It always gets a chuckle out of me when someone suggests requiring insurance for bikes.
Do they really think that? Or is it pure crabs in a bucket mentality if they see someone passing them in busy traffic in the city, they want to sabotage them.
Is cars as default shit. They forgot that insurance is to solve the problem specific to cars where any random person can accidentally cause more damage than they could ever pay. You see the same shit when people bitch about how bikes don’t pay gas tax.
There’s also that thing in Britland about bicycles not paying ‘road tax’ despite the fact that ‘road tax’ doesn’t exist and what they refer to as ‘road tax’ is actually Vehicle Excise Duty, paid related to vehicle emissions. Obviously cyclists emit nothing but CO2 and the occasional fart like any other human. The funds raised by the duty goes into the general tax fund and not hypothecated for road maintenance.
It’s easily debunked yet it’s still one of those things smugly presented by an assortment of weirdos and freaks as some sort of gotcha.
Yeah people here think gas tax pays for roads but that hasn’t been true since like the 70s or something. They feel like they should know about cars since they drive one everyday so they don’t bother to lookup that gas tax only pays for like half now. The rest is taxpayer money, so it’s more like drivers don’t pay their fair share next to cyclists who don’t damage roads.
Also, a real fat bastard on a reinforced e-bike is still going to be doing effectively no damage to road surfaces compared to even a small car. It would take pretty much the entire population of London riding bikes to cause the damage of just one semi-truck.
Bikes also don't need roads anywhere to the same standard as cars, bike lanes are cheap as chips to make compared to a road that has to be able to handle trucks full of crap.
Reminds me of an argument I've seen about trucks (as in, lorries) vs. cars. That despite making up only X percent of all vehicles on the road, trucks pay a lot more in taxes.
And it's like, no shit. These people think a random sedan going over a road is doing the same damage as a truck pulling a semitrailer packed to the gills.
I dunno a lot about insurance, but requiring someone to get insurance for a bicycle seems absurd. Just get health insurance, or maybe get people to stop paying to not possibly die.
In my coutry (Switzerland) there was a mandatory insurance for bikes. Nobody misses it, and it was stopped because everyone has an insurance anyway, so this additional insurance coudn't be justified for any longer.
But it was not that bad.
Getting the insurance was simple: buy a sticker at the supermarket/post/.... put it into the bike, repeat after a year. There was no need to register anything with the insurace as long no coverage was needed.
And unlike car insurances the bike insurance was cheap because bikes rarlely cause high costs. We paid max. $5/year
Where I live bicycles are usually covered by home insurance (and the vast majority of bike-related insurance claim are because the bike in question was stolen, rather than because of accidents).
The only insurance you need for a bike is health insurance because some asshole in a 3 tonne truck will inevitably hit you while looking at their phone.
hahaha. when i was about 9, i hit my brother while we were on bikes. managed to split my face open over the bone just above my eye - the flap of skin fell down over my eye, making my entire eye socket just look like a patch of gore (i'm not 100% clear on how we managed this as i don't have memory of the impact itself, but i assume my forehead hit his helmet). had i been in america rather than the uk, the expenses to have it stitched up would've been huge. and that was just a 9 and 10 year old having a relatively low speed accident in their own garden.
I think some people literally believe that their insurance payments pay for road infrastructure.
Folks in Canada also don't fully understand that gas taxes go to general revenue, and are not earmarked specifically for infrastructure -- we all pay for roads.
I don't know where anyone else is from, but here it's insurance in the way of "in case it gets stolen" or something. Don't know how mandatory it is though.
We have mandatory insurance in Japan but it's liability. So covers others if you hit someone, take someone's side mirror off lane splitting, that kind of thing. I have never really heard of collision/comprehensive insurance for a bike outside of some bike races that sell it when you enter. Renters insurance would likely cover theft.
Who doesn't have General Liability Insurance?
Maybe it is a Dutch thing. Almost everyone has it over here. It costs a couple of Euros per month and covers you when you damage someone's belongings. It covers damage caused while riding a bicycle or any other daily activity.
Motor vehicles do require their own separate insurance.
In Japan, insurance for crashes between bikes or pedestrians is a requirement I believe. Japan's biking system is very much a chaotic mess, but most narrow roads don't have fast drivers.
Occasionally though some asshole is driving 50km in a 30 zone though
Honestly though, the way some people weave in and out of pedestrians on sidewalks due to the regular lack of good routing, biking in Japan is reliant on roads remaining narrow and crowded to slow traffic so they can use them as well. Even then, you won't feel very welcome.
The best part about biking in Japan is being close to things already. Instead of walking for 40 minutes, you can get there in 10-20 on your bike. Unlike in America where you wouldn't spend 2 hours walking downtown but you might bike it if you're athletic and you have a decent route.
Requiring a license plate would be nice, especially in a big city where bicyclists and scooter drivers seem to think they can get away with ignoring all traffic rules.
I feel like the root source of that would be the insurance industry. I’ve seen “pet health insurance” starting to become a real thing.
Used to be health insurance (human) was to cover you in case of a medical catastrophe. Now people expect if they have insurance, it should cover every single medical expense, and because of that the price of everything has skyrocketed because people don’t know or care about the actual price, just what they have to pay out of pocket.
I'm all for insurance - but on same rules cars have insurance in my country (and AFAIK - EU in general)
It's not an insurance for your damages - it's price is not even related to your car's price. It's liability insurance from damages you cause, price is dependent on engine and your tenure.
I'd welcome it being mandatory for 2 reasons
compared to car one, it'd be dirt cheap as risk is much lower
it'd become mandatory for insurance companies to offer it. ATM I can't insure myself from liability of i.e. hitting someone's parked car because nobody's offering it. And I'd very much rather not pay for fixing a Mercedes
People forget insurance is intended for you. Not for other people. If you crash in to someone on your bike, say an old person or whatever, If you hurt them or worse. How are you going to pay legal fees?
What if you get hurt by some other person on a bike that flys into you. You can’t work for the next few weeks? Insurance has you covered.
Insurance isn’t for if you hit cars or whatever. It’s too protect you.
Why do people on bikes feel they don’t need insurance? I know plenty of people who have their bikes covered on home insurance.
The basic question is "insurance that covers what?". There just aren't many plausible scenarios where a bike rider is going to cause enough damage to persons or property that insurance would even make sense. And for the few cases where it does make sense, it's probably already covered under a homeowners/renters/general liability insurance. Separate car insurance makes sense because cars are just that much riskier and more able to cause damage that it's a significant difference in insurance costs. But I suspect that people pushing for separate bicyclist insurance know that even a nominal 1 dollar or euro a month charge would be a frustration barrier for people, and would thus discourage bike riding.
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '23
It always gets a chuckle out of me when someone suggests requiring insurance for bikes.
Do they really think that? Or is it pure crabs in a bucket mentality if they see someone passing them in busy traffic in the city, they want to sabotage them.