There are certainly cyclists who do nothing to help the reputation for the rest but car drivers fail to realise how vulnerable cyclists and motorcyclists are.
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It's a shame I'm getting downvoted, but the current state of affairs is that in cities like London bicycles, cars and trucks will be sharing the road for the near-mid future.
I'd rather not have trucks or cars in the city, and ideally cyclists would have their own road separate from cars and pedestrians, but I think that's a pipe dream.
Until then what else can do we? At least if we require tests for cyclists, like we do for cars, buses and trucks, it might help reduce the number of cyclists doing risky things that perhaps they aren't even aware of?
Sure there are still reckless drivers, but at least they have a license that can be revoked and points that can be fined. How do we ban reckless cyclists from the road?
Not true. Horse drawn vehicles and horse riders don't.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-about-ani...
Invalid carriages also need no license.
https://www.gov.uk/mobility-scooters-and-powered-wheelchairs...
I'm sure other examples can be found.
Quite possibly one of the reasons for this is that they share a lot of the infra with cyclists here.
Outside of cities, there are lots of roads without pavements (not just in super-rural areas). Walking on them is normal, and people know how (e.g. always walk on the right, facing oncoming traffic).
And I very much hope it stays that way. Cars should not rule our public spaces.
Not quite, however you may be ticketed, if you happen to do it in front of a grumpy officer. I have only heard of it happening to a friend of a friend and the fine was under 40 euros.
I've lived in the countryside for 14 years. I don't walk on the roads where I live. The roads are narrow and there is no place to walk as the side of the roads are raised embankments built from tree roots. Looks like this: http://c8.alamy.com/comp/C41G6T/country-lane-with-trees-form...
The place to walk in that situation is on the road. As someone who has decades of experience as a pedestrian, that road looks eminently walkable.
Living somewhere that you can't even walk around sounds like some kind of prison. How do you get around? It sounds like you are unable to get around without burning fossil fuels. How does that make you feel?
Rule 73 of the Highway Code:
> Pay particular attention to long vehicles which need a lot of room to manoeuvre at corners. Be aware that drivers may not see you. They may have to move over to the right before turning left. Wait until they have completed the manoeuvre because the rear wheels come very close to the kerb while turning. Do not be tempted to ride in the space between them and the kerb.
Cyclists running up the inside mostly happens because waiting in a queue of traffic at a light or junction is very dangerous for a cyclist; stopping and starting are inherently dangerous and made much more so when you're starting in the middle of a queue that's anxious to start moving. In many cases road design endorses this - you'll see junctions with a cycle lane on the left running up to the light, and cyclists are expected to pass on the left even when a vehicle in line is turning left.
The solution that I've seen work best is a marked cycle-only box immediately before the junction - that provides cyclists a place to wait for the light, but it also makes for a clear dividing line between the section where cyclists are expected to pass the queue on the left versus the entry into the junction where that would be unsafe. Unfortunately cars often occupy those boxes and are seemingly not penalised for doing so. More of those boxes and more enforcement of those that exist would help, IMO, as would giving cyclists a dedicated light phase (as is done at e.g. some of the junctions on CS2) to let them clear the junction before motorists enter.
In terms of Bank specifically, it's an outlier: it's an extremely complex junction (7 roads) that simply has too much traffic demand for the space available. The junction has now been restricted to buses, cycles and pedestrians only during the daytime, and there's talk of removing the buses as well. That's appropriate: it's both safer and more efficient in terms of person throughput than allowing cars to use the very limited space there.
waiting in a queue of traffic at a light or junction
is very dangerous for a cyclist
I'm curious as to what you think the danger is in that situation?
So I find that it's usually safer to filter to the front at intersections. Even in the absence of a bike box I can squeeze into the crosswalk and get ahead of the lead car, allowing me to go safely through.
"Running red lights" with no further context seems to describe something extremely dangerous, but many specific classes of running red lights are completely safe.
This is all dependent on the traffic/intersection though, things vary depending on the circumstances.
The Highways Code specifically mentions that motorcycles do this also Rule 88 [1] and tells drivers that that they should be aware of other road users including cyclists doing this too [2] Rule 21.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-motor...
[2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/road-users-requ...
That said, demanding a license for cyclists I agree is completely unreasonable.
