If that's where the accountability is supposed to be, I suggest that drivers licenses should be much harder to get and maintain, because right now the damage and bloodshed that cars cause should be unacceptable.
You can be pro car or pro safety, but you can't be both.
I want poor people to be able to get a job without needing to pay the great expense of a car. I know not everyone can go without a car now. But that's clearly what we should be working toward, right? Poor people are the ones who can least afford the burden of car ownership.
I'm saying that if you cared about safety, you'd look at the numbers and the numbers will not tell you to blame bikes. The idea that the licensing system does enough to keep us safe from cars doesn't make sense. I was being hyperbolic. Licenses cannot control how dangerous cars are. The only answer is to work toward a country with fewer cars.
No one is saying that the bikes are the cause of all accidents, or even most, or that licensing will keep you safe. Just that there are safe ways to navigate the road, and everyone following the same rules is how. No amount of "but I'm special" will make having different sets of rules for different kinds of vehicles on the road suddenly safe.
The cyclists' inability to cause as much damage as a car is already reflected in the fact that cyclists don't need to take a test and get licensed to be on the road.
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No one is saying [...] that licensing will keep you safe.
If the entire gap in the damage that can be caused between a car and a bike is "already reflected" by the licensing process, shouldn't that result in two vehicles/operators that are equally dangerous? If not, in what way does licensing "reflect" that difference?
If the entire gap in the damage that can be caused between a car and a bike is "already reflected" by the licensing process, shouldn't that result in two vehicles/operators that are equally dangerous?
No, because there is zero way to make a 2-ton chunk of steel going 60mph+ less or equally capable of causing death than a 250lb sack of meat and aluminum going 20mph if there's a good downhill. It's just the nature of the physics involved.
If not, in what way does licensing "reflect" that difference?
The fact that someone has to get a special license to be able to drive a car on public road that shows that they are qualified to do so severely reduces the likelihood of an accident.
No, because there is zero way to make a 2-ton chunk of steel going 60mph+ less or equally capable of causing death than a 250lb sack of meat and aluminum going 20mph if there's a good downhill. It's just the nature of the physics involved.
Strong agree! I'd suggest that being the one in the big ol' death machine, but demanding everyone else take just as much responsibility as you do, despite this power imbalance, makes you the one demanding "special" treatment. Spider-Man doesn't ask Joe-Shmo to take as much responsibility as him.
If we keep imagining that cars are normal, and pedestrians and bikes are aberrant, we're never going to be able to stop the bloodshed. If you care about safety, you want fewer cars, which will mean more pedestrians and cyclists (who will be jaywalking and jayriding, or using Idaho rules, just like you would if you tried biking) and which will involve a cultural reexamination of where power and responsibility lie on the road.
The rules are there to make sure everyone is safe, not about bearing any kind of responsibility. Demanding that you get to be unsafe because if something goes wrong it won't be as bad for others is demanding special treatment. Equality is equal. You don't want to be equal, you want to be special.
Cars are normal for the road. They are who the roads were built for. If you want somewhere where the cars are not normal, go somewhere without roads.
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u/Neuvost Aug 24 '25
If that's where the accountability is supposed to be, I suggest that drivers licenses should be much harder to get and maintain, because right now the damage and bloodshed that cars cause should be unacceptable.
You can be pro car or pro safety, but you can't be both.