From: gooch@leland.Stanford.EDU (Carl Gooch)
Subject: Re: Taxing bicycles? (note new subject heading)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 92 00:37:42 GMT

In article <cLqoiB2w164w@ham>, ham!emd@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca writes:

|> Excuse me, Frank, but I don't think anyone has said anything about making 
|> bicycle owners pay fees comparable to cars and motorcycles. There is a 
|> difference between paying nothing (except the general taxes all citizens 
|> pay) and paying at least some small part of the cost of maintaining the 
|> roads. 

This has already been beaten to death, by myself and by others.  But I'll
say again that I'd like to know exactly what fees I'm supposed to pay for road
upkeep that I don't already pay as a car-owning, bicycle-riding, tax-paying
citizen of the state of California.  Or even a fee of which I'm not paying
my fair share in proportion to the damage to road surfaces that I do and the
amount of road space that I use.  If there is one, I'd really like to know
what it is.

|> In any case, this is a tangent. The real issue is whether or not bicycles 
|> constitute a road hazard when operated in the same lanes as motor 
|> vehicles. I maintain they do, and while I support the upgrading of roads 
|> to make it safer, I don't believe bicycles should be mixed with motorized 
|> traffic.

I disagree with your point about it being unsafe to mix motorized and 
non-motorized traffic.  Barring poor vehicle operation (a problem for all
modes of traffic), the problem is fundamentally one of impatience.  Drivers
are unwilling to wait an extra 5-10 seconds to get where they're going 
because of a bicyclist.  If a truck pulls out of a construction site and,
in the process of making its necessarily wide turn, blocks all traffic for
fifteen seconds or so, no problem.  If there's an accident on the freeway,
sure, people get a little peeved, but they don't demand that cars be banned
or that drivers tests be made more strict to reduce operator semi-competence.

But boy, let one bicyclist get out on the road and all of a sudden there's 
an outcry about how unsafe it is, and bicycles don't belong on the streets,
and bicyclists are all lunatics with no respect for traffic laws, etc.  
Drivers shout, "Bicyclists shouldn't be allowed on the streets for their 
own protection."  I've got news for you:  it's not unsafe, given reasonable
rider skill and caution.  Rule #1 is to assume you're invisible.  Rule #2,
even more cynical, is to assume that anyone who happens to see you will do
the one thing that's most likely to kill you, and plan accordingly.  Happily,
this kind of paranoia is way too pessimistic when compared to the real world. 
Unhappily, the results can be catastrophic when you're right, even if you're
prepared for it. 

I agree with you that in a perfect world, roads would be safer for car-
bicycle interaction, but I don't see any obvious way to get to this utopia.
The best solution, as I see it, is the worst solution, as you see it:  put
cars and bikes on the same roads, and train people on how to avoid 
territorial conflicts.  And of course, in a perfect world, single occupancy 
cars on the roads during commute hours would be the exception rather than 
the rule.  And that in and of itself would make the roads much safer for 
cars and bicycles to co-exist, with no costly add-ons to the infrastructure.

Note:  I'm aware that not all bicyclists behave in a responsible fashion on
the roads.  I'm also aware that not all operators of motorized vehicles
behave in a responsible fashion.  I'm not excusing violations of the law 
or of right-of-way precedence, by anyone.  

Bicyclists riding at night without legal (and sensible) lights and reflectors 
are my current pet peeve.  I actually see more of them than I do people 
egregiously running stop lights and stop signs.

I'm also not excusing drivers who, for example, turn abruptly in front of
bicyclists, or cut them off.  The acid test here is, would they have done
that if I'd been in my car at a speed and distance to cross their path at 
the same time?   If the answer is "no", I get ticked off, and the answer is
"no" a lot more often than you might think. 

Carl

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Gooch                       |        Why am I inside at a keyboard when 
gooch@leland.stanford.edu        |        I could be outside riding bike?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles