’re not mounted up. They know what a red sign saying “stop” means. They just choose to ignore it. The best way to address that is through education, not licensing.

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