Green light for cycling scofflaws?
It happens all the time at Salt Lake Valley’s stop signs, and often it irks the motorists idling patiently.
“Did you see that #$%&*@! bicyclist just blow through that stop sign?”
Actually, cycling advocates insist, there’s both a practical and a safety reason to let pedal pushers skirt the letter of the law. That’s why Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, is crafting a bill to legalize what’s already happening.
“If there isn’t a car coming, the cyclist could go through,” Moss said.
Stop signs would become yields, but Moss envisions continuing a prohibition on running red lights.
Stop-as-yield is not a novel idea, and in fact is long-established law north of Utah’s border with Idaho. There, cyclists may even go through red lights after making a complete stop.
Holladay resident and recreational cyclist Dave O’Leary suggested the bill to Moss. Letting cyclists continue their momentum through a stop is little different than letting pedestrians and joggers continue when it’s safe, he said.
“Joggers don’t necessarily stop at stop signs,” he said. “They kind of look both ways and then they run.”
It’s safer for bikes to continue through stops than it is for cars to do so, O’Leary reasons. A bike’s speed approaching an intersection generally is slower, as is its acceleration into traffic.
Still, he frequently hears it from frustrated motorists who roll down their windows as they pass.
“I had
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one recently who was really irate, who said, ‘You cyclists always get your way,’ ” O’Leary recalled. “Then I watched as he slowed down at the next stop sign and drove right through.”
O’Leary and Moss figure a law codifying cyclists’ unique right of way might dampen the animosity as motorists recognize there’s a rule.
It works in Idaho and there’s been no noticeable backlash from motorists, said Josh Saak, a traffic-design engineer with the Ada County Highway District in Boise.
Treating stop signs as yields makes practical sense for cyclists because it takes work to regain momentum after a stop, he said. It’s also a safety enhancement because it allows cyclists to maintain visibility by staying out front of cars that might otherwise shield them, he said.
“I can’t think of anyone getting hit because of this [law],” he said.
Utah state Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, said he’s skeptical but will hear Moss out on the proposal. It wouldn’t seem to improve safety, he said, and he worries about liability conflicts.
“I’m thinking from the point of view of riding a bicycle,” Bramble said. “If it appears the intersection is clear because I didn’t see the automobile coming, does that mean it’s the automobile driver’s fault?”
Bramble himself was the victim of an accident while on a bicycle, and required physical therapy for broken vertebrae. “I see [bike-auto conflicts] from multiple perspectives,” he said. “I would approach it with an open mind.”
He said that would mean hearing from cyclists, the state police and former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson, a biking advocate with whom he struck a compromise to enact the law assuring Utah cyclists of a three-foot cushion from vehicles where practical.
Moss said she’ll speak to experts before sketching out the details of her bill for the upcoming legislative session. However it turns out, she said, she hopes it makes cycling in Utah more comfortable — something she says is economic development in a state that draws heavily on quality of life and tourism.
“We ought to be encouraging the use of bikes whether it’s for purely transportation use and going to work or for recreation,” she said.