The Colorado Bike Safety Bill (SB 148) passed this week. The bill went through a surprisingly complex legislative process, including two conference committees. As noted by House Speaker Terrance Carroll at last weekend’s Bicycle Colorado Gala, even the state budget with about a billion dollars of budget cuts didn’t go through two conference committees.
The bill sponsors, Senator Greg Brophy and Representative Michael Merrifield, worked diligently to ensure the bill passage throughout its many votes. Their strong support of safe roads has made them valuable partners for the bicycling community.
Governor Ritter, an avid cyclist, is expected to sign the bill. It’s possible he’d sign it during a ceremony at the Elephant Rock Ride on June 7th. It would then go in to effect on August 4th.
The main safety provisions of the bike safety bill are
Passing
Motorists are required to give cyclist 3 feet of clearance when passing. To keep traffic from backing up on narrow, winding mountain roads, they added a provision for motorists to cross the center when safe and clear to do so.
Lane Position
The law requires bicyclists to ride as far right as they feel is safe. The key here is that the cyclist is the one to decide how far right is safe. Also cyclists will be allowed to ride on the left side of the road on one way roads with more than one lane.
Two Abreast
The bill clarifies that bicyclists may pass one another or ride side-by-side if they are not impeding the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.
Anti-Harassment
The bill increases penalties for harassing cyclists. The actual wording is projecting any missile at or against a bicyclist. Missiles are defined as any object or substance. Harassing a cyclist will be a class 2 misdemeanor.
By this definition, I’ve had missiles used against me. I’ve had bottles thrown at me, pop bottle rockets shot at me, ice thrown at me and other harassment while riding my bike.
According to an article in the Colorado Daily, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle believes that the Colorado bike safety bill gives cyclists carte blanche. He says cyclist will be able to ride however they want without being able to prosecute them.
I think that most cyclist would agree with me that we’d rather stay alive than ride wherever we want to. The bill will allow law enforcement to better protect cyclists on the road if they choose to. We will still need to pay attention and watch out for our own safety.
You can read the full text of SB 148 online.
|
|
|
Tags: Colorado, cycling, share the road
Blog RSS Feed
Like on Facebook
Follow on Twitter
Flickr
Contact
That is awesome! It appears as if the bill was written in plain English too!