Originally Posted by one_beatnik

You all need to research the whole thing here. This was because of a family suing Crawford county over the husband's death on RAGBRAI. The lawsuit was not decided because the county settled out of court at the request of the county's insurance company. Of 99 counties in Iowa, 48 are insured by this company. The counties are now trying to push the state into passing a law protecting them from this sort of thing. (My own county just passed a resolution asking the state to do that) Most of it is knee jerk reaction. It's much like the Mcdonald's hot coffee suit. If this had gone to actual court, it may have been a different story...maybe.
The road the guy died on was not that bad. There is/was a seam in the middle between the lanes that the guy caught his tire in going 45 mph! Perhaps the county should have ticketed him for not riding responsibly. He wasn't in any lane! (I'm not serious about that so don't flame me, but it does open up some interesting possibilities.) With time this may blow over, but in today's lawsuit happy world, who knows.