I also notice that you’ve left 3 comments so far today on this thread, yet haven’t discussed Derk’s post, which responds to 3 studies you linked to yesterday.

Does your silence mean that you agree with Derk’s arguments?

Listen, if you want to come on here and cite statistics and data and reports, please direct us and our readers to the actual end sources. Don’t send us to some hack advocacy website where the links don’t work. YOU try harder. It’s YOUR evidence.

And yes, we know how to use Google. In fact, we’ve already looked up all of these studies, figured out which links actually work, and are working our way through them right now.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hcas/final/index.htm

http://www.modot.org/newsandinfo/reports/annualreports2002/index.htm

http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf (clickable link was screwed up on stlbikefed.org)

Who said that registration fees should necessarily be dependent on weight?

New York considers weight as a primary factor.

But California instead considers vehicle type, model year, motive power, purchase date, purchase price, and location. Weight is not a factor.

This would be up to individual states to decide.

Your points about education and awareness are all valid and I completely agree.

But determining the fair share for cyclists is a tough one. I was thinking about my own example…

I drive 6000 miles a year in my car, combination of commuting, shopping and recreation. I cycle 1200 miles a year on my bike, commuting only.

I pay $71 registration for two years in a 3600 lb car. If proportioned to my 25 lb bicycle, I would pay about $.49 for two years of bike registration. And I am not using my bike as much as my car, so that number should logically be prorated down to about ten cents every two years.

At first glance, bicycle regulation seems complex and too revenue restrictive for governments to implement. Education and awareness is the place to start, combined with heavier fines for traffic violations (drinking/driving [lengthy jail time needed here], running red lights, talking on cellphones while driving/riding, listening to headphones while riding).

In response to your critique, I have updated my methodology. I combined the screen line counts of bicycles entering Manhattan and the census count of bicycle commuters on Manhattan.

This count is the same as the count I used for cars - cars coming into the city across bridges, and reported car commuters on Manhattan. You could argue I still miss recreational bike users, but I could make the same argument for cars, and my count omits 75,859 trolleys or buses, 35,187 taxis, and 437 motorcycles.

The new count is 28,170 bicyclists as opposed to the 25,185 I originally tallied. The new rate should be .63 - still 8 times larger than the rate for autos - and remember, I’m not counting all of the autos.

Derk and I are working on a full post regarding your argument that “bicyclists already pay a proportionate share for using the road.” Hang in there.

I should mention, however, that your STL Bicycle Federation link cites data over 10 years old, and none of the links at the bottom of the page work. Not that the data doesn’t exist or isn’t valid, it’s just that there’s no way for anyone to access it and provide an analysis. And we’re definitely not going to take some advocacy group called the St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation’s word on this very important issue.

Do you have any other working links to the government sources you mention?

Bicyclists already pay a proportionate share for using the road. Like I wrote yesterday:

Your argument that cyclists do not pay for the roads doesn’t hold water. If you actually look where money for highways and local roads come from, it’s clear that cyclists are paying their way, and actually subsidizing motorists. From STL Bicycle Federation with govt sources:
- According to the Federal Highway Administration (FWHA), 92% of the funds for local roads–the ones most often used by cyclists–come from property, income, and sales taxes. Bicyclists pay these taxes just like everyone else does.
- FWHA calculates that 92% of federal highway funds come from user fees. But 8% come the general fund, so even a bicyclist who owns no car contributes to federal highway funds, too.

You raise a very valid point. In fact, that is the same point I am trying to make - the data available is insufficient, and more study is needed.

I use the census numbers because they are the most reliable numbers I have for bicyclists.

But assume you were right - let’s estimate that recreational users on a workday outnumber commuters - I disagree, but I’ll play along - if there were 100,000, they would still be more dangerous than cars - .18 compared to .08.

That’s a wild estimation on your part since there are no verified numbers that point to that number of bicyclists, but they would still be far more dangerous even at this wildly inflated number.

For pedestrian deaths the number would be at .11 - about five times smaller than the .54 rate for automobiles. But think about that, the automobile rate is only five times larger despite the fact that there are 28 times the number of cars on the road.

These numbers aren’t really encouraging either way.

That last statement has some echoes of Chariman Mao, buddy.

As to your comment about the costs, I could say the same thing about people who are having trouble with costs because they drive, but where’s the sympathy for them.

I’m not necessarily advocating for huge fee increases, I’m saying we should seriously study this issue and determine the most cost effective way to save lives. That may involve fees, and it may not, but I don’t think fees would ever exceed driver fees - bicycles should only pay some proportionate share.

You use the census figure of 21,585 bicyclist commuters to derive your figures about accident rates per 10k bicyclists, to compare them to accident rates for cars.

That’s an awfully big assumption - what about recreational bicyclists? What makes you think that the 21.5k number is anywhere near representational of the rate of bicycle use in the city?

I’ll argue that the rate of recreational bicycle use in NYC is far higher than the rate of commuting use - for many well-documented reasons, most bicycle owners do not commute in NYC (safety on roads, lack of secure parking, lack of shower/changing facilities, etc).

You can bust out your spreadsheet and plug in the numbers from there. What’s a more representational number? 50k? 100k? 150k? All of a sudden, pedestrian deaths/10k bicyclists falls to a fraction of the rate for cars.

You complain about bias in existing studies, yet your numbers betray your biases as well.

More regulatory requirements, taking in token revenues, will not be cost efficient for governments to enforce.

Besides, people like myself ride because they cannot afford to drive often and take mass transit. How will people poorer than myself get around if they cannot afford proposed fees? Could this lead to high speed bike pursuits if the cyclist has no license or registration, and sees and opportunity to take off / escape?

People can be reprogrammed. The culture can change through public re-education. Advertising is cheap.

I agree, we need new, unbiased research on bicycle deaths.

Also, this clearly tells me the bike movement has never been seriously challenged before, if this is the kind of shoddy “research” they’re peddling.

Great stuff.