Cyclists want one-metre law: Drivers must keep their distance: lobby group

Almost as BS as 'make cyclists pay insurance' to cover the costs of their accidents argument.

St Norberter wrote:Almost as BS as 'make cyclists pay insurance' to cover the costs of their accidents argument.

Completely disagree with that. Why should they not have to pay? Especially in the instances where they are the cause of the accident.

Deank wrote:

St
Norberter wrote:Almost as BS as 'make cyclists pay insurance' to cover the
costs of their accidents argument.

Completely disagree with that. Why should they not have to pay? Especially in
the instances where they are the cause of the accident.

a) MPI does go after uninsured cyclists that cause accidents. Remember the
article in the freep from last year?

b) If you have vehicle insurance, you also have bike insurance. It's not
explicitly stated but MPI assigns costs to various classes depending on how
they view the risk for each classes. The cost of cyclist insurance is built
into vehicle insurance and it is minimal. Want cyclists to pay their own? Then
each class should be responsible for all the costs related to accidents they
are involved in. So get ready to see your vehicle premiums go up as motorcycle
accident cots get properly allocated to vehicle classes.


c) IMHO , the people that usually call for this are the
drivers that would be at fault in the case of a bike-car collision.

"Want cyclists to pay their own? Then each class should be responsible for all the costs related to accidents they are involved in."

They are.

"So get ready to see your vehicle premiums go up as motorcycle
accident cots get properly allocated to vehicle classes."

It should be.. its crap that so many of the motorcycle accidents are "blamed" on the motorcyclist and they are forced to share a larger then normal burden of the accidents they are involved in.

JTF wrote:How about 25K.

650ish in '91....675 in 10.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/cao/pdfs/population.pdf

I very much doubt that new immigrants are the winter cyclist type. (lol...I can just picture some guy from Africa riding his bike around in -25 weather....)

Officially, the Winnipeg Capital Region total population as of the 2006 census was 730,305.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Capital_Region

There are some that speculate the population of Winnipeg has exceeded 750k. I'm inclined to believe that number.

No matter. There has been decent growth that could drive some of the demand up. Certainly in the summer anywho.

Generally too, when you see comments ( esp. in the freep)
about cyclists paying insurance, people are tying it to infrastructure costs (
i.e. they should be insured to cover the infrastructure costs), but insurance
and infrastructure costs are separate.


Problem is that we have a media that instead of helping find
resolutions, decides they can sell more papers by inflaming the issues (Marty
Gold, Bus Driver story from last week, stories about accidents caused by
cyclists wearing ipods, etc)


Instead of cycling lobby groups making a unilateral ‘how do
we get more people cycling’, and media and drivers perpetuating a ‘ cyclists should
obey the rules of the road unless they are in front of me in which case they
should be on the sidewalk’ attitude; we should be looking at ways to make the
system work better for EVERYONE.

The incredibly large amounts that are being spent on infrastructure for so few is the problem.

JTF wrote:The incredibly large amounts that are
being spent on infrastructure for so few is the problem.

I don’t think I disagree. Aside from the painted bike lanes,
there aren’t a large number of the improvements I’ll use. But again, I’m not
the type of cyclist they are targeting.


I’ll probably use the dedicated bike lanes one the BRT is
up, but that’s a way off.


I do use the winsmart path on occasion as well at the
riverwood route down argue, but that has been in place for a few years and wasn’t
funded with this infrastructure money.

The insurance thing is something of a red herring me thinks. Most people want to level the playing field and to them that means paying for insurance, just like motorists do and displaying a license plate (and requiring registration) just like motorists do.

If a cyclist is covered under their automobile insurance that is great. If not, how are they covered should they damage something while riding on the sidewalk?

Then there is the cost factor. Generally speaking the costs are amortized over every user (gas tax for instance) plus municipal, provincial and federal taxes.

However, if you are a cyclist and don't purchase gasoline you may not be contributing a fair share.

JTF wrote:The incredibly large amounts that are being spent on infrastructure for so few is the problem.

My point precisely. I think the number is 12 or 13.

Heh...that many eh?

grumpy old man wrote:The insurance thing is something of a red herring me thinks. Most people want to level the playing field and to them that means paying for insurance, just like motorists do and displaying a license plate (and requiring registration) just like motorists do.

If a cyclist is covered under their automobile insurance that is great. If not, how are they covered should they damage something while riding on the sidewalk?

Then there is the cost factor. Generally speaking the costs are amortized over every user (gas tax for instance) plus municipal, provincial and federal taxes.

However, if you are a cyclist and don't purchase gasoline you may not be contributing a fair share.

two rebuttal points:

a)If you license cyclists, should you also license pedestrians/ roller bladers/ joggers that could cause an accident with a potentially licensed cyclist on an MUP?

b) The argument that if a cyclist doesn't purchase gas, they don;t cover their infrastructure costs doesn't work either, since the infrastructure impact of a bicycle is absolutely miniscule compared to a car.

Jane you ignorant slut...

a) meh, another red herring.

b) If we build infrastructure ONLY for cyclists the cost per kilometer per cyclist is exponentially higher and is not amortized across all road users. Therefore the cost is not covered.

MUP?

grumpy old man wrote:Jane you ignorant slut...

a) meh, another red herring.

More of a slippery slope I think !

grumpy old man wrote:b) If we build infrastructure ONLY for
cyclists the cost per kilometer per cyclist is exponentially higher and is not
amortized across all road users. Therefore the cost is not covered.

Well, only if you are looking at dedicated cycling infrastructure. And
depending on the user, if that is all they are using, then their
property/income tax could be argued to contribute to that rather than roads.


But, most who trot out that argument use it to argue that
cyclists shouldn’t be on roads, and the argument doesn’t work for that.

grumpy old man wrote:MUP?

Multi-use pathway.