Anyway I admire the desire to make a point, however this is just so simple...No need for silly registration on cyclists, pedestrians at all....Motorists can easily carry the burden of the costs, and the responsibility to look out for weaker participants in traffic. Simple and no big government machine required to administrate it
Quite.
TBH, it isn't going to happen (even if it is UKIP policy to introduce registration plates and compulsory insurance for bicycles).
There is no appetite for it in the DfT. The DVLA aren't going to welcome the costs of having to set up a parallel system to register the estimated 25 million bicycles in the UK. As for VED, when, under the current rules, like approximately 2 million other vehicles on the road today, they would pay no VED. Since it costs the VLA about £1 to process each VED application, those paying VED would end up subsidising cyclists to the tune of about £25 million, which I am sure they would welcome.
There are a number of countries that have had such schemes in the past. Switzerland had a small plate that you you would buy annually to show that you had paid into their compulsory third party insurance scheme. The problem was, much like the old dog licence in the UK, it cost more to administer than the revenue it generated and for those reasons it was abolished in 2012. Belgium had a bike registration scheme that was abandoned in the 1970s; a number of local laws required registration in cities in the US, but largely they remain unenforced or have been abolished. Abolition or lack of enforcement has been the general pattern across the globe.
The reasons for the introduction of compulsory insurance under the Road Traffic Act 1930 must also be examined.
In 1926, when there were about 1.5 million motor vehicles on British roads and official statistics were first collected, there were 4,886 deaths on UK roads. By 1930, that had risen to 7,305. Death and injury caused by motor vehicles was a serious and growing problem. Due to the nature of accidents they can cause, the damage caused by motor vehicles can rapidly exceed the ability of those responsible to pay for, leaving them bankrupt if they were to be sued for damages.
Bicycles do not cause damage and fatalities to third parties on anything like a similar scale and such damage as they may cause is more commonly within the ability of the rider of a bicycle to pay should a civil claim be brought against them. To equate several thousand deaths a year with scratching the paintwork of a car would be fatuous.
Finally, one must examine the motivations of those calling for compulsory registration, VED and insurance for bicycles.
On this thread at least, those most vocal in calling for such measures have expressed their view that bicycles should not be on the roads in the first place, sometimes to the point of advocating violent or physically aggressive behaviour toward cyclists.
It is not unreasonable therefore to draw the conclusion that their demands are not motivated by a genuine and rational desire for cyclists to accept their responsibilities, but to erect artificial barriers to cycling and consequently reduce the numbers of bicycles on Britain's roads. If you are required to get insurance, a registration plate and pay for VED before venturing out on a bicycle, then you are far less likely to do it. This would obviously be a perfect result for many of those supporting the idea.
