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Bicycle Legislation Seeks to Raise Awareness and Increase Safety

By Joel Cameron

Photo by Bicycle Paper

Spend enough time riding a bike and you’re bound to have some close calls with the motor-powered set. While a car whipping past your ear can be exhilarating, it is seldom, if ever, fun. With the number of vehicles on the road these days, it can be a dangerous place out there for those who choose to pedal. Even so, the plea that drivers share the road with the ped-powered crowd can frequently fall on deaf ears, especially when it comes to motorists who fail to recognize that bike riders enjoy all the same rights and privileges that operators of gas-burning vehicles do, but without the protection that a modern automobile affords. Unfortunately, it seems that all too often human-powered highway users are seen by drivers as distractions or obstacles to merely be avoided and, therefore, unsafe passing and a general disregard for bicyclists’ right to safely use the public roadway are all too common.

In the most recent legislative session, several important bills were proposed that seek to address this issue of highway safety. One of these pieces of legislation is Washington House Bill 2732. This bill, which failed to pass, was sponsored by State Representative Christine Rolfes (D-WA) and would require that motorists pass bicyclists and pedestrians at a safe distance of “no less than three feet.” Currently, the law pertaining to passing someone on the shoulder of the road specifies that a driver shall do so in such a way as to “avoid coming into contact” with the walker or biker. Obviously this current law leaves much to interpretation and can lead to dangerous or tragic situations, as merely attempting to avoid contact with one’s non-motorized neighbor too often results in risky passing and fatal miscalculations.

Photo by Bicycle Paper

Bill 2686 would ensure safe and convenient travel for all road users, including cyclists.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 773 cyclist died in 2006 while another 44,000 were injured in traffic crashes. The Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, an organization funded by the US Department of Transportation, reported 750 cycling fatalities and 51,000 bicycle injuries resulting from traffic collisions in the United States in 1999. Of these crashes, the most frequent cause (12.1 percent of all crashes) involved motorists and bicyclists that were traveling on parallel paths, with the driver turning or merging into the path of the rider. House Bill 2732 sought to address this exact issue by mandating a buffer that would lessen the frequently injurious effects of mistakes in judgment or unforeseen circumstances. However, according to Rolfes, the Washington State Patrol testified against the proposal, arguing that a law of this sort would be hard to enforce because it would be nearly impossible to tell whether a driver was within three feet of a cyclist. Also opposing the bill were trucking representatives who, according to an article by Kristen Kinnamon on the Bicycle Alliance of Washington website, believe passage of this legislation would require them to travel unsafely across the yellow line. The fact that there is already a law on the books, which states that a vehicle may cross the yellow line to pass, provided it does so safely and yields to oncoming traffic, was not addressed. This bill remains in the Washington House Transportation Committee for further review.

Another piece of legislation that sought to address the issue of public safety in the roadway was Oregon House Bill 3020. Representative Jerry Krummel (R-OR) sponsored this bill at the request of Mary O’Donnel and Lorna Kautzky, both widows of bicyclists—Tim O’Donnel and Eric Kautzky, respectively— killed in motor-vehicle related accidents. It directs the Department of Transportation to, upon application by an immediate family member, erect and maintain roadside memorial signs for pedestrians or bicyclists killed as a result of a motor vehicle accident.

The signs would also help to raise awareness of bicycling in the public roadway. According to an email from Krummel, “There were enough votes in the Senate committee and on the floor to pass the bill, but it was never scheduled for a vote.” He went on to say that this result left supporters “very discouraged” because this was a great way to “raise awareness about sharing the road with no financial impact to the state or local government.”

HB 3020, which had previously been bottled up in State Senator Rick Metsger’s (D-OR) Transportation Committee after the June 2007 legislative session, had gained significant support in this most recent session, where it passed in the House by an encouraging vote of 57–0. It was subsequently sent back to the Senate, where it once again wound up in the hands of Metsger. At this point, if it had been approved by Metsger’s committee, there could have been a vote in the Senate as well. Nevertheless, the bill’s previous momentum was thwarted as, rather than being allowed to pass through this committee to be voted on in the Senate, it was instead slated for further review, a move which Drew Johnson, a legislative aide for bill co-sponsor Representative Tobias Read (D-OR), characterized as “not entirely political.”

When asked why he thought this proposal had not been allowed to progress past the Senate Transportation Committee, Representative Brian Clem (D-OR), a co-sponsor of the bill, stated that the vote to prematurely withdraw this legislation from committee before it had been properly reviewed was denied because circumventing standard procedures would have created a dangerous precedent. The unfortunate consequence is, although it appears that HB 3020 continues to enjoy overwhelmingly bipartisan support, it is essentially dead unless it is reintroduced in the 2009 session. Both Krummel and Clem continue to support the bill. Metsger has failed to respond to requests to comment on this issue.

On the Federal level, two encouraging pieces of legislation were presented that would raise awareness of bicycling’s importance to public health and ensure that all users of the transportation system are able to do so safely and conveniently. In the House, Congressional Resolution 305, sponsored by Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), recognizes the importance of these aspects and resolves to provide financial incentives, in the form of tax revenues and federal funding, for increased development of transportation systems that incorporate alternative forms of travel and encourage bike use.

In the Senate, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced Bill 2686, known as the “Complete Streets Policy.” It would ensure that transportation construction includes provisions for the safe and convenient travel of all users of the transportation system, including cyclists. Senate Bill 2686 was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, while House Congressional Resolution 305 was sent to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

For more information on these issues, as well as how you can get involved with bicycle legislation and advocacy, please visit the Bicycle Alliance of Washington website at www.bicyclealliance.org or the Bicycle Transportation Alliance at www.bta4bikes.org.