Licence to ride

Politicians, media pundits and commentators have all argued in favour of it—but should bicycles have number plates? Simon Vincett takes an in-depth look at bicycle registration.

Maarten, Tracey and their two kids live within riding distance from work, school and childcare. Shared paths and separated bike lanes aren’t bad in their inner-Melbourne region and home suburb of Thornbury—compared to most parts of Australia, that is—but the majority of Maarten and Tracey’s riding is on the road. With their kids, who are six and four-years-old, they use pedal power to get around.

One of the best parts of riding a bike, apart from the health benefits it brings, is the fact that it’s relatively cheap.

But, if politicians in both Melbourne and Sydney had their way, Maarten and Tracey—and all bike riders—would have to register their bikes and obtain a licence to ride on the road. For Maarten’s family, this could mean registration of four bikes, at a cost of $25 to $100 each, plus four licences, at a cost of $25 to $100 each, introducing a new cost to the family of between $200 and $800 per year.

“I would probably only register my commuter bike and the other one I would probably shy away from,” Maarten explains. “It’s not much, $25, but for a bike I only use on the weekends I probably wouldn’t spend the money. For Tracey, it would be the same—register one and not the other.”

Maarten admits the cost of bike registration could be a considerable burden on the family—especially the children.

“With our kids’ bikes, it would depend on the cut-off. As they grow you upsize their bikes, so I don’t know how that system would work. If you’re registering kids’ bikes that’s an expensive process.” Public debate about bike registration ignited in May (2014) when Bayside Council’s Mayor Laurence Evans proposed registration to address conflict on Melbourne’s Beach Road between riders and drivers, while that same month in Sydney a spate of serious and fatal collisions prompted the NSW Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, to announce that he was looking at whether bicycles should be registered.

Calls for bike registration by Mayor Evans and Minister Gay have not been clear in the extent and the cost of the scheme but NSW Government briefing documents, obtained through Freedom of Information, explore the viability of a scheme. The most feasible option is that it would mirror the motor vehicle scheme and include both annual registration of bikes and up-to-date licences for riders. These would be compulsory only for those riding on the road.

Children can ride on the footpath accompanied by an adult in Australia. This right ends in Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia when children are 12 years old, after which they must ride on the road. In other states and territories bike riders of all ages can use the footpath, unless signs forbid access.

Tracey rides with her daughter to childcare on the footpath before continuing her commute on road. However, on recreational trips the family ride together on the road on occasion, depending on the situation.

“Our kids ride with us now on the road,” explains Maarten, “and I expect I’ll be confident for them to independently ride on the road at about 12.”

That freedom to choose road or footpath, depending on conditions and ease of travel, would be curtailed by a requirement to register any road-going bike and license any road-going rider. Families would need to choose whether that freedom is worth the expense of licences and registration for their children and their bikes.

More formality about children riding on the road, however, shows up a related legal difficulty that children under 15 years old can’t be prosecuted for traffic offences under the existing legal system. This is just one example of the difficulty of establishing a bike registration scheme, and the jury is out on whether it is at all worthwhile at all.

In terms of precedent, a look around the world shows that registration of bicycles and/or licensing of bike riders is not currently operating anywhere, though it has been tried and repealed in a few places, such as Switzerland.

Bicycle Network, the peak body for bike riding in Australia, is opposed to bike registration, seeing it as a serious impediment to people getting physically active by riding a bike.  Bicycle Network CEO Craig Richards wrote in May 2014 in the Sydney Morning Herald, “Bike riding is the best way to stop … preventable tragedy linked to inactivity. That’s because you don’t need to find extra time in your day. You can use a bike to get to work, school or just about anywhere and make it an easy part of your life. Adding expensive registration fees would simply mean people stop riding because they wouldn’t want to pay.”

“This issue has floated around for some time but never gained traction because governments know, like we do, that the concept doesn’t stack up.” Bicycle Network

For Bayside Mayor, Laurence Evans, bike registration promised accountability for what he conceived as poorly behaved cyclists. For NSW Roads Minister Gay, bikes should be banned from certain roads “for their own safety”, and bike registration seemed a tool to control unsafe riding. These reactions are typical of calls for bike registration to address “the problem of cyclists”. More comprehensively, the “problem of cyclists” is generally conceived as basically three-fold:

1 Bike riders disobey the road rules.

2 Bike riders “don’t pay their way”.

3 Bike riders are periodically killed and seriously injured by motor vehicles and they must be protected for their own safety.

How bike registration can solve these issues, partially or at all, is generally not spelled out clearly or comprehensively, but arguments are made in an attempt to address real or perceived issues. So, while it’s easy to argue that developing and implementing a new scheme of bike registration is a lot of trouble with minimal chance to raise useable revenue, it is necessary to look at the motivation behind registration of bikes to find solutions to the real conflict between motorists and bike riders the current traffic system.

