Rick

I am 61 years old and the biggest thorn in my side when bicycling has been the intentional misinterpretation and the straight out lying about the stay to the right law by both motorists and especially LEOs. The AAA is the biggest anti bicycling lobbyist organization in the US. Here is an article on one of there more recent antics. https://cal.streetsblog.org/2019/04/...l-lane-pulled/

CB HI

Adding the Idaho stop to the law would be one of the biggest improvements. Specifying 14 feet in the too narrow to share would be good.

What was the proposed text?

mr_bill

Hoopdriver

********************

mr_bill

Maelochs

A 14-foot lane is not too narrow to share .... if a car is six feet wide, a bike three feet wide, and the car passes three feet from the bike, both have a foot on either outside edge. I am pretty wide, but under three feet ... more like 2.5 feet, and under three feet wide even with packed panniers. A 7-foot--wide truck or SUV could give three feet and still leave six inches between the vehicle an the yellow line, and the bike and the fog line. Theoretically, two SUVs traveling in opposite directions could simultaneously pass cyclists safely and legally.

Not that's I'd generally let that happen if i didn't think the road was safe ...

Here's another thing. Why don't those Pro-cycling advocacy groups raise funds to appeal decisions where cyclists were incorrectly ticketed? it would only take one case where a judge was over-ruled for not knowing the law and it wouldn't happen again.

CB HI

Most of my road riding includes 8' 6" wide tourist buses, plus another 18"s of mirrors at head height on each side. How does your math work for that?

How do you manage which motor vehicle comes around the bend behind you?

The law needs to apply for the widest motor vehicle not listed as a wide load.

Funding to overturn bad judgments against cyclist has occurred. Have YOU ever contributed to one.

CB HI

bill is right that it is a mandatory bike lane law.
You should be thanking AAA and kick your buddy legislature in the butt.

Seems the California Bicycle Coalition is not a real friend to cyclist.

Rick

I only read the streetblog article not the bill. There is no mandatory bike lane law in CA. The impudence of street cops pulling someone over for not riding in a door zone bike lane and not lane surfing in and out of the spaces between parked cars and other annoying practices is what I object to. Only giving credence to the stay as far right as practical/stay the hell out of my road portion of the law is what allows murderers to walk. By not applying the whole law they are condoning bad driving practices. When I hear someone tell me they will only ride there bicycle if there is a bike lane. I have a good laugh. I am not talking about separated bike lanes around canals or rivers etc. I am talking about the ones in the soup, you know the right edge of the road were all the trash and car parts accumulate. Were there are many ways of painting the lines and different things done at intersections. Many motorists don't even understand or care to know how to negotiate them.

CB HI

No mandatory bike lane law in CA YET.
California Bicycle Coalition submitting and supporting a law putting mandatory bike lane use in force, three years in a row is disgusting. In this case, AAA is more of a cyclist friend than the California Bicycle Coalition.

Maelochs

I don't foten agree with @CB HI but in this case ... mandatory bike lanes mean if you move onto the regular road surface to avoid an obstacle you lose legal protection and then, if someone hits you, they can ssay, "The cyclist should have been in the marked lane." Worse still, if there is a "cycling path" provision like new mexico added .... that law forces cyclists to use MUPs if they run parallel to roads. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

DrIsotope

Are we operating from the mistaken point of view that traffic laws change driver's behaviors? Cyclists are still regularly shouted at to "Get on the sidewalk!" by drivers on their cellphones, ignoring all manner of traffic laws. I stay as far to the right as is practicable, and I live by the Idaho Stop. If we as cyclists are waiting on legislature to save us, we're already doomed. Locally, we don't get bike lanes put in until someone dies.

rydabent

And yet many from Calif want everyone think it is the leading green state. How green is it to take 4000 pounds of car a mile to the grocery store to get a couple of items.

