BILL 23 2023 - Motor Vehicle Amendment Act

There used to be a very clear delineation of what a road user was. You were generally either a pedestrian, a cyclist or operated a motor vehicle (driver). Ok, a farm vehicle operator as well (but no reference to riding a horse ?).

Simplistically, there used to be combustion engine vehicles, motorbikes, (plsu Vespa-like scooters), bicycles and pedestrians.

Now we have electric cars, electric motorbikes, electric bicycles, electric two wheel stand-up scooters, electric skateboards and there's even electric roller blades!

Only the first two groups (motor vehicles and motorbikes) require a license, which demonstrates a knowledge or the rules of the road and proficiency in the use and control of your vehicle.

Why should the operator of an e-bike or e-scooter not be required to demonstrate the same proficiency? Also, why shouldn't a non e-bike user also demonstrate the same proficiency (other than for historic reasons)?

When an unhelmeted e-bike operator runs a STOP sign, making an unsignalled left hand turn across oncoming traffic or by "cheating" along the crosswalks, narrowly avoiding getting hit and then accelerates away on his altered bike with the speed limiter removed, allowing him to accelerate to in excess to 70 kph as he passes between the row of vehicles backed up at the next light and the row of parked cars, should that person not be aware they are actually breaking the law?

What about the e-bike flying along at 40-50 kph in the parallel combination bike path / sidewalk or just along the curb, who decides that even though he can see that row of vehicles ahead signalling and doing a right turn ahead of him, they are entitled to breeze past the row of vehicles and through the crosswalk at and the vehicle operator out to have known they should have stopped and waited for what was a tiny spec in the side mirror just seconds ago to now fly by on their right hand side, lest the vehicle operator be deemed at fault for sending them flying over the hood. Of course, the "smart" e-bike operator would have timed their move better so they could swerve in between two turning vehicles and instead freak out the oncoming driver who sees the cyclist dance briefly into oncoming traffic before they carry on straight.

I used to cycle. As a 14 year-old kid, I had a police officer at a "radar trap" yell at me to stop as I was going down Delbrook in North Van. I slammed on the brakes, nearly bursting my tires as I skidded to a mad stop some 200 ft further down. When I got back to his position, he gave me a serious scolding for doing 76 kph down the hill and asked what if it was not he who told me to stop but a vehicle that pulled out of a driveway that stopped my bike instead? I smartened up after that. I also later took Young Driver's of Canada training when I got my license.

My point is progressively more and more road users who will be using vehicles which do not require a license, a demonstrated proficiency in the rules and expectations of using the road. Many young people no longer even bother getting a driver's license but will be all over the roads and make up a greater proportion of users every day. They will be doing so in the most vulnerable forms of electric assist mobility, most at risk for injury and death.

Part of what is making autonomous driving so difficult is that in the real world, things don't behave as they are expected to. If more and more users of the road don't even know what's expected of them, then what?

When I read

HUB Cycling is pleased to see the introduction of a minimum safe-passing distance law and other protections for vulnerable road users,” said Erin O’Melinn, executive director, HUB Cycling. “The majority of local residents cycle regularly or want to cycle but are held back by safety concerns. This is an important step to making all road users safer and to providing comfortable options for people to get around.

I don't see them advocating for a vulnerable road user certification program or licensing. The vulnerable road user is no wiser and HUB telling them they'll be safer relying on others to provide a safe environment for them. All road users will be safer when they all understand and demonstrate and proficiency in the rules of the road.

That's a big enough rant for now., but I did not even mention how it seems much of the roadway "improvements" I've seen to make it "safer" for cyclists actually appear to create area which require much higher cognitive loads to traverse safely, regardless of mobility form, while giving the illusion of making things safer. It's the equivalent of the TSA's theater of security.