In aus.bicycle on Wed, 9 Jan 2008 23:32:15 -0800 (PST)
BT Humble wrote:

Fair point. However, doesn't it make it much more difficult for our
various cycling lobby groups to claim the tactically valuable Moral
High Ground when car commuters get to see cyclists brazenly breaking
road rules every day?

I know that the red light runners irritate me.

And a lot of cyclists too.

Cyclists do it because they can. There are various ways of justifying
it, all of which are flimsy at best, but people will do the most
amazing things to justify their own selfishness.

Problem is... well it is herding cats isn't it?

How can it be stopped? The only way is to make the risk not worth the
reward. And that means identifying cyclists so they can be caught in
the same way registered vehicles are. Which is rather a difficult
job.

Not just working out how to fit a registration label that can be read
by both machines and people, but what to do about a bicycle that
doesn't have one. Hard to chase, hard to catch.

Public campaigns won't work because those who run red lights are quite
certain they are perfectly justified to do so. Whether they use the
"no harm" excuse or the "sustainable transport should have different
rules" excuse or the "safer than being in traffic" excuse, they are
certain that their convenience is more important than any rule. So a
campaign saying they shouldn't is going to have as much effect as a
campaign saying speeding drivers have small dicks if that campaign
isn't backed up by cameras and fines.

Work out how to register cyclists, work out how to catch unregistered
ones that do a runner, work out how to manage child cyclists in that
regime, then bicycles will become part of the transport network.

(I wonder if RFID chips could work, with cops and parking cops
equipped with hand held scanners, and a backpack full of locks. A
bike without a chip gets locked up and the truck comes by later to
impound it. Plainclothes spotters at intersections with readers walk
out, scan the bike, and slash the tyres to stop the owner riding off
then lock the bike... Only cost each rider a couple of hundred a year
to fund, surely!)

Zebee