[*BCM*] Special rights?

[Tom Revay]

On 10/13/2004 at 12:47 PM turtle wrote:

>The idea of having special rules for certain kinds of travellers may
>seem acceptable, but it could lead to some people (including the legal
>system) believing that it is acceptable to treat bicyclists differently
>because they are legally classified as being, well, different.  

[...]

>And, if you hadn't noticed,  this is
>already the case!  You hear police officers, judges, and pretty much
>everyone else believing that we shouldn't have a right to the road
>because we're "different".  One of the main reasons for this, in my
>opinion, is that bicycles are in their own category in the lawbooks in
>Massachusetts.  Rather than put all road users together in the section
>for traffic laws, we're stuck hundreds of pages away in the section
>about bridges.  It's kind of like getting an invitation to a party, but
>then when you arrive no one can find your name on the guest list because
>the hosts didn't REALLY want to to come...

That's an interesting analogy.  And it's pretty accurate, IMO.

John Allen has reproduced an 1897 pamphlet from the League of American Wheelmen that contains traffic law and precedent-setting court decisions that established the right of cyclists to use the public road in the late 19th century.  You can see this pamphlet at

http://www.truewheelers.org/legal/law1897/index.htm

In the 1920s, the earliest versions of the Uniform Vehicle Code were published.  The UVC is a set of model laws that their developers, the National Committee for Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances (NCUTLO) promote as the best practices laws that states should adopt.  

The UVC is revised every few years.  Some states, like California, adopt the revisions as they occur.  Other states adopted the UVC in one of its earlier versions, but didn't bother keeping up with the changes.  (I suspect Maine might be one of those states.)  And then there are benighted places like Massachusetts, where the Legislature never quite got around to adopting the UVC.

Our traffic law developed organically, with lawmakers adding to the laws from time to time as they believed necessary.  So it is spread around three or four chapters of the state code.  It's also supplemented by local ordinances, and by regulations applied by roadway authorities, like MassHighway and the DCR (formerly the MDC) on roads that they supervise.  

So when you get a ticket in Massachusetts, the checkbox that indicates your own special crime doesn't cite a law, but instead, refers to a "CMR" number.  That's "Combined Massachusetts Regulations," and the CMR is a concordance of all the rules from all the different places that could apply.  Yes, it's true:  you need an index, or maybe an encyclopedia, to figure out what the traffic law is in Massachusetts.

Believe it or not, that Massachusetts didn't get with the UVC program was beneficial for cyclists here, because it avoided incorporating anti-bicyclist mischief into our laws.

In the 1920s, the UVC considered the bicycle a vehicle, and applied the law to bicyclists as it did to motorists.  This view changed some decades later.  In 1946, the revised UVC declared the bike to be a "device," and added three restrictions:

*  bicycles had to be ridden "as close as practicable" to the right;
*  if a so-designated bike path existed near a roadway, cyclists were required to use it rather than the road; and
*  bicycles were prohibited from being operated on limited access highways.

Massachusetts adopted the third restriction on its own, without incorporating the rest of the UVC.  Thus, we have no "ride to the right" law, nor do we have a mandatory-use sidepath law.

At the time of the 1946 revisions, the highway planners envisioned a world of fast highways bearing motorists in comfort and safety from city to city at speeds of 100 MPH.  Within cities, great concrete elevated motorways would connect directly to parking garages and skyscrapers, whisking people to their destinations without delay.  Pedestrians (where there were any) would move on separated walkways.  

And bicycles?  To these car-promoting planners, they were as obsolete as the donkey-pulled cart.  They didn't fit into their vision of a shiny, modern world.  That idea survives, too.  You hear it when someone says, "You shouldn't ride there, that road wasn't built for bikes."  Never mind the fact that the road can be found on maps dating to the 19th, or even 18th century (as many roads around Boston do).

The highway planners couldn't just kick bikes off the roads, because those 1887 laws and court decisions were still in operation -- and good for the LAW for doing the groundwork to establish them!   But what were the justifications for the 1946 changes in the status and operation of bicycles?  The usual reason was "cyclist safety" -- get the bikes out of the way of automobiles *for cyclists' own good*.  

What evidence did they have that pushing bicyclists from the travel lanes improved their operators' safety?  The answer's simple:  they had none.  Zip, zilch, nada, nuffin -- they just made it up!  The first good studies in the USA of the causes of bicycle crashes didn't occur until the 1970s.  But these planners insisted that bicycle crashes occurred merely because bicycles were in the road at all.

So the UVC did its best to marginalize cyclists, much as Turil's guest list marginalized undesirable party-goers.  These restrictions still stand in some states, though they've been loosened in others.  Most states prohibit riding on limited access highways, and some still have mandatory sidepath laws.  California modified its "ride to the right" rule in the 1970s by adding a laundry list of exceptions to the rule that is prefaced by "including, but not limited to" -- making the rule pretty meaningless, from an enforcement perspective.  

But because California and other states still have the ride-right rule in some form on its books, most motorists, and many police and judges believe that cyclists are legally required to get out of motorists' way whenever a motorist desires to pass a bicyclist.

I don't believe separate but equal creates anything approximating equality.  I believe we get to our destinations as fast as we are able and desire to go, with the highest available level of safety, when we ride in conformance with traffic principles -- and there are six:

1)  First come, first served.  You get to the road first, you go first.  I get to the intersection first, I cross first.

2)  Ride in the direction of traffic, on the roadway, and not on the sidewalk.

3)  Between intersections, slower traffic travels at the right, faster traffic passes on the left.

4)  When approaching an intersection, ride to the part of the lane that best serves your destination:

*  If your chosen lane serves one destination, such as a left turn or right turn only lane, ride to the right of that lane;

*  If your chosen lane serves multiple destinations, move to the part of that lane that's closest to your destination.  If you're turning right, stay right; turning left, move to the left, staying just right of the yellow lines; and move to the middle of the lane if you're going straight.

5)  When crossing or turning into traffic lanes, yield to traffic in those lanes.  In this case, yield means, stop and wait until there's enough of a gap to allow you to cross or enter the traffic lanes safely.

6)  When merging into a lane, yield to traffic already in that lane.  In this case, yield means, stay in your current lane until there's enough of a gap in your desired lane to allow you to enter it safely.

Follow those principles, whatever you're driving, and you'll be a competent driver.

Notice I didn't say anything about stop signs or red lights.  These are specialized devices that tell you when to yield -- and so, they fall under item 5.

Cyclists should obey red lights.  That much said, there's no reason why cyclists who come to a queue of traffic have to wait through more than one light cycle to get through.  It's okay to move up on the left of traffic that can turn right, and then wait at the point where you know you'll get through on the next green cycle.  By staying left of traffic that can turn right you'll avoid being right-hooked, and you'll be more visible to oncoming traffic that might turn left.  By stopping at the point where you know you'll get through on the next green, and then merging in with traffic once it starts moving, you'll avoid the annoying "cat & mouse" passing that occurs when cyclists advance to the front of traffic queues, only to be squeezed-around by motorists who want to pass.

Plus, if you advance part way through the red-light queue, and then stop, you won't get a ticket from the Cambridge Police.  That might save you some time, and twenty bucks.

......................Tom