The Sun reports reports the good and bad for Vancouver cyclists.
The bad news is that during June, Bike Month in the city, traffic cops will be ticketing cyclists who violate the rules of the road.
The good news is that they’ll mostly be handing out “information tickets” aimed at educating bikers.
No problem there. As cyclists get more respect, and more road space, there’s a quid pro quo: know the rules, respect others, obey the law.
The problem is aspects of the law. Some make sense:
Cyclists can be dinged for $109 for riding without a bell, another $109 for not having a red reflector on the rear of the bike or a light on the front. Talking on a cellphone while wheeling down the road is also worth $109.
And then there are others:
Forget doubling your kid on the back; that’s another $109. …. Nor can you stand up on your pedals to get up that hill — if you don’t have your butt in the seat, that’s another $109.
What! Standing on the pedals is cycling. It’s how one handles a steep grade by using the muscles and body weight effectively. Cyclists train this way.
Who wrote this? Someone, I suspect, who sees cyclists more as a nuisance to the ‘legitimate’ users of the road. Not surprisingly, cycling comprises a few sections of the Motor-vehicle Act – and the name says everything.
I assume the police will be selective in their enforcement, and ignore the peloton that pushes it way up a hill, each lycra-clad body out of the seat. And that’s the problem: the absurdity of some aspects of cycling law casts doubt on all of it.
As the numbers grow, it’s in everyone’s interest to design the transportation to safely accommodate a multitude of users, to write reasonable laws, properly enforced, and to create a social consensus of mutual respect. Tall order, but doable.
And speaking of social change, the New York Times commissioned David Byrne (he of the Talking Heads) to review Jeff Mapes book, Pedaling Revolution. Writes Byrne:
Mapes finds the experience of riding around Portland — North America’s most bike-friendly city (though I think Vancouver is close) — so enjoyable that he takes as a given that it’s a positive thing, something that more communities should accommodate without question.
But as he and I know, there’s a lot of opposition. The United States is as much a car culture as ever, even if the companies that helped make us that way are now in ruins. And governments and urban planners have all been in on the game, helping make the idea of cheap, effortless transportation and a car of one’s own a dream every American might aspire to.
[...] to Langley [The Tyee] Copious alarm & a little wisdom in Chinatown density debate [City Caucus] Good News, Bad Laws [Price Tags] Vancouver plans car-free summer days [The Hook] Could General Motors build streetcars? [...]
I have no problem with city police cracking down on bad cyclists, I just wish they’d add a few bad driving habits that endanger cyclists to the list. Like:
- drivers who stop in bike boxes.
- drivers that stop/park in bike lanes.
- drivers that use bus/bike lanes as express routes.
- drivers that make turns in intersections that are clearly forbidden, except for bicycles.
I agree with Chris. How about during bike month, they crack down on ALL dangerous behaviour on bike routes and lanes?
Agreed with Chris.
I’d say that the main reason for cyclists to wear helmet is not the $29 fine, but rather that they are afraid for their lives. I cycle the off-Broadway cycle path almost every day and have a dangerous situation as many times – and they are not caused by cyclists.
So if you start ticketing cyclists for their violations, just do it at the intersections where there islands to block car traffic – and ticket the drivers that circle around them. Or where cars park in second row and ticket those. (Heavily seen on 7th between Burrard and Cambie.) Or where cars pass bikes with oncoming traffic, pushing the bikes into parked cars.
I’m not familiar with the jurisprudence, but nothing in the motor vehicle act specifically targets cell phones and cycles, or audio-electronic equipment for that manner. If they are using the using the “due care” provision, why is it only applied to cyclists? It’s time to extend this interpretation to all motor-vehicle operators, hands free or not.
It seems that some at the Canwest media (Jon Ferry in particular) here couldn’t be bothered with the provincial election, and would rather would attack the new subversive scourge that are cyclists. And it appears that they are tapping into that popular sentiment as I have not been subject to as much hatred towards cyclists as I have this spring.
great post, linked to it here on momentum:
http://www.momentumplanet.com/blog/roland-tanglao/gratuitious-bicycling-helmet-crackdowns
The headphones and cellphones are a City of Vancouver bylaw:
http://vancouver.ca/bylaws/2849c.PDF
60A. No person shall ride a bicycle upon a street while wearing headphones, or any other manufactured device capable of transmitting sound, over or in
close proximity to both ears, except that this prohibition shall not apply to the wearing of a device designed and worn for the purpose of improving the wearer’s ability to hear sounds emanating from outside of the device.
Of course, one could argue that cell phones and iPods “improving the wearer’s ability to hear sounds emanating from outside of the device”. It is hard to hear a sound from across town without one or a music recording made years ago for that matter.
How about ticketing drivers using their cell phones and listening to their stereos. Fair is fair, and they are the ones driving two tonnes of steel and glass.
I agree with the above statement. Why is it okay for drivers to blast their stereos, but not okay for cyclists to listen to music. I listen to my ipod while I ride occasionally, but i wear earbuds and can still hear what’s going on around me FAR better than if I were listening to the radio in a car with the windows up. Why is it legal for the person driving the car (the two-tonnes of metal, which could kill me in an instant) to block out it’s surroundings?
It’s unfortunate that car culture is so ingrained in our society that anyone who uses “alternative” transportation is considered a second-rate road user. These laws are so car-centric, and obviously written by people who are not cyclists, nor have any insight into issues of road-sharing.
How can I take cycling laws seriously when so many of the laws are so obviously and completely ridiculous?
Basically more nonesense. You either apply the laws equitably or don’t bother. We go through these initiatives in Victoria too. Pedestrians and cyclists are ticketed but cars running lights or failing to yield right of way at a crosswalk are not.
Charles Dickens stated ‘the law is an ass’. Little has changed
Umm, I am calling BS on the standing of the pedals. Where is it in the BCMVA and Vancouver Bylaw that states that one cannot raise their butt from a seat. When coming to a stop sign one usually has to. Otherwise I think this is great. As a 360 day cyclist (Wife has me by the short hairs on snow days) i am appaled at the level of incompetence by the average Vancouver cyclist more than the drivers. I have seen cyclists on cell phones and running reds when they have no business to do so. Bravo to the VPD for cracking down on the moronic cyclists out there. And this coming from one who rides daily.