noisebeam

Yeah, when I first read the news story I thought it was optional because of this sentence:

"Under law, only vehicles with combustion engines have to carry designated number plates."

But as always I like to see other sources as there is some ambiguity in the wording. The novelty of the gift could be the personalization it allows for.

ItsJustMe

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Sure, I think a whole lot of people are only not riding a bicycle because there's no license plate on the bike.

And I'm sure that people only hit bicycles because of the lack of a license plate too.

Where do these people come up with this crap?

I-Like-To-Bike

Now you are getting to the bottom line, what brand of "education" do you want to ram down "their" throat?

What makes you think anyone does not know that it is illegal to travel through a red light and needs mandatory education administered by YOU or YOUR representatives? I suspect that the percentage of cyclists needing your version of "education" is the same percentage as drivers who don't know that it is illegal to drive faster than the posted speed limit.

CB HI

Better yet, just imbed the chip under each person's skin, so you can send the ticket directly to the guilty person rather than the vehicle or snicker owner.

noisebeam

Sounds like just a simple attempt at a fun way to make ones bike like other vehicles with the added bonus of being a reflector. I can see kids having fun with it.

gcottay

That seems innocent enough, but there's a slippery slope from reading to outright actual thought and we wouldn't want that, would we?

cudak888 

That it is. The news article makes it sound as if its some new local cycling restriction - when it isn't.

-Kurt

ab30494

Ya bikes arent cars, but they are considered vehicles and have the same laws to follow as cars

SCROUDS

I've happened on enough cyclists in my neck of the woods that truly believe that bicycles are exempt from "car laws" to know that mandatory education would help.

njkayaker

The article is weird. I'm supposing that the audience in Ireland didn't see it as "misleading". There are enough hints earlier that it isn't describing a serious/actual licensing. And it's short enough that people should have been able to read the last paragraph and interpret the whole short article based on what that paragraph said. Clearly, some people here are lacking in the reading skills department!

The above interpretations don't make much sense IF you read the article critically. Plus, there are other things in the article that indicate that those interpretations can't be correct. That is, you have to look at the whole article.

=====================

The fairly-obvious fact is that the article is useless fluff but too many people here didn't recognize that and thought it was discussing "real" licenses!

=====================

Meh. The "news article" makes it clear that it isn't a "restriction". (There have to be many, many more bicycles in Mayo county than just 1000!)

And I'd guess that the Irish readers where smart enough not to be "mislead" by the article.

You must see conspiracies everywhere!!

mikeybikes

But should they have the same laws? Do they really have the same laws? How many states have a 3 foot law for passing bicyclists? What about the same law for passing cars?

cudak888 

On the contrary. Most of us are too cynical and disgusted with the press to read through the entire article.

-Kurt

gcottay

Who is the "us" in this assertion? I would say that most of us who read and post here would rather depend on an imperfect press than make up facts as we go along.

SCROUDS

Ok, let me address this. Newspaper stories are written in a specific style. They should impart the most essential details in the first few paragraphs, then expand on those points. I expect there to be a summary of an article right in the front of it, that's just how newspapers are written. But that's not the problem here. If you read the article and just the article it makes good sense and is written fine.

What came into play here is the use of an ironic term in their headline. In this case, the saying that cyclists were "saddled" with number plates, while in the usual style of headlines, leads people to believe that cyclists are being burdened by (assumed mandatory) use of a plate.

silverwolf

I don't see a problem with what's going on in Ireland, it appears to be voluntary and the article actually says it, even though it's written in a heavily biased, Daily Mail UK style.

How many things exactly do you want to have licensed? From that frame of mind, I could make a case for many personal things to be licensed or monitored for the "benefit of society", which brings me to...





I see. This kind of thinking scares me. No, I don't support ass**** cyclists, nor do I act like one- but that's not a basis for having a law made about it.

I'm sure, if there were more bicycle laws and licensing and required registration, we would have fewer hit and runs, fewer traffic deaths, and fewer people being general idiots. But we would also have a huge amount of regulation and oversight by a large body of people, solely to save a few lives and keep a few inconsiderate people in line. Sorry, that's not worth either the loss of freedom or potential for corruption or waste of government money it would engender.

Thomas Jefferson said that when a choice between liberty and security must be made, liberty should almost always take precedence over security. And even sloppily comparing bicycles to cars in terms of accident rates, etc shows no legitimate reason for them to be regulated.