Licensing cyclists seems like a feel good idea to make things "fair". The fact is, things can never be fair between to such disparate classes of vehicles. Can someone explain how a world with licensed cyclists would be fundamentally different than today?
I could, as someone who doesn't have a driving license, or has never learned to drive, go out on the road with my bicycle and more or less ride whenever and wherever I like.
I don't know what any of the road signs mean and I have no experience or training in hazard perception and collision avoidance. The law doesn't require me to. If I tried to do the same thing in a car I'd be arrested.
Realistically, every 5 year old knows what the colors on a traffic light mean and what a stop sign tells you.
For example, how to navigate a busy multi-lane roundabout safely as a cyclist, such as Old Street roundabout in London, which looks like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Old_Stre..., or this roundabout in Bristol, UK: http://c8.alamy.com/comp/B2NMCH/aerial-view-looking-down-on-...
Well, would you argue that requiring a license for motor vehicles is unnecessary? The benefits should be similar and identifiable.
I very much doubt that you would be arrested if you tried to drive a car without a license. Anecdotally, I've never had my driving license checked by a traffic officer. The large number of undocumented residents who are presumptively driving without a valid license is another point.
Without a valid driving license you will not be able to get insurance, unless you stole an insured vehicle from your parents or off the street.
Patrol cars in the UK and Europe have cameras that read number plates and check a database against all insured vehicles. If the car is not insured you will get pulled over, upon which you will be asked to present your driving license.
Sure. Realistically, how much danger do people doing this represent to society? There are plenty of dangerous things that people could do, but the heavy machinery of law should be reserved for actual problems rather than hypothetical ones.
> If I tried to do the same thing in a car I'd be arrested.
And quite rightly, because if you weren't there's a good chance you'd kill people. Car drivers kill a lot of people, they're something like the 4th biggest cause of death in the UK IIRC.
source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-profile-fo...
In a typical city scenario, a car has KE of 1/2 (2000 kg) (50 kph)^2 ~= 2e5 Joules. A bicyclist has 1/2 (100 kg) (30 kph)^2 ~= 3.5e3 Joules. Almost 100x less capable of inflicting damage on a typical pedestrian. Add onto this that bikes are way more maneuverable, less collision surface area, are totally exposed to the same forces exerted on the pedestrian with which they may collide... your comparison with cars is intellectually dishonest because you are comparing a human on top of a 10-20kg machine with a human inside a 2000kg metal box with an incredible array of safety features for the driver and hardly any for pedestrians outside.
So, I'd say a typical city scenario is <20 kph, more than halving the estimate.
Speed and impulse. Speed is a factor in the risk of collision (since our brain has limited real-time processing chops), and then when a collision happens, impulse is indeed an important consideration, together with another factor: protection level.
In a world with just those three factors, eg no traffic rules or speed limits, a car makes lots of accidents (because it's fast) and when they happen, a lot of energy and thus destruction are involved (because they're heavy), and also, while the car driver is protected by his/her big heavy steel box, the collision counterpart - a cyclist - might not be.
This asymmetry trinity is exactly why we should have (and have, to some extent) road rules and license regulations to level the playing field so that the outcome of the equation moves a bit in favour of the slow, light, and less well collision-insulated.
So if one endeavours to go inside a heavy (dangerous to others) steel box (that nicely protects you) that goes fast (you will have less time to react, and moreover, you "steal" other drivers attention because they constantly have to be on the lookout for "is there something fast coming? is there something fast coming?") - then yes, the onus is on this car driver to be responsible and submit to road rules, licensing, and heavy fines.
Then there's other non-collision factors that make current man-driven combustion engine cars look very silly indeed: they are noisy, pollute, take up a lot of space even when not moving (which is most of the time) and require expensive infrastructure. That leads us to ask ourselves - who on earth designed this system? And in the question belies the answer: no one did - there were coaches, we put a petrol engine in it, and went from there without any vision. With today's technology and insight, given a blank slate (there are no roads, no cities, no nothing - just a can full of people that need to work and live and travel, to be poured out on the green fields where we will build our infra) , NO ONE would design a transportation system this silly.