DrIsotope

There's nothing environmentally conscious about California government. Let's put it this way: we have to pay a "lumber fee" every time we buy wood products. Not a tax mind you, they didn't let us vote for it, but instead railroaded us by calling it a fee and just passing it through the assembly. This fee generates about $30M a year. You might think, oh, for conservation purposes, right? Hah. The money goes to fund the agency that regulates the sale of lumber. A fee was created to pay for an agency created to spend the income from the fee. Same story for smog checks, the state doesn't actually care about emissions (the car idles for a few minutes with a bluetooth box plugged into the OBD2 port, as long as there are no engine trouble codes, you pass.) They just want to collect the +$50M in "smog certificates" every year. The DMV could have been replaced by a website 10 years ago, but it has to be there to collect the money to keep itself going.

Chris0516

This ticks me off. There are 'Share The Road' signs', all over my county. That doesn't say that a cyclist should let a vehicle be right next to them IN THE SAME LANE. Yet that seems to be the IMPLIED purpose of these signs'.

Here in Maryland, the language in the state traffic code is "as close as practicable". Which means, it is a judgment call on the part of the cyclist, not the motorist. But the majority, think it is the other way around.

Flip Flop Rider

agree with this. "Share the road" not direct enough and drivers (and some riders) don't know what it means

jimincalif

Maelochs

As some wise soul ... well,no, me actually ... has said a few times, the only thing that is going to have a significant impact on cycling safety is a widespread, long-term public relations program. "Share the road" is a good slogan but if it isn't backed up by TV commercials, internet adds, twitter twattles, and such, it becomes just another sign no one reads, like "Children--go slow."

I am nto a fan of government spending, but there is no cycling safety lobbying group like Mothers Against Drunk Driving which had sufficient membership and sufficient lobbying ability that lawmakers couldn't ignore them

No congressperson wants to tell a weeping mother who lost a child to a drunk driver, "Sorry, but we cannot help."

On another hand, no congressperson wants to meet with a cyclist at all, and no one is going to get mad at a congressperson if s/he doesn't spend money on the spandex-clad freaks, the crazy kids cutting through traffic, and the low-income people with bags hanging from the handlebars.

mr_bill

Federal DUI laws cover driving while on government property and over commercial operators. MADD was a state by state by state battle. (The Federal Government helped, only indirectly, through the National Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984, and the NHTSA push for 0.08%.)

Again, if a cyclist wants to talk about changing requirements for the manufacture or sale of bicycles, they'll want to talk to their members of the US Congress. Otherwise, it's a state by state by state battle.

My State Rep rides a bike.

-mr. bill

Maelochs

State congresspeople and State senators operate on the same principle as Feds. MADD had to work hard and for a long time. Having worked as a grassroots lobbyist, i can attest that that is the norm---what is not the norm is success. MADD had a great campaign---crying mothers is tough to beat as a visual.

Fat old men in spandex ---our campaign could be--"Tired of seeing my giant butt? pass some safe-cycling laws!"

mr_bill

Only one "fat old man in spandex" in this set. Everyone in Pittsburgh knows him. (And many are upset that he got traded to Oakland.) He not only rides a bike, he dances too.

-mr. bill

Maelochs

Excellent. That's a good thing IMO.

venturi95

Maybe not the greenest state in the Union, but there are some forward thinking laws now and in the past. Like automotive emissions laws from decades ago, and CA SB 350, requiring half of all energy production from renewable sources by 2030.

genec

Well, a watermelon, a case of beer, and a sack of ice are "a couple items..."

CB HI

My favorite, is the law requiring gasoline producers to make the gasoline to burn more completely. CA regulators were fine with the manufacturers using Methyl tert-butyl ether (CH3)3COCH3 MTBE as the additive which accomplishes that quite well. They did not consider MTBEs affinity for water and that it is a likely carcinogen. So when some fuel tanks at gas stations leaked, CA gave you cleaner air and polluted water supplies with a carcinogenic .