SCROUDS

I believe the quote you refer to was much more specific and is attributed to Benjamin Franklin, and is more correctly: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I don't see how we give up any essential liberty with the insistence of either a vehicle registration or a licensing requirement. The essential liberty in this case is the right to travel.

On this site, many people claim, along with state and federal governments that driving is a privilege, not a right. I don't see how driving a bicycle is any more of a right then the same privilege extended to motorists.

dougmc

You find it ironic that different individuals may want different things?

Cyclists do not agree on all matters cycling related simply because they are cyclists.

njkayaker

That's certainly a choice one can make. But it seems risky/careless to draw conclusions from things that one only reads parts of!

njkayaker

This, truly, is the major crisis of our time! Anyway, I'd think you'd need a really big plate for a license to be useful for this purpose. What we should do instead is use RFIDs implanted in people and monitor their every movement, just in case! This would avoid the problem of people being able to read a tiny bicycle license plate.

The article was very short (it didn't really need a summary). The article was written in a more oblique style than I might have preferred. But it was easy to understand if one read the whole thing and did not get overstimulated by random bits of it.

Part of the problem is that it was intended for a local audience and really isn't very interesting outside of that audience. I suspect that the writer would be quite amused that Americans even read the article and the responses it generated here!

I'm going to guess that the term "saddle" for bicycle seat is more normal for an Irish reader, and they would have detected the irony much more quickly than an American audience.

It's nice to be able to have activities that don't have fees associated with them.

silverwolf

I know the one you mentioned, this one was different and was from Jefferson... I was paraphrasing however. I will look it up to find the exact quote.


The only reason I would consider driving a car, and to a lesser extent a motorcycle to be a privilege rather than a right is if many people are routinely endangered by use of the vehicle, which is true with cars, true (though to a lesser extent) with motorcycles, and not very true with bicycles. I understand bicycle accidents, hit and runs and fatalities do occur but they are nowhere near the level of car or motorcycle fatalities of the same kind.

I believe that restriciting liberty -in this case, of personal transport- should only be done on a sliding scale based on how much damage you can cause to others. A car, a 2000+ pound block of steel and aluminum, can do a lot of damage. Hence, more regulation. A motorcycle, about 300lbs or so of steel and aluminum, can do damage but less of it, hence easier regs and insurance for motorcycles. A bicycle, 20-30lbs of steel or aluminum, can't do much damage except in a few situations and those are fairly rare because cyclists are more affected even than motorcyclists in crashes. Hence, even less regulation.

To use another example, I don't support regulating people who own knives, because while a knife is dangerous, it's not dangerous enough to hurt alot of people at once easily. I don't support draconian gun control, but I do support licensing of guns because a handgun can kill several people in less than a minute if used properly- more potential for damage, more regulation. And so on.

SCROUDS

You do have a valid point in saying that items that can cause grave injury to a multitude of people should be regulated, basically. I think we would agree that government has rightly taken upon itself the task to trying to ensure the safety of the people by doing this.

I believe it is the place of the governemnt to ensure safety. I'll even take it a step further, that one of the thigns they currently do and should expand is trying to ensure people's safety from their own actions. That includes the enforcement of most traffic laws and ensuring people that use the public ways are trained to drive a car. I'm sure whether the governemnt has a duty to protect people from themselves is surely a hotly debated issue.

As to the quote, I had to google it since it didn't sound right, and happened upon the Monticello site, which I would consider a reliable source. https://www.monticello.org/library/re.../spurious.html lists it as a misattributed quote.

silverwolf

We do agree on the concept of government protecting other people against gratuitous harm caused by another- in fact I believe that is the function of government in the first place. I also think that other giant forces (such as corporations) should be overseen by the government to protect the individual from harm and loss of liberty.

I don't think it should protect people from themselves however. Traffic laws, and the other laws you mentioned, mainly exist to protect other people- there is no licence requirement to drive on empty private property, for example, even though a crash is still possible, it would affect solely the operator of the vehicle and not another person. I agree that the government should regulate things like false claims on medicine to protect people from themselves, but things like anti-drug laws, not allowing assisted suicide, and other such things are beyond the government's regulatory ability. In other words, I do not believe in "victimless crimes". What one does to oneself, -even if that means addiction, mutilation, psychological distress or death- is nonetheless one's own right as an individual.

On the quote, you're probably right. I had never an official source before for quotes, it's interesting that both pro-religious and anti-religious comments are attributed to him as well.