Five days ago I ran across an article in the San Francisco examiner titled “Time to mandate bicycle licenses.” I did my obligatory eye-roll and read the article. It was the same arguments we hear over and over again:

• Don’t get mad at me, I’m a cyclist myself
• Cyclists need to be held accountable
• Cyclists need to be treated the same as (those poor) motorists

Funny the article was titled “Time to mandate bicycle licenses.” As if the idea hadn’t ever been suggested before, but now is different. Now is the time.

Yesterday, the plot thickened…

What I didn’t realize at the time is the author of the op-ed piece, Joel Engardio, is also running for the San Francisco board of Supervisors (District 7). And as often happens in politics, there is someone with a different view. This differing view was also expressed on the pages of the San Francisco Examiner by a man running for a District 1 board seat. His response?  Cyclist licenses: Great crankbait, bad policy.

Mandatory registration, license and insurance could ease ongoing resentments between cyclists and motorists. Cyclists will get more protection while motorists will be glad they aren’t alone in being held accountable on the road.

Joel Engardio, arguing in favor of bicycle licensing

Licensing bicycles and their riders won’t help make our streets safer or healthier. It won’t help pay for badly needed infrastructure and programs. In fact, it would probably make things worse for everyone.

Andy Thornley, arguing against bicycle licensing

However, Engardio also brings in the topic of bicycle insurance, which Thornley does not specifically respond to. I also am going to set this topic aside for now, as I plan to write a piece about insurance for cyclists shortly. I also think it is wise to separate the two issues, because the are in fact very very different.

Licensing for bicycles is something that has actually been actively tried and extensively discussed. We have real data to show that it simply does not provided the benefits that those advocating for it hope.

For one thing, the idea of accountability is simply laughable. Putting a little tag on the back of my bike with a number in no way makes me more accountable to the laws than I currently am. The fact that you can easily see my face as I’m on my bike probably makes me more accountable than were my sneering mug hidden behind the reflections on a windshield. A license plate on a vehicle adds traceability to the vehicle itself, not to the person driving. Moving violations are given to drivers, not cars. There are obvious exceptions to this (parking tickets for example) but the point is it is no easier, or more likely, for me to be stopped and ticketed should I break the laws simply because of a license on the back of my bike.

Bicycle licensing is a great campaign statement. It is one of those things that just seem “so obvious” to the folks out there that don’t ride bikes. It is a very subtle us against them inducing statement that has become all too common in politics today. Engardio’s statements imply that he wants bicycle licensing to increase the safety of the roads. He is relying on this common sense gut feeling to make people falsely assume that it will makes our roads safer. He provides absolutely no reasons why it would make things actually safer.

Instead, he peppers in a bunch of anecdotal stories

Currently, bicyclists experience a lot more risk than well-insured car drivers. Seaman recently hit a car door that had opened into a bike lane he was riding in. His injury required 34 sessions of physical therapy. His bike had substantial damage. Yet his auto and home insurance didn’t cover his bike accident (not all policies do). He was on the hook for thousands of dollars in expenses.

But the glaring fact here is that this story has absolutely nothing to do with his argument. The type of accident described above wouldn’t even be covered by the type of insurance mandated for motorists by the state of California. In fact, in the above example it is arguable the the liability insurance mandated for the driver that opened his/her door into the bike lane should have been paying for poor Seaman’s injuries.

Bodily Injury Liability — Pays for medical expenses, legal expenses, and judgments against you when you or your car are involved in an accident that causes the injury or death of another person.

Collision — Covers the damage to your vehicle resulting from a collision, regardless of who is responsible. Collision coverage requires the payment of a deductible by the insured.

http://www.lohmanandlohman.com/Auto-Insurance-Basics-Liability,-Collision,-Comprehensive.c383.htm

Based on the above story, it seems Engardio actually wants cyclists to have more mandated coverage than motorists do. He seems to want cyclists to be on the hook for liabilities caused by the negligent actions of other drivers.

Or maybe he just wanted to stir up people’s emotions about the perceived dangers of riding a bike and related the only bike crash story he knew. You know, because no one reads things critically any more anyhow, right? The plot thickens indeed…

We hear it all the time. “Those damned self-entitled cyclists!” We hear the word privilege thrown around too. Terms generally used to refer to socio-economic issues. They are often invoked in discussions about running through stop signs and stop lights. I’ve always found it frustrating, as I suspect that many of the people that are saying it are using it as a slur without really understanding what it means.

