We're all in on the culture war now
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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I both drive and cycle for commuting, and having experience with both it's hard to imagine what practical use mandatory insurance would be for cyclists, given that only third-party insurance is mandatory for drivers, and it's largely to cover the huge amount of physical damage someone can create with a 2-tonne block of metal propelled by an engine, something that really isn't comparable to ~10kg powered only by one person's legs.
and yeah sure hypothetically a cyclist could make a mistake that indirectly causes a car to cause an accident but this relatively very rare compared to the hundreds of accidents directly caused by drivers every day, and even rarer that the accident would be solely the fault of one party (ie. if a cyclist in front of a driver did a bad maneuver and the driver had to do an emergency stop, the driver was probably far too close to the cyclist)
at the end of the day, calls for cyclists to have insurance or licence plates usually come from people who are less invested in whether or not these are practical solutions, and more from car drivers who irrationally just want cyclists to suffer from the same inconveniences they have to deal with
As someone whose aunt was hospitalised because a young (early 20s) cyclist hit her on the pavement and sped off, I disagree.
Never caught, she ended up with a fractured hip. While it's easy to believe "all cyclists are good people like me", the reality is that every group of transit users has its problem members.
I do agree, cars can cause a lot more damage (and injuries are almost always MUCH more serious), which is why you'd set a lower premium rate for cyclists. They're covered, so you are covered.
If I am ever in a position to cycle in to work, I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing that if someone hits me and damages my bike, I won't be relying on their goodwill or just footing the bill.
Sure, that's why I qualified that harmful accidents do happen, though relatively rarely compared to car accidents, and relatively rarely anywhere near as harmful as a similar incident if it was caused by a car.
Similar anecdotal incident - I know someone who was hospitalised and got multiple fractures while riding his bike on a cycle path because someone was walking their dog without a lead and the dog ran in front of his bike. These things can and do happen, they're not unusual - but it's also a weak argument for, say, mandating that all dog owners get liability insurance for their pets.
Apples and oranges friend.
You're not campaigning to increase the number of dogs on the road, you are aiming to increase the number of cyclists.
At the moment, the main worry is car/cycle interactions and car/person; however let us say all cars vanish and everyone who drove now cycles. You're now going to have a LOT more cycle/cycle and cycle/person interactions. Indeed, without the requirements of formal road training (I.e. a license) you're going to see injuries from cycle incidents in every city daily. It's a matter of probability, more so an increasing one.
Then again, "dog causes 50 person pile up" might well mandate stronger laws for dog owners, with cyclists pushing for it. So perhaps it isn't so much apples Vs oranges and more failing to appreciate scale - that the issue isn't the apples and oranges, but the sheer number of them!
You're really hitting the nail on the head with this analogy. If you replaced all the cars with cyclists then yes you'd increase the number of cycle accidents, but no one of those cyclists would be capable of causing anywhere even remotely near the level of carnage one car driver can cause. In fact, the amount of damage a single cyclist can cause would decrease with fewer cars on the road, given that at present the worst damage a cyclist can cause is by indirectly causing a car driver to crash.
Yes and no.
We'd see more minor injuries (remember, all commuters are tired cyclists, so they're more likely to have minor bumps), but many less majore ones (at least among young cyclists, older ones in collisions I do not know enough about to comment reliably).
Let's not forget, pedestrians exist as well, and are just as unobservant as cyclists (pedestrians usually have right of way, though no cyclist I know respects that!).
these are some absolutely wild generalisations and honestly daft assumptions but I doubt there's much to be gained arguing this point any more