[bikeqld] Queensland bike lobby group wants cyclists to be licensed | The Courier-Mail

[Ian Lister]

On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, Richard Hockey wrote:
> So did the CM invent the quotes attributed to Ben Wilson?

I don't know. They're pretty unexciting compared to the (unsubstantiated) 
opinion added to the top of the article by the "journalist" and editor, 
though. Not a single quote in the article supports the headline's claim 
that "[BQ] wants cyclists to be licensed", and the lead paragraph's claim 
that BQ won't give any argument against licensing cyclists appears to be 
based on misconstrual of the quote in the fifth and sixth paragraphs:

> "Most cyclists have a driver's licence, and if they break the law, they 
> get a fine, but it doesn't affect their driver's licence," he said.
> 
> "There is reason to say that a driver's licence should have the ability 
> to be penalised or cancelled if a bike rider is anti-social."

While there is of course always the problem of limited context, I read 
that quote as admitting that an argument _could_ be made for traffic 
offences by cyclists to incur demerit points against a (motor vehicle) 
driver's licence _if_ the cyclist has one. I don't see that it refers to 
licensing for cyclists at all (neither a new class of licence nor 
mandatory possession of any kind of licence), although that is the subject 
of the article and how the quote is being presented. Nor do I see that the 
quote is in favour of (or gives any opinion on) demerit points for cycle 
offences.

So, I don't see anything particularly interesting in the quotes attributed 
to Ben, and therefore I don't have any real reason to be concerned about 
how accurate they were. It's just a beat-up of an article by an 
anti-cycling bigot who, as John said, just wants to create a bit of 
controversy. It's an old recipe and seems to have worked yet again.

Sounds like you think the quotes are controversial in themselves, though?

Ian