Madison WI Bike Registration

[Buck]

"Hunrobe" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:20030627023548.20083.00001319@mb-> >"Buck" ju n k
m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m
>
> wrote:
>
> >But that isn't the way things are set up. Every town wants a piece of the action. "Register your
> >bike in our town whether you live here or not or else!" That's why if registration were to work,
> >it would have to be at a greater scale than the municipality. I think you would find fewer
arguments
> >over a statewide registration program, especially if every state were required to have one.
> >
> >-Buck
>
> Go to the website Buck. The registration under discussion specifically
exempts
> bicycles registered in other jurisdictions. I'm unaware of *any* bike registration program that is
> any different. That's not to say there may
not be,
> just that I've never heard of one. What's certain is that in this instance
the
> owner's residency has absolutely no effect on the registration
requirement.
>
> Regards, Bob Hunt

You are correct, Bob, registration under discussion specifically exempts bicycles REGISTERED IN
OTHER JURISDICTIONS. As it happens to be, registration isn't required where I live. So I go cruising
through their little municipality and get stopped for some reason. Are they going to require me to
register my bike with them? How stupid would that be? This is EXACTLY why local registration is a
stupid idea.

Although the discussion started in Wisconsin, it expanded to registration in general. It is silly to
restrict it to a single place when the problem is widespread. There is also evidence that
registration is being used to stop cyclists, whether correctly or not. Remember a thread on "circus
cyclists jailed?"

-Buck

 

[Buck]

"Hunrobe" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:20030627101031.21121.00001000@mb-> >"Buck" ju n k
m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m
> >You are correct, Bob, registration under discussion specifically exempts bicycles REGISTERED IN
> >OTHER JURISDICTIONS. As it happens to be, registration isn't required where I live. So I go
> >cruising through their little municipality and get stopped for some reason. Are they going to
> >require me to register my bike with them? How stupid would that be? This
is
> >EXACTLY why local registration is a stupid idea.
>
> ---snip---
>
> As I've said before in this thread, I'm unsure if this is an argument
against
> registration or an argument for national registration.

I have tried to make it clear that registration is a bad idea. But some people are hell-bent on
justifying it, so I am pointing out that the only way to make it work is to make it a requirement
everywhere. This is, of course, a ludicrous idea because it is such a waste of time and resources
for a such a small population.

> If your "cruise through their little municipality" is a one time event I sincerely doubt that
> registration would be an issue. If you rode through
their
> town everyday that would be a different story. Compare their registration requirement to the
> widespread practice of requiring a village vehicle
sticker. <snip>

This comes back to the idea of why registration would be required in the first place. What is the
point? It has only two benefits - a slight increase in the probability of the return of stolen
property; and a potential source of revenue for the municipality requiring it. As for your example
of the cillage vehicle sticker, it is just another attempt to gather revenue. Something like this
would not work for bicycles unless the bicycles were confiscated when found without a registration
sticker. The village vehicle sticker works because there is a second source of identification on the
vehicle already - the license plate.

> >Although the discussion started in Wisconsin, it expanded to registration
in
> >general. It is silly to restrict it to a single place when the problem is widespread. There is
> >also evidence that registration is being used to
stop
> >cyclists, whether correctly or not. Remember a thread on "circus cyclists jailed?"
> >
> >-Buck
>
> Where is this "widespread problem"? I've been riding for over 30 years and
I've
> *never* been stopped for a bicycle registration check. I also don't know a single cyclist that
> has. Do you?

The problem of registration requirements is widespread. Fortunately for us, it isn't enforced very
well. However, there have been plenty of stories where people passing through towns have been
harrassed by local cops and bicycle registration with the local municipality was one of the issues.

I'll repeat this to make it clear to you. Registration is a waste of time and resources for
everyone. But if it is going to be required, it needs to be done on a national level so that it
provides the greatest possibility of return if the bike is stolen and poses the fewest problems for
people riding in a variety of places.

-Buck

 

[Just Zis Guy]

On 27 Jun 2003 00:15:21 GMT, [email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote:

>>Do you include trails? What about crossing the road while moving between trails? How about riding
>>100 yards of public road to the start of the trail?

>It's still a no-brainer Guy. Is the trail a municipal roadway? Then yes. Is your hypothetical
>cyclist walking his bike when he crosses those public roads between private property? If not then
>it doesn't need to be registered.

The point here is pretty simple: if you only ride your bike fifty feet to the start of the trail,
why should you pay the same fee as someone who riddes everywhere all the time? And if you scoot with
one foot on the pedal, are you riding (answer: yes, but will they all know that?)

Since the registration would not be required for bikes used offroad, and most bikes spend most of
their time parked (hence no proof whether they are ever ridden on the road or not) it seems to me
only to make sense if it's primarily a revenue-raising device, and then only if the fee was enough
to make more profit than the council could make from something else.

>>It places a barrier between the owner and the activity.

>This is really grasping at straws Guy.

Not really, it's been advanced as an argument against compulaory insurance for cyclists as well, by
far more knowledgable people than
me.

