Licensing cyclists would do nothing to save lives or solve the infrastructure deficit. It would simply be a disincentive to a transport mode enjoying serious growth, writes Doug Hendrie.

Here we go. In the wake of solid reporting on the spike in driver aggression against cyclists comes the backlash. Those 48 cyclists killed last year - squashed by trucks or sideswiped by SUV drivers - well, they must be to blame.

What we need, according to NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay and the mayor of Bayside Council in Melbourne, are licences for cyclists.

That's right. We definitely do not need lane separation, not stronger penalties for maiming cyclists, and definitely not the enforced one metre passing distance just introduced in Queensland.

What we need in Melbourne and Sydney is to get those lycra-clad hoons under control. Make them sit licence tests. Make them pay a fee to be on the roads. Force bikes to have licence plates. Ban the law-breakers. Only then will the roads be safe for good, ordinary car drivers once more. Only then will drivers have the freedom to drive fast into the next traffic jam.

I've tried to be generous with such policy kite-flying. If you squint, you can almost see it as well meaning, a response to the spate of car-bike crashes and cyclist deaths. Cyclists might well support such a plan if it would lead to the creation of better infrastructure and improved safety. I would be in favour of that.

But plans to license cyclists aren't about safety for those riders. They're about bringing down the banhammer on a noisy minority. They're about harvesting votes from the aggrieved drivers of Australia, who would much prefer to blame cyclists for their slow commute rather than, say, the actual cause - growing cities, low-density sprawl and sub-par public transport.

It is a classically Australian response to a problem. Here's the populist logic: drivers are annoyed at bikes for costing them 10 seconds and forcing them to change lanes. There are more drivers than cyclists. The political answer is clear: smack down the minority and ride high on a brief popularity surge from good ordinary car users. Four wheels good, two wheels bad.

Minister Gay all but admits as much: "It is a very small section of cyclists that don't do the right thing," he told 2UE in Sydney. "It would be probably under 1 per cent."

In the internet age, I realise that facts are unpopular and outrage is king, but, alas, facts are all I have to draw on. Here they are: In four out of five serious collisions between cyclists and drivers, the car driver was to blame. Most cyclists are also drivers. That means they're already licensed and already pay, in a number of ways, towards the upkeep of roads. Cycle lanes are cheap, requiring paint, or, for full separation, cement dividers.

And as for the licensing scheme itself - how, exactly, would it work? Would kids sit tests? Would every bike be licensed? The cost of introducing and administering a licensing system would almost certainly outweigh the income derived from the scheme.

As Bicycle Network Victoria spokesman Garry Brennan notes, bike registration has been abandoned in almost every place in the world that has trialled it.

If the aim of these proposals is to tackle the red-light running, aggro, middle-aged men in lycra, the solution is far simpler: police the hotspots known for bad cyclist behaviour. I've seen it work in Melbourne, with red-light runners nabbed by cops on bikes. No need for a licence.

Why does it matter? A recent editorial in the Australian claims urban cyclists are a "menace" and that "our cities are dominated by cars because they are sprawling. We have no equivalent of Amsterdam and should stop pretending we do."

But this is wrong. Increasingly, Australia's major cities are becoming denser and cycle lanes are far more efficient movers of people than a ton of car carrying 80 kilos of human.

In our inner cities, at least, cycling is vastly superior - a cheap way of maximising existing road space.

As urban development consultant Alan Davies observed last year, the social benefits of cycling "very likely exceed their financial cost". Forcing cyclists to sit tests and pay registration would be a major disincentive to a transport mode enjoying serious growth.

Licensing cyclists is a classic Australian kneejerk reaction and legislation at its worst.

It will do precisely nothing to solve the infrastructure deficit. It will discourage people from switching from car to bike. And it will do nothing to save cyclist lives.

The only winners would be the outraged drivers who blame the dead for daring to ride on their roads, and Australia's talkback hosts, for whom supposedly entitled minorities are their daily meat.

Doug Hendrie is an Australian writer and author of AmalgaNations: How Globalisation is Good. View his full profile here.