H.B. 402 just passed in the House and this could potentially become a big headache for bicyclists in general. Now it is on to the Senate.
The bill states that it "requires an operator of a vehicle causing a line of five or more vehicles behind the operator's vehicle to: turn off the highway where a safe turn-out exists."
The bicycle, by definition of law, is a vehicle, so this means if you have five or more vehicles behind you on a narrow strip, you, (if this becomes law) are required to pull over to the side of the road.
This bill has caused quite a stir on the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee.
However, after reading through the bill I noticed it mentioned two important points:
As such, bicycles will not be prone to take the entire lane of traffic on the highway since the the average speed is typically around 45-50 MPH on the highway. If you want to take the lane in those conditions, you are asking for a ghost bike.
Utah State Code 72-1-102
(7) "Highway" means any public road, street, alley, lane, court, place,
viaduct, tunnel, culvert, bridge, or structure laid out or erected for
public use, or dedicated or abandoned to the public, or made public in an
action for the partition of real property, including the entire area within
the right-of-way.
Turn off the roadway wherever sufficient area for a safe turn-out exists
Arguments have been made that the cyclist would be forced from the road into unsafe conditions, however the Bill itself states turning off only when it is safe to do so.
It would be beneficial if we could hear/read/see the intentions behind this bill, but since we can't I am not opposed to this bill thus far because I haven't read any convincing arguments.. and no, losing momentum is not a convincing argument. It is the same argument used for running red lights and stop signs. Track stand is your friend.
Edit: So there are some mistakes in some of my post, however, I think the reasoning behind this bill still needs to be clarified before an alarm is sounded.
I got pulled over today while working of all things!! The officers in the squad car thought it necessary to pull me over by swerving in front of me, firing their air sirens and yelling out the window for me to "Get off the damn bike, now!" As for any repurcussions, I told them I was from Idaho (where I knew it wasn't mandatory for bicyclists to stop at red lights). So, if you're thinking of zooming through that next red light downtown, just make sure you don't hand over your license and say you're from some ambiguous state where the bicycle code is a tad laxed from Utah's. Cheers!!
ReplyDeleteI guess that law is coming from the traffic jams on the canyons... people drive way too fast there though.
ReplyDeleteWe KNOW this will give us problems with critical mass as usually some cars have to wait for us to keep a move-on. This would make it possible to ticket those of us riding CM and could potentially shut it down.
ReplyDeleteThis is what happened when I lived in Savannah Georgia. Every single CM rider would get ticketed every single time they road because of a law exactly like this- EVEN IF we are riding on the side of the road and taking up very little space- not blocking the whole thing. It turned the cyclists REALLY againt the cops and now they gun for anyone on a road bike (spandex or not). SUCKS.
This bill is no bueno.
-CHELSEA
I figure one car per every bicycle, since a bicycle is a vehicle, so if we have 20 people riding in Critical Mass, there would have to be 100 cars behind us... :)
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