So if you want to drive a car in the same streets and highways used by trucks everyone should have a truck-driving permit? Equal rights come with equal responsibilities, no?
Cars and drivers need licensing because they kill around 40 pedestrians in this city every year, and seriously injure over 2,000 of them. Cars and drivers need licensing because over 2,000 cyclists are struck by cars in Toronto every year - with fatalities at around 10 people every year. Cars and drivers require licensing because around 80 people die in car accidents every year, with over 15,000 serious accidents and up to 24,000 people seriously injured or crippled. Cars kill and seriously injure more people than guns every year in Toronto.
Those numbers represent the casualties and collateral damage of a heavily regulated and licensed form of transportation. Imagine if we didn't license it?!
Cyclists meanwhile, who make up 10% of downtown commuters, unprotected and unlicensed, hit something like 2 pedestrians last year in Toronto. The one pedestrian who was killed a while ago was on a sidewalk, and the family members of that person didn't raise charges, instead declaring to the press:
"We'd really like to see a separate bicycle lane built"
John Tory is an alright candidate, but he is no Bloomberg.