Aren't the rules for cars based on the danger posed by a ton of metal hurtling around at 70mph, and on the chemical and explosive hazard it presents? The argument for compelling child cyclists to have number plates is, rather, the same as that for compelling us all to wear our names and addresses on our backs. That is: we might do something wrong, and then someone can inform the police whose jacket the offender was wearing. Walking schoolchildren are often in conflict with traffic - at least as much as cyclists - but I haven't yet heard the argument that they should wear their names prominently on their person. I haven't heard that argument applied to adults either. And quite rightly, most adults would be insulted by the idea. I can see no reason why the policy should apply to cyclists but not walkers, or for that matter, the car drivers who deliver their children to school.
This isn't only a matter of proportion. The policy is founded on the idea that cyclists should be held to a higher standard than others. It's rubbish.
Here's the earlier thread I mentioned.
If bikes are made to have number plates ....."
viewtopic.php?p=582067#p582067
Within that thread and with thanks to snibgo is the case of O’Halloran and Francis v. the United Kingdom
http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view. ... 6DEA398649]
One unusual feature is that the UK Govt., won and a clear cut decision at 15 to 2.
The ECHR judgment seemed to rely heavily on a judgment in the Privy Council delivered by Lord Bingham of Cornhill which began
The high incidence of death and injury on the roads caused by the misuse of motor vehicles is a very serious problem common to almost all developed societies. The need to address it in an effective way, for the benefit of the public, cannot be doubted. Among other ways in which democratic societies have sought to address it is by subjecting the use of motor vehicles to a regime of regulation and making provision for enforcement by identifying, prosecuting and punishing offending drivers. ....
Tucked away towards the end is the concurring judgment of Judge Javier Borrego Borrego (Spain) who found for the UK but was unhappy with the arcane way his colleagues got there. With a directness worthy of a cycling forum, he quotes another bit of Lord Bingham's judgment
"All who own or drive motor cars know ... that by doing so they subject themselves to a regulatory regime ...”
Adding
...we must ask: why spend twelve pages trying to explain what everyone already knows?
Back to this thread, is it a heavy-handed attempt to extend the motor vehicle rules to young cyclist or the thin end of a wedge which would have everybody with their names and addresses on their backs? But at the same time, it's suggested that the idea has only been applied to school children on pedal cycles.
