Registering the bike

was a suggestion made recently. It was made  in the state newspaper by our partly retired columnist.  He pointed out that push bikes are registered in some places.  

His argument for this centred around bicycle riders being road users and, as such, liable for damages when damage occurs. They should be insured against damage so that when their pedals scrape the paint off cars they have to pay up.

My three wheels have, so far, never done any damage to a car - but cars have done damage to them. I have been properly and securely parked and come back to my three wheels and discovered damage. No note has ever been left. It is possible the car driver was not even really aware they had hit something. 

I ride mostly on the footpaths. It is legal to do that. I am also old enough to be conscious of the dangers posed by cars exiting driveways without watching. In the usual way I go at the pace of someone walking ahead of me until I am quite sure they know I am there. If I had a cent for each time someone has said, "You could have rung your bell...." I would probably be rich - but equally I might have been paying damages to someone into whom I had run the front wheel  or  startled someone into falling over as they moved aside.  It is better to wait. 

And of course registering bikes has other issues. What do you do about those tiny bikes with trainer wheels? Do parents have to pay? What about all those curb jumping teenagers - mostly male - who pays for them? 

Do we issue licences? Are people required to be medically fit to have a licence? Do bikes have to undergo an annual mechanical check and get a certificate to say they are roadworthy?

There could also be an new level of bureaucracy to handle all this. 

I remember my first tricycle. The Senior Cat brought it home one day from school. It was a "Cyclops" brand - the most common on the market back then. They were strong and stable. They also had the most useful tray on the back in which things could be carried - including the cat if you could persuade it to stay there for the distance of a few feet.  

The Senior Cat repainted mine bright red and put wooden blocks on the pedals so that I could keep my errant rear paws where they were supposed to be. I kept it "parked" under the tank stand at the back of the house...next to the fire wood. 

It was a tricycle like that of every other child in the cluster of houses we lived in. The Irish boy across the street inevitably had his painted green. There were more red trikes and some blue trikes. We pedalled everywhere. 

I don't think we ever did any damage. I doubt we could go fast enough to harm anyone if we did run into them. It would have been more of a gentle nudge. It simply wasn't possible to do that.

Things have changed. The three, almost four, year old girl across the street from here has a "two wheeler" without any training wheels. Her speed up and down the street frightens me - because she has no road sense. Her older brother is not much better. Would they do damage? Do they need to have "L" plates and then "P" plates? Their father says it is an interesting idea.

I don't know. I do know they lack that wonderful tray at the back. Pluto (the now elderly cat from the end of the street) just sits on the fence watching them. Then he looks at me as if to say, " You had a lot more fun going places?" And yes, I did - without a licence.