Advocacy & Safety - Guerilla Bike Lanes?

Lawyers win again....


In case you were wondering, attorney Kenny Ching at GOOD says painting guerrilla bike lanes on your favorite cycling streets is a trouble-ridden idea. What kind of trouble?

Catastrophic trouble. Never mind property damage and vandalism. You could be responsible—legally, financially, and otherwise—for a car hitting one of your fellow cyclists. You’d likely be found negligent because you should have known (a reasonable person would have) that by painting a bike lane in the street that didn’t really belong there, people would ride their bikes in it. You should have also known, because a reasonable person would have, that cars that regularly drive on that road wouldn’t be expecting bikes cruising down the middle of it as if they owned it. Finally, you should have known that, at some point, this would cause some car to collide with some bike. At that point, because of your breach of your legal duty to act reasonably, you will have caused and be liable for whatever damage occurs. You’ll be extremely lucky if it’s only a wrecked bike or car.

If you want to get a bike lane, do it the right way. Go to your city council and ask to have it made official. If you want to dramatically increase your chances of getting this done, get a bunch of your friends and neighbors to chip in, go to a good law firm, and hire a government affairs attorney who specializes in local government matters. She might even do it pro bono.

Or go straight to unlikely bike champion Ray LaHood. For subversive fun, guerilla gardening is a safer bet. Although, says GOOD’s Ask a Lawyer feature, seed-bombing has legal risks too.

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-30-lawyer-no-you-shouldnt-paint-your-own-bike-lane/

Said it before, I'll say it again -- paint the sharrows, and teach the ignorant 4-wheeled masses what they're for.

Yup, paint Guerilla Sharrows.

Quicker and easier.

(not that I'm advocating any guerilla pavement markings)

Little monkeys are easier to paint than gorrillas........... ok I will go back to work and switch to decaf

Little monkeys are easier to paint than gorrillas........... ok I will go back to work and switch to decaf
Less paint, right?

Gorilla Bike Lanes?
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/4999/article17big.jpg

the only guerrilla bike lanes I have ever heard of are the ones in NYC where they just re-painted where the city had removed the lanes due to local complaints.

Sounds like a stupid lawyer commercial. He should write a similar liability article about the dangerous city painted bike lanes.

I don't really think this holds up entirely. Most bike lines are in the spot where the law requires you to ride, as far right as practicable. So I don't know how someone would be liable if someone used a "guerilla" bike lane and got injured or hit. If the guerilla bike lane specifically directs people unsafely then maybe but otherwise I don't see the liability.

I don't really think this holds up entirely. Most bike lines are in the spot where the law requires you to ride, as far right as practicable. .
Wrong. Often bike lanes are placed as far right as possible and suggest a position that may be further right than the law requires.

So let me recap.....a lawyer has told us not to do it....instead hire a lawyer to approach the city lawyer to review with other lawyers and write a law to bring before the city's lawyer/elected officials so that we can safely ride down the street. I understand now.

So you can be held liable for causing cyclists to ride too far right, instead of in the lane?

Excellent recap BILLB58. Lawyers always mess everything up.

So you can be held liable for causing cyclists to ride too far right, instead of in the lane?

That was my thought too.

and

How dare those drivers not see the bikes riding down the "middle" of the road where they aren't supposed to be.

Bike lanes? We don' need no bike lanes!

Lawyers always mess everything up.Well, the other side's lawyers always mess things up.

The lawyers on our side only mess things up perhaps half the time -- and even when they mess things up, it's not as badly messed up as it would have been had we attempted it on our own.

Gorillas don't need bike lanes. An 800lbs gorilla rides wherever he wants to.

Wrong. Often bike lanes are placed as far right as possible and suggest a position that may be further right than the law requires.

More than a few bike lanes begin under the tires of the line of parked cars, and extend about two feet out. In Seattle at least, the edges of the road are maintained to a lower standard than the rest of the road, so there tend to be more potholes, debris, and other obstacles to watch out for. But then you don't have to actually ride in the bike lane when it isn't safe to.

I don't have any problem with the lawyer's advice. He ( or she ) is suggesting that people be responsible and not direct other traffic if they aren't qualified to. That sounds reasonable enough to me. I really don't want to be telling other cyclists where they should or must ride in the street. It's not that I think the city planners necessarily do a better job of deciding how traffic should move ... but it's not something I'm going to take on!

Gorillas don't need bike lanes. An 800lbs gorilla rides wherever he wants to.

Last time I checked gorrillas were almost extinct in the wild, thanks to humans

More than a few bike lanes begin under the tires of the line of parked cars, and extend about two feet out.

In other words, the entire bike lane is completely unusable. It shouldn't START until about 3 feet out past the parked cars. Let alone the condition of the pavement.

Yes, probably a bad idea.

I'm all for guerrilla sharrows, however.

I agree with the lawyer 100%. Then again, maybe I don't fully understand the concept of a "guerrilla bike lane." Is there a back story to this?

Is there a back story to this?
here's one of them (http://www.thestar.com/news/article/226454)