Our driver's licensing system needs an update

From the dawn of the automotive age, driver's licenses have been a very routine and comfortable part of life. You get to your late teens, take lessons, and you get your license.

Well, I'm sad to report, this old system was just not designed for the new age of diverse road use. Today's buses, motorcycles and cars are controlled by people properly licensed to operate them on the roads. Bicycles? Not so much.

The concept of the "drivers license" sounds simpler than it actually is. When issued, it gives you the authority to use a motor vehicle on the public roads. What's hard about that? Well, it's really two licenses: one says that you've been trained and tested on the operation of a motor vehicle and the second says you've been trained and tested on the use of public roads. Cyclists may well not need the first qualification, but a solid dose of the second would be a huge step to improving road safety.

The acrimony between cyclists and the motorists has become epic. Both sides, with considerable justification, cite examples of wanton bad behavior on the part of the other. Most of the bad behaviour stems from very different ways that each community uses the roads. It's exacerbated because cyclists act as though they're exempt from the Motor Vehicle Act. They're not, and updating the licensing and insurance regime to reflect that fact needs to be done soon.

It should come as no surprise that to use the road, a road user needs to understand the "rules of the road". Stopping at stop signs and lights, staying in their lane, signaling, looking before proceding, and so on. This is the stuff that motoristst do pretty well most of the time, and that many cyclists seem to consider unnecessary because, after all, they're not driving cars.

The solution is obvious. Lets add a new license to the current system, say a "Class 9 road-use-only" license category that's required if you want to be in control of a moving conveyance on the public roads regardless of whether it has a motor or not.

Combined with existing Class 1 through Class 6 licenses for cars, motorcycles and trucks, the new "9"would extend coverage for cyclists and other non-traditional road users. It levels the playing field. If you break the rules of the road you'll get a ticket and a fine. Have an accident, you've got insurance coverage. Don't know the rules or can't afford insurance? You shouldn't be out there.

It's time for the legislators to take action on unqualified and uninsured road users and make "road use" licensing a reality. It's time to make all road users accountable, whether they're rolling around on two, four, or eighteen wheels.