I don't see anything wrong with the idea of providing training and issuing license documents to bicycle riders, per se.

What I object to in your editorial ("Time for licenses to ride bikes on streets," May 9) is the conflation of the story about the city of Seattle's Bicycle Master Plan, with automobile drivers' feelings of "fury, intimidation and upset" about sharing the road with bike riders. It almost seems like you resent the attention given to bikes, with those promised new bike lanes in the plan.

I know, getting around by car, and finding parking, is becoming more and more unbearable, not to mention expensive. The bad news is it's not going to get any easier. World oil production has peaked, which means gas prices are only going to increase. Human-induced climate change is a fact, which can only be counteracted by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, hence miles driven by fossil fuel-powered vehicles. Now the good news: our city's government seems to understand the aforementioned issues, and three times the national average of our fellow Seattleites commute daily by bike, without burning oil.

Yet all you can do is grumble that these bikers are irritating and infuriating you.

It seems clear to me that you have no experience riding a bicycle in city traffic. What you see as "silly things" that "inexperienced bike riders do" are more often than not unavoidable consequences of a road environment that treats bicycles as second-class citizens.

But maybe you have some experience as a boater. If so, you certainly know that the international regulations that govern maritime traffic explicitly codify the rights and responsibilities of different types of vessels: without going into specific details, one general rule is that the slower and less maneuverable vessel has the right of way over the faster and more maneuverable one, for good reason. Thus a sailboat has the right of way over a powerboat (in general). There are no second-class citizens on the water, even though many leave the shore unaware of that.

Drivers and riders on the road, just as captains of vessels on the water, sometimes don't follow the rules, for whatever reasons. The consequences of breaking the rules, however, are very different for automobiles vs. bicycles, when we are talking about the difference between irritation vs. loss of life.

I have no beef with motorists - in the last twelve months I have commuted exclusively by bike and public transportation, and I've found Seattle's drivers to be perfectly gracious and considerate toward me when I'm on my bike. Yet I know that the city traffic is daunting enough for bike riders to scare many away, and if some serious training (and a license) were indeed available, giving more people the confidence to venture out on public roads, the number of riders would certainly increase dramatically.

I'm not sure if your irritation would be alleviated by having to share the road with more riders, albeit licensed ones. Regardless, city bike master plan or not, licenses or not, the threats and consequences of peak oil and climate change are sure to motivate more people to travel on two wheels.

Get used to it. Better yet, why not give it a try yourself?

Fulvio Casali

Ballard