Perth cyclists are "useless", do not know the road rules and should be forced to undergo training before being allowed on the roads, former West Australian transport minister Simon O'Brien says.

The Liberal Member for the South Metropolitan Region, who was the transport minister from 2008 until 2010, said cyclists should be forced to undergo training before they are allowed to ride on the roads.

He said many did not know the basic road rules, or did not follow them.

Mr O'Brien said Perth had a reputation for having bad drivers, but cyclists were just as bad if not worse.

"Many of them simply don't know how to ride on the road and share the road with other road users," he said.

"I used the term useless [when referring to cyclists] in the context of a debate in the [Upper] House.

"I think it's recognised that collectively Perth drivers are pretty useless, but they're not the only road users that need to learn how to use the roads better, and I'd like to see more education and training for cyclists of all ages."

Mr O'Brien said cyclists could go on the road without any training or qualifications, which not only poses a risk to themselves but to other road users.

"I'd like to see a culture in Perth where we trains kids and adults in how to use the road correctly," he said.

"That is something that is supported by Dutch authorities who cite their education of students as a major [contributing] factor to low bike injury rates in the Netherlands."

Blame game unhelpful: Bicycling WA chief

Bicycling WA chief executive Jeremey Murray said Mr O'Brien's comments were ill-informed.

He conceded there were a number of cyclists who do the wrong thing on the roads, but said car drivers were just as bad and both groups need to be educated.

"It doesn't move the conversation forward if we start pointing the finger at each other and start a blame game," he said.

"We certainly need to look at ways of improving the behaviour of cyclists, improve the behaviour of car drivers so that we can all share the road more effectively."

Mr Murray said most cyclists on the roads also drove cars and were aware of the road rules. He said he doubted forcing them to undergo further training to ride a bike will be helpful.

"It's not that we are all doing the wrong thing," he said.

"Certainly there might be a small proportion of the population of that is doing the wrong thing, but that is really on both sides of the equation."

Mr Murray said cycling groups were working with Premier Colin Barnett, current Transport Minister Dean Nalder and Minister for Road Safety Liza Harvey to get more people on bikes and to improve the behaviour of all road users.