South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership
News
18 Aug 2022
NUMBER PLATES FOR CYCLISTS?
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has caused uproar among active travellers after discussing the possibility of mandatory insurance and registration for cyclists.
In at interview with the Daily Mail, he is reported to have said he “absolutely” wanted to extend speed limits to cyclists, adding: “I see no reason why cyclists should break the road laws and be able to get away with it.
“So, I’m proposing there should be a review of insurance and how you actually track cyclists who do break the laws.”
Mr Shapps’ comments have been viewed, in some quarters, as a reference to some form of number plate or other identification for bikes.
However, the Department for Transport have said that there was “no plan in place and this would be a matter for whoever was transport secretary under the new prime minister.”
Mandatory registration for cyclists is almost unknown in any country and is widely seen as difficult to enforce and bringing no net benefit given the relatively little danger that cyclists pose to others, and the probable impact of such bureaucracy on levels of cycling.
The official DfT line, as explained by the junior transport minister Charlotte Vere in a parliamentary answer last year, is that the costs of registration “would outweigh the benefits, and this would deter many people from cycling”.
Edmund King, the AA president, said: “It is in the interests of all road users, and indeed our environment, that as a society we encourage more use of active travel, such as walking and cycling, and also the transition to zero emission vehicles.
“Introducing more barriers to slow the take-up of safe cycling would be a retrograde step. What we really need is better infrastructure for cycling so that some of the present-day issues on the roads are removed.”
Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns for Cycling UK, said the plans were “impractical and unworkable, and have been repeatedly dismissed by successive governments. They’re also a complete U-turn on current government policy.
He added: “Every country which has tried to implement such ideas have soon realised their costly mistake.”
You can read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/17/grant-shapps-bike-licence-plates-proposal-a-strange-and-pointless-idea
In at interview with the Daily Mail, he is reported to have said he “absolutely” wanted to extend speed limits to cyclists, adding: “I see no reason why cyclists should break the road laws and be able to get away with it.
“So, I’m proposing there should be a review of insurance and how you actually track cyclists who do break the laws.”
Mr Shapps’ comments have been viewed, in some quarters, as a reference to some form of number plate or other identification for bikes.
However, the Department for Transport have said that there was “no plan in place and this would be a matter for whoever was transport secretary under the new prime minister.”
Mandatory registration for cyclists is almost unknown in any country and is widely seen as difficult to enforce and bringing no net benefit given the relatively little danger that cyclists pose to others, and the probable impact of such bureaucracy on levels of cycling.
The official DfT line, as explained by the junior transport minister Charlotte Vere in a parliamentary answer last year, is that the costs of registration “would outweigh the benefits, and this would deter many people from cycling”.
Edmund King, the AA president, said: “It is in the interests of all road users, and indeed our environment, that as a society we encourage more use of active travel, such as walking and cycling, and also the transition to zero emission vehicles.
“Introducing more barriers to slow the take-up of safe cycling would be a retrograde step. What we really need is better infrastructure for cycling so that some of the present-day issues on the roads are removed.”
Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns for Cycling UK, said the plans were “impractical and unworkable, and have been repeatedly dismissed by successive governments. They’re also a complete U-turn on current government policy.
He added: “Every country which has tried to implement such ideas have soon realised their costly mistake.”
You can read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/17/grant-shapps-bike-licence-plates-proposal-a-strange-and-pointless-idea
