Advocacy & Safety - Louisiana Legal FYI

The Louisiana Legislature has passed the HB 725 known as The Colin Goodier Bicycle Protection Act. It is still subject to the Governor having to sign it. I bring it to your attention because of it being a unique piece of legislation.It reads:

Proposed law provides that while passing a bicyclist on a roadway, a motorist shall allow three feet between his vehicle and the bicyclist.

Proposed law provides for publications and a public awareness campaign to notify motorists of provisions of proposed law.


Proposed law provides for DOTD to erect signage to encourage motorists to share the road with bicyclists.


Proposed law provides a penalty of $250 for violation of proposed law.


Proposed law prohibits taunting and throwing objects at bicyclists

I'm all for it !

Chris
Baton Rouge

Proposed law prohibits taunting and throwing objects at bicyclists

This isn't already prohibited?

I rather enjoy the taunting if it's from a bunch of college women in a convertible.

This isn't already prohibited?

Probably, but we are pretty good at repeating ourselves down here.

I just wonder if MS has this same sort of law???

This isn't already prohibited?

Assault and Battery.

I am missing something. In what respect is the law unique?

The Louisiana Legislature has passed the HB 725 known as The Colin Goodier Bicycle Protection Act. It is still subject to the Governor having to sign it. I bring it to your attention because of it being a unique piece of legislation.It reads:

Proposed law provides that while passing a bicyclist on a roadway, a motorist shall allow three feet between his vehicle and the bicyclist.

Proposed law provides for publications and a public awareness campaign to notify motorists of provisions of proposed law.


Proposed law provides for DOTD to erect signage to encourage motorists to share the road with bicyclists.


Proposed law provides a penalty of $250 for violation of proposed law.


Proposed law prohibits taunting and throwing objects at bicyclists

What are the odds of a local LEO being around to actually catch someone breaking the law???

The is good, but what good is it overall if the LEO's don't enforce it???

On the infrequent but inevitable occurrence of incidents with motorists, I think that a helmet camera would be a good investment. I'd like a rear-facing camera too. Prices have been coming down, seems very doable. I think it would be hard for leo to ignore a video.

Yet another basically useless feel good law that probably won't be enforced. There was a frame builder killed in TN earlier this year, when the bag on his bike was caught by the running board of a truck that passed too close...they have the 3 foot law and the driver was not charged, with anything IIRC.

Aaron:)

On the infrequent but inevitable occurrence of incidents with motorists, I think that a helmet camera would be a good investment. I'd like a rear-facing camera too. Prices have been coming down, seems very doable. I think it would be hard for leo to ignore a video.

Yes, but what about storage and quality of the video? True, but how seriously will they take it? My local LBS has one for about $180 and change. It runs on a couple of AAA-batteries, and uses SD cards.

And even with rechargeable batteries, think about how many batteries you're going to use in addition to the batteries for your lights. Plus how long would one be required to keep the video? Yes, memory cards have come down in price but they're still not as cheap as say DVD's or videotapes.