I'm also pretty sure that most of those accidents could be avoided by having better cycling infrastructures.
it isn't uncommon near some bike parks where I am for groups to block intersections which only serves to aggravate drivers. The are required in many areas to pass through intersections like all other vehicles, alternating with those waiting on the cross roads.
the bikes should be tagged to indicate they have the proper reflectors and lighting. there are still too many riding without reflective clothing let alone any type of lighting in low light conditions. I ride, I hate the idiots that ruin the sport
Statistics show that in the large majority of cases of accidents between cycles and motor vehicles, the driver of the motor vehicle is at fault. Requiring a license for cycles will do just about nothing to fix this. Just yesterday I was nearly run over by a car turning left into the oncoming cycle lane and by another one who thought that the pedestrians traffic light applies to bicycles. My knowledge that I was correct in both cases did not help the least bit.
So maybe yearly retraining for drivers of motor vehicles would be a better move.
As a regular cyclist, I would say that requiring a license from cyclists would certainly do something to fix this: make cyclists more aware of it.
Over here, about 2/3 of collisions between motor vehicle and bicycle are fault of the motor vehicle driver. But that leaves 1/3 where cyclist errors or breaches of traffic code are reason, which is also significant.
And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.
You are assuming that this 1/3rd is due to lack of knowledge - I question that assertion. And still, regular retraining of motor vehicle drivers would still be a better investment. They choose to move a ton of steel around in a manner that's potentially dangerous to others and they cause twice as many accidents, despite having a license requirement.
> And then there are actually quite many cyclist accidents that do not involve a motor vehicle.
Those tend to be less severe. Last years stats for Berlin: All cyclists killed were killed in an accident with a motor vehicle. Most common causes: dooring, right turn accidents, mostly trucks, one cyclist running a red light.
Here, a motor vehicle was involved in 62 % of all bicyclist deaths over the period 2011-2015 (116 cases). Motor vehicle was not the guilty party in all of those (but in roughly 2/3 of them). So, motor vehicle driver was at fault in about 40 % of cyclist deaths.
Without any breakdown of who was at fault in the other accidents your stats still indicate that in comparison between bikes and motor vehicles, motor vehicle drivers are still twice as likely to be at fault. Retrain them before you retrain cyclists.
Why can't we retrain both? Do we have to pick one or the other?
So make better use of the time and money: create safe infrastructure or - as a better investment train those that already have a license requirement and that insist on moving around tons of steel. Maybe increase the number of hours in school that deal with safe conduct in traffic. Or - gasp - fine the people blocking cycle lanes and otherwise endangering cyclist hard.
Calling for education of cyclists has a strong smell of victim blaming. Oh, sorry, he's dead. If he'd been better educated, he might have known that he was in the right.
Improve cycling by all means, but use something that is effective: better infrastructure, education, enforcement. The Berlin police introduced a police squad on cycles a few years ago in one district and that has proven to be a very effective method: For one, they enforce road rules for people on bicyclist, but the major effect is that they remove cars from infrastructure dedicated to bicycles which in turn actually enables cyclists to use that infrastructure and makes people less likely to ride on the sidewalk, for example.
I don't necessarily say that requiring a license from cyclists is what I want. However, I do think that some training and education of cyclists would certainly help. I also see some cyclists who have clear attitude problems. So retraining - or perhaps re-orienting - everyone would help.
I would like to see a road bicycle test, though. But it would be for potential motorists, not cyclists. I think if you want to operate a motorvehicle on the road you must be able to demonstrate an ability to operate a bicycle on the road.
The difficulty in riding a bike in a city doesn't come from having to control the vehicle. Danger doesn't come from the ability to maim someone with a bike. It comes from hugely complex set of rules, dynamic nature of traffic, high speed high pressure decision making necessary, sensory overload and fatigue, self control, competition on the road etc.
That's what you need to take into account to navigate safely.
Certainly when I was kid, bike and traffic safety was taught in school from 1st grade.
Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence?
In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.
This dual effect would have a number of negative impacts. More motorists lead to more congestion, more CO2 emitted and poorer air quality. Poorer air quality leads to health problems, up to and including deaths. CO2 causes climate change, and greater congestion has an economic impact. Fewer people cycling mean fewer people getting exercise, leading to more health problems, up to and including deaths.
I'm confident these problems would overshadow the small improvements in cyclist safety you might gain with a cycling licence requirement. There are better ways to improve cycling safety.
Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should have demonstrated that they understand and follow these rules by taking some kind of test.
> In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists.
I don't think so. I expect the government to continue to penalize use of motor vehicles in cities such as London. The bicycle will remain the cheaper mode of transport.
1. Pedestrians move at much slower speeds than bicycles. If two pedestrians walk into each at 5mph the damage is much lower than if two cyclists collide at 30mph.
2. Since pedestrians move much slower than bicycles they can manoeuvre much faster. The stopping distance for a walking pedestrian is less than 1m, the stopping distance for a bycicle travelling at 30mph is much greater.
3. If two pedestrians walk into each other the chance of collateral damage is quite low. It's quite easy to walk around two people that just walked into each other.
If two cyclists collide, there is a good chance that cyclists on each side of them will get caught up in the collision, crash and injure themselves too. A good example of this are the crashes seen on Tour de France.
Of course, if people started running as a mode of transport it would become increasingly dangerous, and you'd have to start separating the walkers from the runners as the damage from a potential collision would be much greater.
For as long as cyclists have to cycle on the roads as we know them a cyclist should be required to demonstrate that they understand the signs and rules of the road. That could be by presenting their official drivers license, or, should they not have one, be required to take a theory test. I think that would be a sensible first step.
You could then imagine a practical test for hazard perception, efficient use of gearing and safe filtering through queues of traffic.
Naturally, people don't walk on the road, and pavements don't have the same kind of mandatory control flow unless they intersect with the road, and most children are taught how to cross the road from a young age.
I would get into a ton of shit should I visit anywhere that had jaywalking laws, though in the places they exist and are enforced, they presumably get by without a dedicated licensing and testing regime.
One thing to consider is how much effect licensing has on car safety anyway. Mexico city has no test requirement at all, you just pay for permission to drive rather than sitting any test, while Peru has more road deaths per capita, despite needing a practical test, written test and medical certificate before you get behind the wheel.
Did you know that in Sweden, the legal maximum speed of a electric bike is 15mph? Anything faster and it is classified as a moped and you need a driving license. Did you also know that the average speed of a bike in a city in the Netherlands is around 9mph? In context, a common running speed is 8mph.
So here is the stage. Two bikes are traveling more than 300% faster than the average speed and about 200% the legal limit of a electric bike, and they collide. My question would not be if that situation is safer if two pedestrians walk into each other, but rather why two bikes is traveling that fast in the first place.
Basing rules for cyclists on the Tour de France is like basing rules for automobiles on F1 or Nascar. Normal commuters just don't reach anything close to Tour de France speeds. Most would be lucky to even maintain a third of that speed without the help of a hill.
Most commuters will be going about 10 mph. Even getting hit with a car at that speed will only cause an injury at all about 25% of the time, a serious injury about 15% of the time and is almost never fatal[1]. A bicycle will barely do anything at that speed.
By all means add special rules for using bicycles at unusually high speeds, but don't act like normal commuters are going to be going that speed.
[1] https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...
What about walking? People can run into other people, knock them down stairs, it's a risk...
I think that most observers find the idea that bike use is a public hazard, and must be restricted to be obviously ludicrous.
Here in the Bay Area, it's a rare bicyclist that actually follows the rules. Talking to other bicyclists, I've found a large number of them are simply ignorant to the fact that the rules apply to them as well; or they have adopted some bizarre version of the rules or a sense of entitlement.
I could talk anecdotes for hours, but one particularly egregious example is a bicyclist who showed up to a 4-way stop after I was already moving through the intersection, cut through my path, and gave me the finger, all without even slowing down, much less stopping.
Requiring bicyclists to pass at least a basic test would go a long way towards clearing things up or at least changing the "bicyclists don't have to follow the rules" culture that exists here, making the roads safer for themselves, walkers/runners, and drivers alike.
So I do the illegal. I turn right on the quiet side street and immediately u-turn to the stop sign, to wait to cross both sides. It's not a dangerous maneuver for me or anyone else, although it would be dangerous for a car to do so.
See the problem?
edit: A car waiting to turn left is in considerably less danger. It's much easier for traffic coming from behind to see, so it's less likely to be hit. And if it is hit, the driver is protected by the car itself. At worst, the car gets totaled. But a bicycle hit at 40mph? The cyclist is likely going to be killed. It's not just silly to follow the car law - it's hazardous.
