Hello, Ms. Baby, you'll be leaving, along with your buddy Mr. Bathwater.

First, take a look (if you like) at Brian McGory's screed on the plague that is the Boston cyclist. I'll be here when you get back.

Read it? Okay.

I have a better solution. If we expect cyclists to obey Boston traffic laws, let's treat them more like motorists. To wit: every bike that hits a Boston street needs to have a smallish license plate. Make it a one-time fee of $20. The money goes to educating cyclists, drivers and pedestrians about coexisting on the roads (pedestrians can be as much of a scourge on the roads as anyone else). Every cyclist gets a manual: here are Boston's traffic laws. Here's what you can do. Here's what you can't do. Every time you do something illegal, it's a $100 fine. Second offense, $200. Your license plate is tied to your personal info, so you can be tracked down for failure to pay.

Cops would have latitude to dispense a warning, but the 40 for 40 citations-to-warning ratio cited in McGory's piece is pathetic. (Adding a 20% bike coupon and a helmet for the first hundred people reduces a warning from a slap on the wrist to a joke. What's next, milk and cookies?) For every person who gets a warning and becomes a better commuter, there's someone who ignores it or backslides after awhile. A warning is fleeting, but a $100 fine lingers in the memory, and not fondly.

Banning bicycles is as dumb a solution as you can ask for, and it's made worse by the broad strokes McGory paints cyclists with. Sure, let's discourage people from commuting in a manner that's healthier for them and the environment (discounting for a moment the unhealthy stresses cyclists endure by riding alongside cars, trucks and buses, and the much smaller stresses drivers endure sharing the road with bikes). And while we're at it, let's assume all cyclists are arrogant and entitled. After all, I assume all Op-Ed columnists are opinionated blowhards, so we're even.

Maybe I'm biased--to paraphrase Kid Koala, some of my best friends are cyclists. But if the situation is addressed properly, more bicycles on the road would be better in the long run for the daily commute, not to mention the environment and the health of the people who saddle up. It might even get some of us off our lazy asses and onto a two-wheeler, instead of riding in to work every day in a car, bus or train.