So what is the term “self-entitled” even supposed to mean, if anything? I think we can all agree to the context there. It implies that some people believe that cyclists believe they have a right to ignore certain traffic laws. Yes – I know that was confusing, some people believe that cyclists believe… I’ve always tried to be very pragmatic about stop sign and stop light running. We all know it is illegal in most places. Many are working to change that, but until then I couldn’t imagine any cyclist honestly believing that running through stop lights was their “right.”

Damn I’m naive… 

For a short time I participated in an online community called ‘NextDoor.’ NextDoor is intended as a way for members of neighborhoods to communicate with each other. They have a few different ways they try and validate that you actually live in a particular neighborhood, and limit your viewing of comments to only those posted by your neighbors. A great idea, that ends up being a horrible idea. But that was where I came across a bonafide self-entitled cyclist.

I can’t recall the exact discussion but it involved cycling in the neighborhood. My neighborhood has a four lane divided road through the center that serves as the primary bike route. It is frequented by neighbors heading to work, as well as commuters heading into our out of the city. It has a nice gentle slope to it for several blocks that allow for a really easy ride in the downhill direction. Couple that with the fact that all of the intersections have lights that are default green for those on the street, triggered only when there is cross traffic, and you can really bomb down the road without much effort.

But there are red lights. And they do get triggered. And that is where Mr. self-entitled cyclist comes in:

The cops gave me a ticket for running a red light on my bike. Don’t they have something better to do? I’m just not going to ride my bike anymore.

Random self-entitled cyclist (paraphrased from memory)

Wait… what the hell? I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that it is legal to run a red light on your bike in most places. Folks that do decide to roll red lights and stop lights at least understand that they are, in fact, breaking the law. No matter how much some may argue for a modification to the law, stop lights are stop lights. So Mr self-entitled cyclist is upset because he got a ticket for doing something illegal. OK. Tickets suck. Vent a bit.

But then he drops the “I’m just not going to ride my bike anymore.” Is he trying to punish all of us by not putting the effort in to ride his bike unless he is allowed to do something illegal? If there is an example of “self-entitled” – this is it.

Unless I get something special, I’m just not going to do it at all. So there…

You know what Mr. self-entitled cyclist: that’s just fine. I’m constantly trying to encourage more and more people to ride bikes, but in your case I’ll make an exception. Cycling gets enough bad press as it is. I don’t think this guy is hurting anyone’s feelings by not throwing a leg over the top tube and making us all look bad out there.

From CBS Sacramento

A recent news story from Albuquerque, NM ends with a dire sounding warning about using GPS tracking apps:

Authorities also say a big tip to prevent having your bike stolen out of your home is to avoid using any GPS tracking apps to map and share your routes. That can lead thieves straight to where you store your expensive ride.

“High-end bike owners, retailers believe theft ring taking stolen cycles to Juarez”

The implication here is that bike thieves are monitoring ride-sharing sites like Strava and Map My Ride, figuring out where routes start or end and targeting those houses for theft. How much of a threat is this really, though?

There is no question that bike theft is a huge issue. While the emotional and financial impact for the victims can be great, the risk of prosecution can be almost negligible. But using Strava to figure out where potential victims keep their bikes? I have no data, but that seems like a really low level of risk amongst all the other possibilities.

I reached out to Strava for their response, and I very quickly received this:

We believe it is important that our members have the tools to protect themselves and control the detail of information they share.

While we have not been able to confirm any cases of theft related to Strava activity uploads, we do offer a rich set of easy-to-use privacy controls for all our members.

As a leading social platform for athletes, Strava gives members the tools to manage the information they share with friends and followers. They can set privacy zones around any address such as home or office addresses, so that start and end locations of their activities aren’t shared publicly.

Andrew Vontz, Strava cycling brand manager

I also suspect that the vast majority of folks that would use an application like Strava are extremely aware of the information they are sharing. Me, personally, I don’t tend to start tracking my rides until my first initial mile or two after leaving my house anyhow (you know… gotta keep that warm up and cool down phase from messing up my averages.) But this idea of “privacy zones” seems to be a pretty clear-cut approach to mitigating the risk of thieves tracking you. If that risk does, in fact, exist.

