Would you expect to be ticketed for rolling through a stop sign on a charity bicycle ride?
Eight bicyclists participating in the 700-strong Bike MS: Beyond the Beltway fund-raiser in Virginia earlier this month were ticketed by sheriff's deputies for failure to come to full stops at signs along the route.
No warnings; just a ticket that carries a fine, fees, and 4 points on their driving record.
The cyclists, whose accounts of the tickets are detailed in the Washington Post, the Loudoun Times-Mirror and a lawyer's blog, say they slowed at the intersections and rolled through only when they saw that the coast was clear.
Court cases
They were dubbed the MS-8.
In one case, two cyclists slowed and rolled through an intersection and were pulled over by a deputy at a ride rest stop 300 feet down the roadway. They thought he was helping to direct traffic, until he opened his ticket book.
So far, four bicyclists prepaid the fines and took the four points. Another showed up in court to plead guilty, according to the Loudoun Times, and the judge suspended $75 of his $125 fine but added the four points to his record.
Lawyer Doug Landau represented two of the cyclists pro bono. Before the cases went to the judge, he showed photographs from the scene and other evidence to the prosecutor who agreed to reduce the charges to insufficient reflectors or lights on their bicycles. The two pleaded guilty to those charges and paid a fine, court costs but received no points on their driving record.
Another cyclists plans to go to court to fight the charge.
Safety
Loudoun County Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson told the Post that his department is issuing the tickets for safety.
“They [cyclists] forget the fact that they're sharing that road with motor
vehicles, and by not respecting the rule of the road, they're putting
themselves in huge danger. They get into a collision
with a motor vehicle, they're going to come out the loser in that deal.”
I personally don't know too many cyclists who don't realize they're trying to share the road with motor vehicles. It's an issue we're reminded of daily.
Stop as Yield
Landau proposes that Virginia should adopt the Idaho Stop Law, aka Stop as Yield Law, which allows bicyclists to roll through a stop sign after yielding to traffic in the intersection without coming to a full stop. It doesn't allow cyclists to blow through the stop sign without slowing or yielding to traffic.
You can see a cool video at BikePortland.com that shows how the Idaho Stop law works for bicyclists. Bicyclist lawyer and columnist Bob Mionske explains the origin of the Idaho law and its advantages.
Also, here's a circa 2001 article in Access magazine entitled “Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs” (.pdf) sent along to me by local blogger Knox Gardner.
Note: The photo above was taken last year on Bike to Work Day on Mercer Island, a suburb of Seattle that's known for active stop-sign enforcement for bicyclists.
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