Law enforcement can already ticket a bicyclist, license or no license. Bicyclists already know when they're breaking the law.
I disbelieve your proposed solution would actually solve any problems.
Then let's advocate for getting rid of licensing since it has a cost and no benefit. I don't think you really mean that, do you? I've got plenty of ideas for a better licensing system for driving.
> Forcing them to need a license will just create more illegal bicyclists.
Illegal drivers face consequences that licensed drivers do not face. The same would be true for illegal bicyclists. I fail to see this as a bad thing.
> Bicyclists already know when they're breaking the law.
They don't know. They might know if they did it in a car they would be breaking the law. They also believe themselves to be incapable of creating a dangerous situation. (Quick anecdote: I was on a jury for a civil case where a bicyclist admitted on the stand he ran into a car that, by all evidence and even his own testimony, was stopped. The bicyclist had also run a stop sign. He felt the driver was at fault for the accident.)
Being a bicyclist myself, I assumed everyone knew as well. Back home, all my cycling friends knew and followed the rules. When I started cycling with people here, I found out they really don't know that the rules apply to them, they think the rules are different in some way, or they just have some really bizarre notions. AFAICT, it's baked into the culture. I mean, people don't know basic stuff like that you can get a DUI on a bike or that you can't ride on the sidewalk...
A bicycle-specific license (or maybe an endorsement on a DL) could focus on bicycle-specific issues, with basic questions like "I have to stop for a stop sign on a bicycle. T/F" and more 'complex' stuff like how bicycle lanes work at intersections with people making right turns. Drivers and cyclists alike seem to have no clue that the driver should enter the bicycle lane (after yielding to bicycles in the lane) for his turn and that the bicyclist should not try to pass him on the right.
I think one the purposes of traffic law is to make the behavior of all participants predictable. My only issue with cyclists is I feel I can never predict what they're going to do.
There's usually laws about how far you can see, how far you have to be from an intersection etc.
"My only issue with cyclists is I feel I can never predict what they're going to do."
This is not entirely the fault of the cyclists, it's the fault of the law givers
The laws are not written in such a way that it appears safe to people using bikes to follow all the rules, so everyone is compelled to come up with their own rules. The build of roads is the same; a small detour for a person in a car can become quite substantial for a person on a bike.
At the moment the laws get written and the roads get design assuming almost everyone is going to use a car, and then they say "well, is it physically possible to follow it on a bike?" - if they consider bikes at all.
If governments wanted people to ride bikes predictably, they must consider them when crafting the laws. It's probably quite okay for people riding bikes to act differently than people driving cars: just like people walking around behave differently. It will then take some time to spread the word and regain the trust of cyclists. But it's a more helpful solution than saying "they must follow rules and infrastructure designed for cars in the same way as cars, except that they must not delay me: that way they will be predictable and safe".
Drivers routinely kill other drivers or pedestrians through carelessness. Few if any cyclists ever kill someone else. If anything we need more rigorous tests for drivers, not for cyclists.
Off the top of my head, walking is more risky per mile for the traveller than cycling while driving is safer per mile, but increases your risk of obesity and DVT and is more dangerous for everyone else in terms of pollution and accidents.
Most cyclists are licensed drivers, and a test for cycling licensing would, at worst, probably be no more difficult than that for driving. The impact on the number of cyclists would be minimal.
A bicycle can injure or kill a pedestrian or cause a motor vehicle accident. What is the justification for licensing motor vehicle driving but not bicycling when done on public roads? I cannot think of anyone who fails a motor vehicle licensing test that I consider competent to not cause others harm while operating a bicycle on public roads. I would much rather suffer the 'dangers' of increased carpooling or public transit use.
No. Why do you think this is relevant? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of your argument.
It's the same reason why you need a dog license but not a cat license in many areas of the US. The cat people will freak out when you suggest a $10 license and nobody else gives a shit.
As for how good an idea it is to have a licensing system for people travelling without lethal weapons, papers please! It's a fantastic idea. You probably also should have a chip in you so the government can track you and see if you've travelled to a part of town you don't have a licence to be in. After all, we've got to cut down on crime.