>The boat cost me nothing so using your line of reasoning that $18 is outrageous. I want my
>money back!

LOL!

>What if he does live in the next jurisdiction? That doesn't change the expense involved. If he
>rides that bike in Madison he has to register it there unless he registers it elsewhere. In either
>case, the most recent registration serves the same purpose.

As long as they all link together. I am starting to think I don't understand the underlying reason
for the registration scheme. If it's to trace bikes back to owners, it won't work because a
substantial number of bikes aren't ridden on road so they needn't be registered. If it's to raise
money, there are surely easier ways to do that with far less admin. What other reasons are there?

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com Advance
notice: ADSL service in process of transfer to a new ISP. Obviously there will be a week of downtime
between the engineer removing the BT service and the same engineer connecting the same equipment on
the same line in the same exchange and billing it to the new ISP.

 

[Bikerider7]

[email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...

> That you'd be unhappy paying registration fees is completely understandable. Heck, I don't like
> giving money to the government either. It's not an argument that there's "no damn good reason" for
> the registration though. The best argument against registration is that it serves a very limited
> public interest, one that could be served as easily and without governmental regulation if people
> simply recorded the serial numbers of their property. Make that argument and we'll be in complete
> agreement. The rest is just rationalization and complaining though.

So, it doesn't bother you that police have been known to abuse the law and confiscate "unregistered"
bikes? Just because it has never happened in Madison doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future.

Police in the Bay Area who have confiscated bikes taken during political protests have been known to
damage bikes in their custody.

 

[Bikerider7]

[email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> Since you cite no evidence of any such conduct I don't find the allegations particularly
> bothersome

Here is one (of many) examples: http://www.bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/abuse-20011211.html

> There have been documented cases of the abuse of police authority in burglary and theft cases.
> Decriminalizing burglary and theft would preclude any possibility of such abuse yet we don't do
> that. Why? Because we are willing to accept the *possibility* of such abuses in order to punish
> burglars and thieves and return the property they steal to its rightful owner(s). Punishing police
> misconduct is an entirely separate issue.
>

Your analogy makes absolutely no sense. How do you punish police misconduct when bike registration
laws let them do whatever the hell they want? At least with burglary/theft cases, we have Miranda
rights, the 4th Amendment, etc, etc that put some restrictions on police conduct.

 

[Bikerider7]

[email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
>
> Where is this "widespread problem"? I've been riding for over 30 years and I've *never* been
> stopped for a bicycle registration check. I also don't know a single cyclist that has. Do you?

Personally, I know two.

In any case, we are a society that embraces individual freedoms and due process and don't use the
excuse 'it isn't a widespread problem' to trample on someone's rights. If even one cyclist has been
improperly stopped or cited, that is one too many.

 

[Bob Hunt]

[email protected] (bikerider7) wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> [email protected] (Hunrobe) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> >
> > Since you cite no evidence of any such conduct I don't find the allegations particularly
> > bothersome
>
> Here is one (of many) examples: http://www.bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/abuse-20011211.html
>
> > There have been documented cases of the abuse of police authority in burglary and theft cases.
> > Decriminalizing burglary and theft would preclude any possibility of such abuse yet we don't do
> > that. Why? Because we are willing to accept the *possibility* of such abuses in order to punish
> > burglars and thieves and return the property they steal to its rightful owner(s). Punishing
> > police misconduct is an entirely separate issue.
> >
>
> Your analogy makes absolutely no sense. How do you punish police misconduct when bike registration
> laws let them do whatever the hell they want? At least with burglary/theft cases, we have Miranda
> rights, the 4th Amendment, etc, etc that put some restrictions on police conduct.

First, I guess I should have defined "evidence" since the link you provided was nothing more than a
complaint letter alleging that two years ago a bicycle was improperly impounded after a traffic
stop. BTW, impoundment is different than confiscation but apparently the author of the complaint
didn't understand that. A complaint does not constitute evidence of wrongdoing. If it did
investigating crime would be a whole lot easier. "Evidence? Sure, I *say* he did it. Does the court
need more evidence? If so I'll gladly repeat the accusation until the case is airtight." <g> Second,
a single two year old complaint certainly doesn't constitute evidence of any widespread abuse of the
type you seem concerned about. You remarked parenthetically that this complaint is "one of many".
Provide some *evidence* of abuse and I'll listen FWIW. Make that evidence something more than old
complaint letters though, ok? As for your assertion that "bike registration laws let (police) do
whatever the hell they want", that simply is not true. No law anywhere in the US can supercede the
US Constitution. The things you rightly point out as restricting police conduct apply no matter what
the offense alleged.

Regards, Bob Hunt

 

[Kevan Smith]

On 27 Jun 2003 23:04:00 -0700, [email protected] (bikerider7) from
http://groups.google.com/ wrote:

>In any case, we are a society that embraces individual freedoms and due process ...

No. We _were_.

--
http://home.sport.rr.com/cuthulu/ human rights = peace Will this never-ending series of PLEASURABLE
EVENTS never cease?
1:21:23 AM 28 June 2003