hurricane harry

Thank for breaking a path through the snow so I could ride my bike to work today.
I had to ride in the lane, so I am sorry I got in your way.
What's that?
There is a bill in the house that would not let bikes take the lane?
Who would do something like that? A cager?
Your kidding, well he must be a girly biker then if he can't ride through traffic without legal help. Scratch that, I know plenty of girls that can ride through traffic.
Sure hope the people of Washington see how useless a bill like this would be.

abarth

Everything on it looks good, the only section that's questionable is this:

21 (2) Subject to the exception in subsection (1) of this section, a
22 person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at speeds less than the legal
23 and normal flow of traffic shall, when traffic is present, make use of
24 a paved shoulder of the roadway or any specially designated bicycle
25 lane, if such a lane exists, and such use is reasonably judged safe by
26 the bicyclist.

I do like this section.

4 (4) It is a traffic infraction to drive continuously in the left
5 lane of a multilane roadway when it impedes the flow of other traffic.

Here is the bill.

B. Carfree

I'm not too thrilled about this section either:

(2) Every person riding a bicycle upon a sidewalk ((or)),
4 crosswalk, or multiuse trail must be granted all of the rights and is
5 subject to all of the duties applicable to a pedestrian by this
6 chapter. Every person riding a bicycle shall yield the right-of-way to
7 a pedestrian on a sidewalk, crosswalk, or multiuse trail or path;
8 however, the pedestrian is not relieved of the obligation to exercise
9 due care.

It could be interpreted to mean that the pedestrian critical mass folks (4- or 5-wide peds) can simply blockade the paths with impunity. While they do that in OR too, at least here the law is on our side (no pedestrian right-of-way on roads without a sidewalk; bike paths are defined as roads). As CBHI said last year, first they were bike paths, then they were MUPs, next they become off-street sidewalks. It looks like WA is at the final phase of that progression. Good luck getting this bill into the shredder where it belongs.

prathmann

Technically this would make for an awful lot of traffic infractions on city streets at rush hour. At that time all traffic is impeded by all the other traffic and all lanes, incl. the left one, are occupied. I presume the intent is for it to apply to limited access highways - but the wording seems to apply much more generally, incl. to arterial city streets.

hurricane harry

Everyday on my commute, I migrate to the left lane on a multilane road (85st), to make a left hand turn. According to this bill, it would be illegal if it impedes traffic.

abarth

After a little research, that section is already in effect. The underlined words on the bill are what the law makers want to amend to the existing laws.

moleman76

The Cascade Bike Club board, under the "government ..." heading, has a lengthy discussion of this.

Bikes become second class road users and must scurry to the side whenever "traffic" (i.e. motorized traffic) is present.
Bikes must use bike lane or shoulder if "traffic" is present, although there is some discussion of conditions where bike rider might reasonably consider the bike lane or shoulder unsafe and thus not have to use that part.
Motorists are directed to honk horn or shout if a collision is imminent. (Whatever happened to drivers being responsible to not collide with others?)
OH, in exchange, a 3' passing space below 30 or 35 mph, and 5 feet over that motor vehicle speed, is mandated. Of course, the cop has to be there and see it and measure it before the motorist can be cited.

And, get this, apparently the BAW was involved in drafting the text, and presented it as "cyclists like all of this".

Contact your legislators, folks