I don't think cyclists should need licenses to co-habit the roads with other vehicles. However, I think road safety education should be mandatory, perhaps in schools? When I attended (ordinary state) primary school we were all put through the RoSPA[0] Cycling Proficiency Test[1] at around ages 8-10. This was back in ~1977/78 so I'm showing my age :)
As I remember it the course was good fun. You got to use your own bike - I had a Raleigh Chopper :) - and the instructor set up different road layouts in the school playground to negotiate - he even had traffic lights and road signs. We were then lead out on the actual road where the instructor shepherded us through various real life challenges. We were even taught to perform "life saver" looks over our shoulders before carrying out any manoeuvres. At the end of the course we sat a test and were given wee metal triangular RoSPA badges.
I'm not sure if this is still a thing in schools now (I don't have any kids of my own), but I think it should be. Even basic education such as this prepared me to be a better driver, biker (i.e. life saver looks) and pedestrian.
You could push the cost onto cyclists that want the license of course.
In the US the "exam" that most drivers have taken is so stupidly easy that it doesn't really mean much that they earned their license. This is less true for the young people that have had to do more work to get a license, but they aren't the majority of drivers yet.
The other aspect is that you still have pedestrians, who may have little or no knowledge of road safety, so you still have to train drivers to be extremely careful regardless.
Nothing raises your appreciation of the difficulties faced by a group more than belonging to that group in a real and physical manner on a daily basis.
Not that I think it would be implementable: Humans are remarkably good at rejecting constraints.
Also I got to know the rules of the road much better than before and could adjust by behaviour to follow the law. I didn't go over red lights before, but there are a bunch of other things where cyclists don't tend to follow the rules of the road and IMHO it creates a much less stressful environment for everyone if they just did so.
This is a very important difference and that’s the main reason I yearn for self-driving cars. Current vehicles are horrible to see where you are driving and drivers are in denial about it. At least, when you have engineers trying to represent a scene, they gut reaction is “No way I am dealing with such a slim view, I”m putting the camera where it can see what’s happening.”
It's always worse when large vans are parked up and down the road so visibility is obscured.
As my father said, "They think they are terminators, that if a car crashes into them, the car will break and they will be OK". And that's what I almost always see on the road.
We have a lot of cycling lanes, thank god for that, but sometimes they are not in a good state so all those people tend to share the roadway with other cars. I almost driven into 1 because he was riding a bicycle on a forest road where you can drive 90km/h in a turn.
I do realise how vulnerable cyclists are, I've driven my whole youth to school with one. As a cyclist, I always look when crossing the road, or just around me, to realise where I am and where other people are and do not trust other cars. But most people ignore logic and common sense and just cycle on a roadway.
I still think it's a good idea to have some education on how to use the road. I mean, if a car crashes into a cyclist, the car will have a minor dent, but you can break a lot of things or even die. It's so easy to think before driving on a road because the cycling lane is in bad state.
PS: I also understand that there are bad chauffeurs on the road too, but from my experience, far less than bad cyclists...
It might just as well be some other obstacle: slow moving vehicle, car stuck on the road, end of a traffic jam. People really really need to learn that you need to be able to come to a dead stop within the distance that you can see.
I suppose it depends on the country, but usually roads mandate minimum speeds (tipically half the max speed) in order to avoid issues like this. Anything lower than the minimum speed should be treated like a static obstacle, so maximum speed should always take into account unexpected hazards.
Given that cyclists cannot tipically maintain the minimum speed required in any country road, they cannot share the road with faster vehicles. It's either curbs or segregated roads. Anything else is plain craziness.
(Yes, there are plenty of other countries, but those seem to be the two most discussed here)
" I also understand that there are bad chauffeurs on the road too, but from my experience, far less than bad cyclists..."
Your comment, which to be fair is not unusual, is essentially concern trolling. This impression is reinforced by your retailing of your measureless anecdote about how cyclists are worse than car drivers for being "bad".
Essentially, cycling is safe enough. Cyclists are not worse than any other road users. However compared to other road users they are not contributing to CO2 and are substantially less likely to kill other road users or suffer health problems stemming from low exercise levels.
[1] http://careymcandrews.org/pdf/McAndrews_et_al_Accident_Anal_... [2] https://journal.cpha.ca/index.php/cjph/article/download/3621...
This chart suggests that it's the latter (substantially a road tax more than a carbon tax): https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fuel-duty#rates