Disobeying road rules

Unfortunately a proportion of all road users flaunt the rules. Police blitzes, such as Operation Halo by Victoria Police, usually catch more motorists infringing the rules than bike riders, even in the cycling hotspot of Beach Road, Melbourne.

Findings like this prompt commentators such as Michael O’Reilly, columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, to ask, “Is a massive, costly logistical exercise, registering the one million bicycles sold in Australia every year, really worth it to maybe catch a few cyclists who treat red lights as give way signs?”

It would seem that number plates don’t prevent traffic infringements from happening. Motorists with number plates also disobey the road rules and being identifiable doesn’t stop them.

As many motorbike riders have noted—it is notoriously difficult to fit visible number plates to motorbikes, but bicycles are even more of a challenge in this regard. If the intention is to aid identification by traffic cameras, this scheme needs a serious cost–benefit analysis because traffic cameras exist only in a fraction of locations where road rules can be broken.

Also to consider in a cost–benefit analysis is the burden of enforcement. The NSW Department of Roads in a briefing document about bike registration pointed out that “it is likely that additional government resources would be needed to enforce a bicycle registration scheme. NSW Police would be required to devote personnel to enforcing the display of number plates.”

One of the side benefits of bike registration that has been suggested is that it would assist in the case of bike theft. But, as the NSW Department of Roads points out, “Bicycles are easily dismantled and have parts that are generally interchangeable and lack identifying numbers (like a Vehicle Identification Number or engine number). Unfortunately this would make it virtually impossible to trace a particular bicycle through a registration system to ensure safety and compliance.”

Thornbury rider Maarten suggests a solution many experienced bike riders would be familiar with: “I grew up in Holland and typically there you get identification engraved in the frame. The little license plate at the back, I doubt that would have any benefit at all, but the engraving in the frame is something you can organise yourself. If you remember your frame number it’s a self-registering system: if your bike is stolen you go to the police and tell them ‘This is the ID of my bike’.”

Paying their way

A frequent objection to bike riders on the road is that they don’t pay for the privilege. The assumption is that motor vehicle registration pays for road building and maintenance, however, this is not true. Roads are predominantly paid for from federal taxes and council rates (in the case of local roads). Motor vehicle registration is used up in administration and third-party insurance, not to build our next super highway.

The truth is that roads are paid for by all tax payers, whether they are drivers or bike riders, or even if they only walk. A registration scheme for bikes that also raised revenue for bike infrastructure would, therefore, be at odds with the motor vehicle registration system, as well as prohibitively expensive for bike riders.

While we all pay for roads, we don’t all pay the same—and we don’t all have a choice—says transport planner and commentator, Alan Davies. Writing in 2013 in Crikey’s The Urbanist blog, Davies points out, “I don’t think the claim that motorists pay for roads can be dismissed out of hand. The fuel excise is $0.38 per litre. That’s about $627 p.a. for the average car. While that’s general revenue, drivers are clearly taxed in their role as motorists and there’s no doubt the fuel excise moderates the demand for driving.”

“It is not the public’s fault that the alternatives to driving are so poorly developed in Australia” Alan Davies

This is not to say that the revenue raised is well used, however, Davies goes on to say. “By buying petrol and registering cars people are not necessarily revealing a preference for road transport. There’s a substantial captive market of people who are forced to buy petrol and pay fuel tax and car registration despite wanting an alternative. They may prefer that the revenue be spent on public transport … It is not the public’s fault that the alternatives to driving are so poorly developed in Australia.”

Third-party insurance is a key way in which motor vehicle registration is thought to be paying cars’ way. But third-party insurance is compulsory for motor vehicles because they have such potential for causing serious damage to property and injury to people. This is not the case with bicycles and, in fact, is more relevant to the rider than with the bike being ridden.

City of Sydney councillor, Christine Forster, has suggested a one-off fee at the time of bike purchase to cover third-party insurance. In October 2013 she proposed in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph “a system under which a one-off registration and third party insurance fee is paid at the point of sale for each adult-sized bicycle in NSW.”

Canvassing this suggestion and other pros and cons of compulsory insurance, the NSW Department of Roads in 2013 advised that “cover against damage caused to third parties in an accident involving a bicycle can be provided by personal liability insurers”.

While insurance is covered, the significant legal implications of bike registration are raising alarm bells for governments. The NSW Department of Roads warned in a 2013 position paper that “introduction of a bicycle registration scheme would require a major shift in public policy and significant changes to registration, accident and insurance law.”

