this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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But why?
The point of these laws for cars is that cars can absolutely kill innocent people if the driver is inhibited in some way. The chance that I'll kill someone else on a bicycle is so remote it's a rounding error. Oh, and hit and runs aren't really a thing on bicycles because if I hit someone, I'm going down too and it'll take some time for me to make a getaway (and I'm not getting away that quickly).
If we jail people for riding drunk, wouldn't that just encourage them to drive instead? If you'll go to jail anyway if you're caught, might as well get home faster, right?
This article lacks some details, but I believe this is largely just treating a bicycle more like any other vehicle. As far as vehicle crimes go here, the existence of jail time as a punishment only exists if you don’t pay the fine, and these new laws just increase the fines.
Anyways, these changes are largely worthless for a couple of reasons. First it’s already a crime to use your phone while riding a bike, or riding drunk, or riding with headphones, but it’s basically totally unenforced. Same thing with riding using an umbrella, but even the police do that here!
As for drunkards getting home from the bar, they wouldn’t have a car available to them generally, so people riding drunk are usually doing so because they missed their last train, and they don’t want to pay for a taxi.