Column: If more bicyclists take to the roads, they need to be licensed

Before the City and County of Honolulu goes any further to encourage bicycles as a regular means of transportation, it needs to address certain contradictions in its attitude toward bikes and bicyclists.

On the one hand, bikes are viewed as children’s toys. If there are any laws governing registration, they are rarely or never enforced. No inspections are required to make sure they have adequate reflectors and lights, nor warning bells to alert pedestrians of the bicycle’s approach.

Bicyclists aren’t licensed and are not tested to make sure they know the laws pertaining to operating on the roads and sidewalks of Honolulu. I have witnessed a bicyclist knock down a young girl because she unknowingly backed into the path of his bicycle on a Maunakea Street sidewalk. It is my understanding that bicycles are not allowed to be ridden on sidewalks in commercial areas, which means nearly the entirety of the heart of Honolulu.

Living downtown, I see bicycles being ridden on the sidewalks on a daily basis. There is no requirement for insurance. If the city’s policy of encouraging cycling is successful, more and more bicycles will be involved in bike/pedestrian and bike/vehicle incidents (two bicyclist fatalities so far this year). Shouldn’t bicyclists be required to carry insurance?

For 30 years, I have been walking my dogs around the block on which I live. I have lost count of the number of times bicyclists have passed me from behind without giving me any warning. On the other hand, I can report only four instances of being warned by bicyclists — only one with a ringer, the rest vocally — approaching me from behind. The bikes are so quiet that my dogs don’t hear them coming, and since my dogs frequently cross from one side of the sidewalk to the other, I am concerned that a law-breaking bicyclist will mow down one of them because he or she is approaching without warning from behind us. In fact, one of my dogs came within inches of being run down by two bikes.

The city seems bent on encouraging bicycling. The likely result will be a combination of more bicycles on the sidewalks and more demand to convert traffic lanes to bike lanes. I frequently have reason to drive down King Street. Except for the day the bike lane was opened, I have never seen more than a handful of bicyclists using that lane while I traveled the entire length of it.

We are devoting way too many resources for a minuscule portion of the population, while the city can’t even maintain the roads already in place. Is it time to license bicyclists?

Andrew Rothstein is a long-time real estate appraiser in Hawaii.