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By Danielle Directo, Special to LAist
Although City Council repealed the bicycle license law earlier this month, the issue continued to be a point of discussion between officials and bike advocates. At the Transportation Committee meeting earlier this week, some cyclists said they don’t completely oppose a licensing program, but they would like to see a more efficient and easier process that would be “voluntary.”
Bikers had complained about the being ticketed by police for not having the license, which was difficult to obtain. One commuter recounted his “horrible experience” of trying to get a license, only to leave the office that issued them empty-handed because there were no more left. “(They) wouldn’t give me any sort of documentation that said I attempted to get a license,” he said, “and then (I) was pulled over again while leaving the station and told to get a license.”
“A bicycle license is not the answer” to address safety and the city needs to be better at “working with LAPD to inform them of how to support cyclists as opposed to antagonizing them,” said Aurisha Smolarski, outreach coordinator for the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition.
If the city decides to reinstate a bicycle licensing program, the city should consider private organizations that already have a licensing system set up to avoid giving the responsibility to the police department or a city agency and creating more bureaucracy, suggested, Bicycle Advisory Committee Chair Glenn Bailey.
The topic is up for further discussion at next week’s meeting.
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Yeah, this definitely needs to go to a private contracting service just like bar code scans for pets (even though the city does them, too).
what's next? Walking licenses?
i second the notion
that it will sometimes be used
as an extra potential tool to harass people
when they feel like it.
you can bet that
richies on the oceanside promenade will
almost never be stopped
yet downtown cyclists will be daily.
anyone remember the series of bicycle hit and runs
with witnesses when they wouldn't even investigate the automobile drivers?
bicyclists are totally treated like second class citizens.
i second the notion
that it will sometimes be used
as an extra potential tool to harass people
when they feel like it.
you can bet that
richies on the oceanside promenade will
almost never be stopped
yet downtown cyclists will be daily.
anyone remember the series of bicycle hit and runs
with witnesses when they wouldn't even investigate the automobile drivers?
bicyclists are totally treated like second class citizens.
i second the notion
that it will sometimes be used
as an extra potential tool to harass people
when they feel like it.
you can bet that
richies on the oceanside promenade will
almost never be stopped
yet downtown cyclists will be daily.
anyone remember the series of bicycle hit and runs
with witnesses when they wouldn't even investigate the automobile drivers?
bicyclists are totally treated like second class citizens.
I got a bike license in the City of Santa Monica, even though I don't live there. The license is good throughout the State. Santa Monica, not the bike friendliest city in the world, sends their police force out to occasionally check bikes for the required licenses, since it is written into their city laws. I don't mind getting the two-year three dollar license, if it is used to help recover stolen bikes or to determine the rightful ownership of a questionable bicycle. To use the license, or the lack there off, as a blanket means of harassment by an overzealous police force against the bicycle community is not acceptable.
I think the barcoding idea is better..Eliminates the idea of having another way to be harrassed, cited and documented on our record..Also who knows they might come up with some wierd idea to suspend out bicycle license at some point..I'd hate for that to happen.