I’m a strava user myself, but was unfamiliar with this feature until I heard about it in Andrew Vontz’s statement. I found it pretty easily on their web page by going to Settings, and selecting Privacy:

Update: I wrote a more detailed how-to of this feature on VeloReviews.com. That article describes not only how to set it up, but exactly how it changes the data displayed to your followers.

While I appreciate the sentiment of the officer quoted in the news piece, I feel it is a little bit niave – if not irresponsible – to imply that using GPS tracking apps lead to bike thefts.

But, I have been wrong before…

The vast majority of people I talk to either think that DUI laws apply equally to bikes, or not at all. But both of those groups are wrong.

Up until recently, I myself was in the first group. The group that believe that the same penalties and fines for driving a car while intoxicated apply to bikes. I imagine this line of thinking has to do with the “bikes follow the same laws as cars” mantra. You know, the phrase that is constantly used against cycling when someone rolls a stop sign, but completely ignored when we’re told to get out of the lane.

On first glance the law would actually seem to support this notion as well. While many states have DUI laws that refer only to “motor vehicles,” California does not:

(a) It is unlawful for a person who is under the influence of any alcoholic beverage to drive a vehicle.

(b) It is unlawful for a person who has 0.08 percent or more, by weight, of alcohol in his or her blood to drive a vehicle.

California Vehicle Code 23152

However, we also have Article 4 of Division 11 of the CVC, which specifically covers the operation of a bicycle. It opens with this:

(a) A person riding a bicycle or operating a pedicab upon a highway has all the rights and is subject to all the provisions applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this division, including, but not limited to, provisions concerning driving under the influence of alcoholic beverages or drugs…
California Vehicle Code 21200

OK…. Still sounds like the DUI laws fully apply right? Well, until you get to 21200.5

Notwithstanding Section 21200, it is unlawful for any person to ride a bicycle upon a highway while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or any drug, or under the combined influence of an alcoholic beverage and any drug. Any person arrested for a violation of this section may request to have a chemical test made of the person’s blood, breath, or urine for the purpose of determining the alcoholic or drug content of that person’s blood pursuant to Section 23612, and, if so requested, the arresting officer shall have the test performed. A conviction of a violation of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than two hundred fifty dollars ($250). Violations of this section are subject to Section 13202.5

California Vehicle Code 21200.5

So yes, DUI laws in the state of California do apply to bicycles, but it is a different set of laws. The fines are very different ($250) but you can still loose your license if you are under 21.

But no matter what, don’t go riding around drunk. Unless you are at a CX race. Then it might be OK.

Do you recall that scene in The Hunt for Red October where Sean Connery’s character asks to verify the distance to target… one ping only… ?

Well California SB 491, which became enforceable Jan 1 2016, now says “One earbud only, please.”

Applying to operators of all vehicles on the road – motor vehicles and bicycles alike – the legislation makes it illegal to travel our roads with two earbuds in place. An earbud in a single ear, however, is still legal.

Other interesting bicycle related legislation taking effect includes:

1. SB 530, which clarifies the definition of “pedicab” and seems directly targeted at some of the “beer crawl” and “pub crawl” services here several people are applying pedal power to a four wheeled vehicle that is ultimately steered and controlled by a non-drinking “driver.”
2. AB 1096, which clarifies the definition of “electric bicycle” as differentiated from “motorized bicycle.”
3. AB 604, defines what an “electric skateboard” is, and requires that anyone one one wear a bicycle helmet regardless of age.

However, the astute, careful readers my reaize, as BikinginLA did, that none of these laws are actually new at all.

As long as there are people willing to buy stolen bikes, there are people willing to supply them. While we can all do things to help protect us as individual riders, and our bikes, it doesn’t really go to the source of the problem. Many local jurisdictions have come up with some great and creative programs to try and stem the supply. But as long as bike theft is a relatively safe activity (as far as illegal, slimy activities go) it will continue to run rampant.

