Originally Posted by
Bekologist
woah, woah! stop the horses, there, John.
I've clearly explained, and illustrated with your California traffic codes, that it is the SMV-FRAP law that embodies the principal of prima facie guilt for failing to operate FRAP. Not the BIKES-FRAP law, which contains no such provisions.
Your statements about the law deliberately or haplessly misleads about both California traffic code as well as the duties of slowly driven vehicles under SMV-FRAP laws, which are fairly uniform across the states and provide far less explicit protections for cyclists.
This argument contains two different assertions. One is that the phrase "right-hand lane available for traffic" does not mean what it says but applies only on roads with two or more lanes in each direction of travel. I earlier asked you, Beck, to supply the legal appellate opinion that the meaning of this phrase is restricted to the condition that you claim. You have not provided that legal opinion. Therefore, I say that your convoluted argument, built to suit your ideology, that the meaning of the phrase is more restricted than normal English would hold, should be considered false unless and until an unopposed appellate opinion so holds. Therefore, we should base our discussion on that conclusion rather than on your argument. The text of my previous request is repeated in the paragraph that follows.
Beck, you are making the claim about the "standard and long standing position" that the phrase "the right-hand lane available for traffic" does not apply to two-lane roads, but only to multiple-lane roads. Since you claim that in legal terms this is the "standard and long-standing position", then you must be able to provide legal support from appellate opinions for your claim. If you cannot provide such legal support, your opinion is no more than hot air.
Given the conclusion that the phrase "right-hand lane available for traffic" applies to both two-lane and multi-lane roads, then the California SMV law has no effect until the supposed offender has moved from the right-hand lane available for traffic to another lane that is to the left of this lane. In short, the cyclist law kicks in the moment the cyclist has left the right-hand edge, while the slow-moving vehicle law does not kick in until the offender, considered a cyclist for this discussion, has gone all the way across the right-hand lane and is in another lane further left. Clearly, the SMV law, when applied on roads with traffic lanes, gives the cyclist a lot more leeway than does the cyclist FRAP law.
The second assertion in Beck's argument is that the "prima facie evidence of guilt" stated in the California SMV (21654) law makes it much more coercive than does the cyclist FRAP law (21202). Beck argues that it does, but Beck's opinion is immaterial in a court of law. Each law can have judicial effect only after an officer testifies that the offender was moving more slowly than other traffic and was not in the permitted lateral position. Both laws require the same type of testimony, and in each case that type of testimony establishes a prima facie evidence of guilt, from which the supposed offender can escape only by providing a legitimate explanation for his action. There is no difference between the laws in the evidence necessary to justify a trial; it is the same in each law.
In summary, Beck's legalistic argument depends on two assertions, the first of which has no support in appellate law and the second of which has no support in legal procedure. We should not allow ourselves to be bothered again with this ideological argumentation, that is unless and until Beck provides legal opinions that support his argument.