This is a sizeable and expensive undertaking for any state or territory to bring to bear in its own jurisdiction but, to be viable, a scheme of bike registration should exist in all states and territories with reasonable consistency, comparable to that for motor vehicles. This would require further effort to coordinate and would also have to deal with inconsistencies in traffic regulations for bike riders between states and territories.

The conclusion of the NSW Department of Roads 2013 position statement was: “It is not likely that a compulsory bicycle registration scheme would be a cost-effective way of improving NSW cyclists’ behaviour or safety.”

Providing ‘safety’

However, it was in the name of safety that NSW Roads Minister Gay proposed bike registration, a link that had at least one commentator “stumped”.

Bicycle Network General Manager of Government and External Relations Chris Carpenter sees restriction of bike riding through the obligation of registration as a misguided move.

“Governments across Australia need to find solutions to tackling our nation’s health challenges such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and depression,” Carpenter points out. “It is essential that Australians increase their level of physical activity to combat these challenges. Introducing a cost barrier to bike riding goes against this notion of physical activity.”

Agreement with this is no further away than within Minister Gay’s own department, which argues in its October 2013 position paper that, “Many multi-bike families would be disadvantaged in meeting registration fees and infrequent riders may also be dissuaded from using a bicycle, which would not promote the environmental and health policy objectives of the government.”

“Policy makers work tirelessly to get people more active and adding a cost and administrative burden in the way of this goal makes no sense,” Mr Carpenter says. “This issue has floated around for some time but never gained traction because governments know, like we do, that the concept doesn’t stack up.”

“a bicycle registration scheme would have considerable impact on the community without being able to deliver the outcomes frequently claimed for such an initiative” Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry into Cycling

In 2013, the Queensland government considered registration for bicycles as part of its “Inquiry into Cycling”. The Parliamentary Committee conducting the inquiry rejected the concept in its Recommendation 34, stating, “It is considered that the introduction of a bicycle registration scheme would have considerable impact on the community without being able to deliver the outcomes frequently claimed for such an initiative”.

Its report goes on to outline the detriment of hampering ease of bike riding, saying, “Cycling is valued for the important contribution it makes to the development of a sustainable and effective transport system. It also has significant benefits for health, the environment and tourism, as well as positive local impacts in connecting communities. It is an important form of exercising as well as being used for commuting.”

The Queensland government has accepted the Inquiry’s recommendation 34 and has dismissed bicycle registration as a useful initiative.

As regular bike riders and parents of riding kids, Maarten and Tracey see a strong need for education about bikes, for riders and for motorists.

“I remember when I was in primary school we learnt to ride as part of the school curriculum. It was not so much the technical skills as the road rules and knowing your position on the road. I think that’s a good thing to do,” says Maarten.

Tracey sees the need for something similar in Australia. “Like you have a swimming program, you can have a bike riding program. If you can instil in young people now that these are their responsibilities and this is how it works, then by the time they get their licence they’ve already thought about how bikes and cars share the road. It starts to change how people feel about bikes.”

Gaining your driver’s licence is another opportunity for education about bikes and cars sharing the road, Tracey suggests. “As part of getting your licence you need to understand about bikes more. It’s not just about the road rules for you as a driver; it’s about how you deal with pedestrians, how you deal with bikes. Part of having a driver’s licence should be understanding what  [other road users] are allowed to do, where they can ride on the road. At the end of the day, you’re in a car—if you hit a bike, the bike is going to come off worse.”

In Australia’s current traffic environment, Maarten frequently sees confusion about bikes in traffic, both from drivers and from riders. “You see cyclists do both things and as a driver you just don’t know where to go, and who’s in the right and who’s in the wrong,” he says.

Hand-in-hand with education goes improved policing to direct road users about sharing the road and enforce the existing road regulations. Police blitzes such as Operation Halo by Victoria Police in Melbourne are an example. Maarten is also in favour of increased policing.

“It sounds bad,” he explains, “but people don’t realise the context that they are in. I’m not necessarily about fining—it’s about educating people.”

What would it cost?

A bike registration and/or rider licensing scheme has never been costed by any government in Australia. However, the Road Traffic Authority (now Transport for NSW) stated in 2011 that $20 is the minimum fee for car registration to cover administrative cost. This amount raises no revenue to recover costs of infrastructure nor does it provide third-party insurance. But if bike riders are to put some money towards “paying their way”, at least $5 must be added per registration to cover this. However, some sources suggest bike registration might need to be as much as $100 per bike.

What about third-party insurance? For bike riders, particularly with multiple bikes, this seems most viably covered in licensing the rider. With $20 as a base fee to cover administration, the scheme would then have to collect at least $5 by way of third-party insurance premium. This makes an annual licensing fee of $25, though the renewal period could presumably be every 10 years as it is for motor vehicles. Some sources suggest that bike licence may cost as much as $100 per annum.

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