This is actually part of what was driving my recent post about bicycle licensing. Sure, the original article was written somewhat tongue-in-cheek (something that the folks over on reddit seemed to have missed.) It is easy to argue for bike licensing as an anti-theft activity, because, well, bike licensing ain’t ever gonna happen™. But it drives to a real, different way of thinking about bike theft.

The problem with voluntary, individual bike registration is that is is an inherently self-serving function. It will increase the odds of me, personally, recovering my bicycle if it gets stolen. But it doesn’t fundamentally change the actual stolen bike market because, well, people are lazy. They forget, put it off, will do it next week…. then they simply never register.

Back when I was running the bike shop, I reached out to the a representative from SafeBikes, a San Francisco bicycle registry run in cooperation with the San Francisco Police Department. I wanted to set up a kiosk or other system so that, whenever anyone bought a bike from our shop, we automatically walked them through the registration process (or did it for them.) In my mind, this increased the effectiveness of the registration process as a theft deterrent, and was providing excellent customer service at the same time.

To my complete surprise, they discouraged this idea. Their comment to me was that I should encourage the person to do it themselves. Forget, put it off, do it next week… lather, rinse, repeat.

We also sold used, refurbished bikes in our shop as a way to offer lower-cost models to folks that just needed a way to pedal across the city – or didn’t want to invest a lot of money into something that could be stolen while locked up at work. This inevitably lead to people rolling in bikes asking if we wanted to buy them. We had a policy – never buy a bike from someone that brings it into the store. The risk was just too great. But this also underscores another frustration: there was no way that we, as shop owners, could easily find out if a bike had been stolen. That bike registry that didn’t want us to register bikes for our customers also didn’t have a way for me to query it. I know there are privacy concerns here, but a simply yes/no telling me if a given serial number belonged to a bike that had been reported stolen would have been of huge value to us. Instead, the only option I had was to call the police, give them the serial number, and wait for someone to get back to me.

Ridiculous.

Bike thievery is essentially a risk-free crime. If you were a criminal, that might just strike your fancy. If Goldman Sachs didn’t have more profitable market inefficencies to exploit, they might be out there arbitraging stolen bikes.

    ^{— “What happens to stolen bicycles?” blog.priceonomics.com}

There are people out there that legitimately sell used bikes – often quite cheap. But the fact that it is soooo incredibly easy to steal a bike, and soooo ridiculously difficult to find out if a given bike has been reported stolen, it throws a wet blanket over the used bike market. So we’re de-incentivizing legitimate used bike sales, while not discouraging the illicit stolen bike market. Something is seriously wrong here.

So while I was definitely being facetious in my advocating for bicycle licensing, it would in fact have a tangible impact on bike theft. It would impact the market for stolen bicycles and increase the risk. While bike thieves are assholes, most of them operate under rational principles. If we can increase the risk bike thieves face, then the cost/benefit ratio changes and people stop stealing bikes as much.

So what was really behind that article was a desire for access to centralized, shared bicycle ownership records. And I’m afraid that asking people to do it on their own ain’t ever gonna happen™. I understand, there are a ton of technical, privacy and logistical problems with such a system. But we live in a world with loads of really smart people solving some really hard problems. Sure seems like we should be able to do better than we currently are.

Note: I know that someone is going to read this, watch the video of the bike being stolen above, and think “Well, they should have used a better bike lock.” First off – almost all bike locks are way to easy to defeat. Second, expecting people to carry 3 different locks, each of which weigh about as much as the bike itself, everywhere they go isn’t really a solution either. Finally – stop blaming the victims.

Let’s be clear what I’m talking about first. I’m not talking about a special license for people that would be required to operate a bicycle on the roads.  As as been stated over and over, most cyclists are actually already licensed drivers. What I’m talking about is a license (or registration) on the bicycle itself. Yup. I’m actually 100% in favor of this. This will probably surprise some of the motorists that like to bring this up as a requirement or them to feel like they need to share the road with me.

And I will undoubtedly piss off some of my fellow cyclists. But let me tell you why…

Let’s set aside for a moment how cost prohibitive this has proven to be every time someone has tried it. Let’s ignore the very real fact that, as an inexpensive commodity, bicycles frequently change hands, and that frequency makes tracking bicycle ownership hugely challenging compared to motor vehicles. Let’s ignore for now sticky issues about what bikes we register (Tricycles? Unicycles? Kids BMX bikes? Bicycle trailers used to haul children?) Hell, let’s even pretend that somehow we make all of this happen without having license fees that far exceed the actual purchase price of the bike.

