Bicycle Licensing: An Instrument of Racial And Economic (In)Justice

Last week, I wrote about the arguments over a planned bike lane in Berkeley, California. One resident referred to it as a "culture war."

If it is, I am surprised that controversy about another bit of bicycle-related policy or planning hasn't been seen in the same way.  I am referring bicycle-licensing regulations.

While bike lane battles have garnered a lot of attention during the past decade or so, bike licensing has been mostly an under-the-radar issue for nearly as long as bicycles have existed.  

The battle-lines in bike-lane conflicts are drawn largely along generational lines and between business owners who fear losing parking spaces and people who want more walkable and cycle-able downtowns. On the other hand, the quieter battles over licensing laws divide people, ironically, pit people against each other in a very visible way--one that has defined some loud and violent protests in recent years. 

While there was little or no bike lane construction, at least in the US, between the end of World War I and the beginning of this century, many jurisdictions, from small seaside villages to major metropoli, have had bicycle licensing regulations on their books for decades whether or not most citizens are or were aware of them. As an example, in 1957 Toronto repealed such a law that had been on the books since 1935.  Several times since, the idea of resurrecting the law, or some version of it has been re-visited and, ultimately, rejected, albeit for different reasons.

When the Canadian city got rid of the requirement that stood for more than two decades, few adults rode bicycle.  Thus, according to city fathers (yes, they were all men) "licensing of bicycles be discontinued because it often results in an unconscious contravention of the law at a very tender age; they also emphasize the resulting poor public relations between police officers and children."  Translation: Kids break a law they don't realize exists until they're busted for it, so no wonder they grow up hating cops.

The cost-ineffectiveness of the scheme was also cited in scrapping it and against reviving it.  Also mentioned in the discussions of bringing it back to life is that licensing does little, if anything, to promote bicycle safety or return stolen bikes to their owners--two rationales that have been given for mandating bike registration in what one of the city's most famous natives, Drake, calls "The Six." The cost of administering the program has also been invoked as a reason to end, or not to begin, bicycle licensing and registration programs in other locales.

During the last few years, however, an objection to bike licensing has echoed something that has motivated so many protests of the past few years:  racial injustice.  As an incident in Perth Amboy, New Jersey showed all too clearly, in those few instances when the police stop or even arrest cyclists for riding without a license--or not wearing a helmet, or for violating some other rarely-if-ever-enforced law--the ones penalized are not White and/or do not conform to gender "norms."

David Martinez

That is one reason David Martinez worked to abolish a bicycle registration mandate in his hometown and state of Costa Mesa and California, respectively. Three years ago, he went to the police to register his bike.  When he asked about the program and who gets ticketed, "they said, 'we might ticket the homeless."  That motivated him to make a public records request.  He found that, according to the department's own data, most of the citations were issued on the city's west side, an old industrial area where, not surprisingly, much of the city's nonwhite and homeless populations are concentrated.  He presented his findings to safe streets advocates who, in turn, contacted politicians.

Now Costa Mesa is about to comply with an omnibus bill California Governor Gavin Newsom signed in October.  It calls for, among other things, the abolition of bicycle-licensing and -registration laws and regulations, which have been locally administered, throughout the state. Costa Mesa is the latest municipality to align itself with the new law.

I don't know whether Martinez or anyone else in the Golden State has framed the effort to end bicycle registration as a "culture war."  However, whether or not he has used such terminology, he (like, I imagine, Newsom) no doubt understands bicycle licensing--or, more precisely, how it's enforced--as a racial and economic justice issue precisely because it has never served the purposes (safety, recovery of stolen bikes) given as its rationale.

Is The Idaho Stop A Racial Justice Issue?

In previous posts, I have advocated "Idaho Stop," which allows cyclists to roll through stop signs at empty intersections and to treat stoplights as "stop" signs.  As the name indicates, it was first codified into law in The Gem State--in 1982. Despite proof that it does more than almost anything else to promote cycling safety--after all, an intersection is the most dangerous place for a cyclist--it's been slow to spread to other jurisdictions. 

Now, Colorado might be ready to join them.  A few cities and towns within the Centennial State have already legalized it, or modified versions of it.  But a bill that would allow the "Idaho Stop" statewide is about to go to Governor Jared Polis' desk, having passed both the state's House and Senate.  A spokesman for the Governor did not say whether or not he'll sign it.

Massimo Alpian hopes he does.  A lifelong cyclist, he surely understands how such a law will help to make cycling safer by reducing the risk of, say, being clipped by a right-turning vehicle in front of him.  But the also believes the "Idaho stop" could be a racial justice issue.

Photo by Hart Van Denberg, from CPR News

Years ago, he recalls, he was riding blazing down a road near Boulder.  Three cyclists in front of him shot through a "Stop" sign.  He followed, "right around the same speed," he says.  Then "I was pulled over and ticketed," he recounts.

Now, some might say that as officers in such situations are wont to do, they went after the "low hanging fruit," i.e., the last cyclist in a line.  But Alpian, all of these years later, still wonder whether something else was at play.  You see, he is the son of immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East.  The three cyclists in front of him were Caucasian.  

I get the impression that his diplomacy skills are better than mine.  He says he was "confused" as to why he was targeted. "If I was doing something blatantly egregious, sure, I'd feel bad that maybe I was breaking the law or putting other folks at risk."  But what he did would have been perfectly legal under an "Idaho Stop" regulation and, law or no law, put nobody at risk.  So, it's hard to blame him for harboring any thought that he was stopped because of his brown skin.

That, he says, is one reason why he wants Governor Polis to sign the bill into law.

I wonder whether the cops who stopped him went on to become Senators from Texas and Tennessee.