Frank,
Thanks for forwarding this along! I would love to see this excerpt and your commentary posted on our website, if you and Gunnar approve.
Best, Drew
On Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 10:42 AM, Frank Gmeindl fgmeindl@gmail.com wrote:
Here's an interesting article from NC Bike Walk about Far to the Right laws: http://www.bikewalknc.org/2015/11/the-evolution-of-stay-right-laws/?utm_camp... . It's long but worth reading if you are a cyclist. I am happy that the City of Morgantown has repealed its FTR ordinance and only hope that the state, particularly WVCC will see the light.
BikeWalk NC Recommendation on Bicycle-Specific Stay-Right Laws
There are three fundamental problems with bicycle-specific stay-right laws as they have been proposed, enacted, and revised in ways that assign bicyclists inferior rights to marked travel lanes:
- Most marked lanes are too narrow for same-lane passing to be safe.
The rule and its exceptions are presented backwards. 2. If a stay-right law does not make it clear that it is up to the bicyclist’s judgement to decide when to operate away from the lane edge, then bicyclists who employ defensive bicycle driving techniques face constant threat of citation or harassment by less knowledgeable police officers who have different opinions of where bicyclists should ride. 3. If a bicycle-specific stay-right law truly allows a bicyclist discretion on where to operate in a marked lane, it is unenforceable and unnecessary.
By comparison, the generic stay-right law addresses all vehicle types and provides equitable treatment for users of marked travel lanes. This raises the question of what, if any, valid motivation exists for a bicycle-specific stay-right law. It is quite rare for bicyclists to use a full lane when the usable width of that lane is truly wide enough for safe same-lane passing and such passing would be advantageous and appropriate under the conditions present. Rather, motorist complaints about bicyclists using a full lane almost always involve narrow lanes where same-lane passing would be unsafe. Bicyclists using a full lane in daylight are rarely involved in car-bike collisions, while most motorist-overtaking collisions involve bicyclists riding at the right edge of narrow lanes. For these reasons, BikeWalk NC opposes enactment of a bicycle-specific stay-right law or modification of the state’s existing stay-right law.
Frank
Bikeboard mailing list Bikeboard@bikemorgantown.com http://wvcompletestreets.org/mailman/listinfo/bikeboard