The ebike class 1/2/3 concept is stupid puritan nonsense driven by cyclist jealousy and serves only to limit the usefulness of ebikes as car replacements.

  • Egon [they/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Drivers licenses function as a way to ensure the people making use of a vehicle know how to operate said vehicle. Drivers licenses help keep casualties and accidents low.
    Driving a car - or really any vehicle in congested traffic - is a complex action with many factors one needs to be aware of. Same goes for being on a moped or a bike. Knowing how to navigate traffic, knowing how your own machine works, knowing the laws for navigation, knowing how to communicate with other trafficants, knowing what is expected of you and others. These things are much better learned in a classroom rather than over time.
    The US has shitty drivers in part because it has such a lax drivers license.

      • Egon [they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Yeah lots of classes, you need a certain amount of hours on the road with a teacher. Stuff like that. The exam is also one you can fail, and you can't just retake it immediately

    • buckykat [none/use name]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Casualties and "accidents" in cars aren't low, and driver's licenses don't help. If we want everyone to know some important safety information, just add it to the public school curriculum. The existence of driver's licenses is one of the smaller problems with cars existing, because in practice they mostly just serve as a way to force most people to carry photo ID with them everywhere and give cops one more thing to bother people about.

      • Egon [they/them]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Casualties and "accidents" in cars aren't low

        I'm not saying they're low. I'm saying the fact that we require drivers to know the ways of the road as well as how to control their vehicle keeps accidents lower than they would otherwise be.

        driver's licenses don't help.

        doubt In what way would it be better if people had no idea how to drive, while sitting behind a wheel? If they had no knowledge of what was expected of them, how they should indicate, communicate, interpret and maneuver? How would this lack of knowledge be better or even keep things the same? This lack of knowledge and skills would only serve to make things more unsafe.

        If we want everyone to know some important safety information, just add it to the public school curriculum.

        That would be a great thing to do!

        The existence of driver's licenses is one of the smaller problems with cars existing, because in practice they mostly just serve as a way to force most people to carry photo ID with them everywhere and give cops one more thing to bother people about.

        In my utopia we'd still expect people to have a license to operate fast-moving / heavy machinery that can easily kill the user or others around it. The fact that the current system uses it as another tool of oppresion does not mean it is without function. There's a reason we also require licenses for machinery in construction, mining, demolition, agriculture, etc. even though the police never hassles anyone for these licenses.