Let’s just assume for a moment that bicycles are registered in the same way that cars are. What would that look like.

Well, it would go something like this. I’d head down to my local bike shop and check out some new bikes. I’d find one I want and I’m be ready to purchase. Before I can walk out the door with the bike, there would be someone that walked me through all the DMV (or would that be DPV – Department of Pedaled Vehicles?) paperwork to ensure that I was legally registered before I took the bike out on the road. This would of course but an additional burden on the already strapped local bike shop, but in theory that cost would be offset by … whatever was funding our new DPV program.

So by the time I roll my shiny new bike out onto the street, there is an official record in the “official database” that ties that specific bike, by serial number, to me. I’m that bike’s legal owner. No one else can make legal claim to it.

Would this model be a barrier to getting more people on bikes? That is a very common argument within the bicycle community that we should remove – not add – barriers to people getting on a bike. In the above scenario, while perhaps the cost would be slightly elevated, I don’t actually think it would be a significant barrier.

It is interesting if you stop and consider what are the actual problems you face every day are as a cyclist. Sure, there is a lot of work to get laws, infrastructure and opinions to a place more favorable to cyclists. But while stop sign laws and police enforcement are indeed important to me, those aren’t the items on the top of my mind when I ride downtown to meet my partner for dinner, run to the local drugstore, or simply ride to work in an office that doesn’t allow me to bring my bike indoors.

I’m worried first and foremost about one thing: will my damned bike get stolen while I’m gone.

There are plenty of voluntary, self registration services out there. Every community seems to have their own – including San Francisco. But if my bike was registered, legally via the state, before I even left the store with it… that’s a huge improvement.

And the fact that it will eliminate the asinine and factually incorrect “…when they pay registration to use the road…” argument out of the arsenal of uneducated anti-cyclists flamers. Damn, that sounds like some tasty icing on the cake.

So that is why I am 100% in favor of bicycle registration and/or licensing. 

But it is also a completely B.S. statement, because it really can’t happen.

That laundry list of things we agreed to “ignore” early on in this post – well those are actual, real, difficult to solve problems facing bicycle registration. As soon as the common motorists vehicle registration fees went up to help offset the governmental logistics costs of running a bike registration program, motorists would be the first group against registration.

This seems to be a growing trend in anti-bicycle rhetoric lately in San Francisco. My advise to the “make ’em register, then I’ll share the road” crowd: be careful what you wish for, because it probably doesn’t quite look like you expect it to. But if we can devise a system that provides the same requirements and protections as motor vehicles, with a pricing scheme based on value and tonnage like motor vehicles, I will fully advocate for that.

NBC Bay Area reports that the CHP is investigating the dumping of tacks on a popular local cycling route. Kings Mountain Road, which climbs to Skyline Blvd near Woodside, CA, has generated several reports of cyclists getting flats.Part of the attraction of this road to cyclists, in addition to the beautiful views, is the topography. This hilly region presents some challenging climbs, and some adrenaline pumping descents. It is the latter that presents the greatest risk to cyclists. For many that do not ride a flat may seem like an inconvenient, yet harmless, annoyance. However, a flat on a fast descent, right next to automobile traffic, can result in significant injury or death.

Speculation is that these nails are being placed there by one or more local residents that are not to keen on the cyclists being on the roads.

Officers said Monday that there were so many nails left on Kings Mountain Road that clean-up crews were forced to sweep the lanes to get them out of the way.

Cyclists are usually drawn to the road for its views and 1,500-foot climb to Skyline Boulevard.

^{— “CHP Investigators Say Booby Trapped Road near Woodside is Targeted at Cyclists.” nbcbayarea.com}

Anyone with information regarding these incidents are asked to call CHP Officer Furhman, (650) 369-6261.

Be safe and vigilant out there folks!

I found this comment in response to a Facebook post I made about some legislation happening in San Francisco. I thought I should share it outside of the neighborhood community it was targeted at.