Laws not only outline prohibited behavior but say a lot about the priorities and values of a society. This law says the streets should be safe for all users and that you the motorist have a responsibility to to exercise care around others that aren’t protected by your cage of steel.

Finally, it is not illegal to ride your bike on any roadway in Austin. The ban on riding on Mopac was repealed years ago, but the city never took the sign down. Sorry to disappoint you.

btw, It was fun to see the cyclists riding up Mopac again this morning … What part of “don’t ride bikes here” do they not understand?

A safe-passing *is* such a fix, because the problem is the lack of a clear definition of a distance that constitutes safe passage.

“If this proposed law is about collisions, why not make the distance six inches instead of three feet, if we are really only concerned about zero inches anyway?”

Uh, no. Codifying six inches as the safe passing distance would likely worsen drivers’ behavior toward cyclists and increase the number of overtaking collisions. Three feet is a reasonable distance that coincides pretty well with what most drivers do anyway (in my experience, at least).

You’re right on target. This is a symbolic law, a piece of feel-good legislation for a vocal lobbying group. Symbolic laws serve only to weaken the public’s willingness to respect the law in general. If there is a problem with prosecuting at-fault drivers who hit cyclists, pedestrians or whatever, fine, fix that. If this proposed law is about collisions, why not make the distance six inches instead of three feet, if we are really only concerned about zero inches anyway?

But to pass a law that is not enforceable to satisfy this vocal minority is only going to increase the existing tensions between drivers and cyclists. Our Council should not waste its time on this misguided mess, and Gov. Perry was right to stand against it.

I doubt we’re going to see much effort to enforce the three foot provision outside of actual collision cases, for the reasons you’ve articulated. I was also wondering how enforcement would play out until I read this quote from Leslie Luciano:

“The prosecutors that helped author this bill told us the current statutes have no teeth. Essentially, if a car hits a cyclist and the car is at fault, they have not been able to prosecute because the wording of the statutes is vague and there is no clear-cut definition of safe passage.”

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A813806

I think this is a key part of the story that gets left out in the discussion. This is about *collisions* and the fact that prosecutors don’t have the tools to prosecute at-fault drivers who have hit cyclists.

And what is the standard of enforcement? I challenge anyone who favors this law to conduct a test using a car and a bicycle. Drive the car past the bike at about 30 mph and accurately judge the distance. Of course, you will need a helper with a good yardstick, and probably a digital camera, to help verify your measurement. Are you 35 inches away — in violation of the law — or are you 37 inches away? And if a driver gets a ticket, what evidence will the officer show to prove it was 35, not 37, inches?

Proving whether it was two feet or five feet would not necessarily be hard. But the standard is three feet — exactly 36 inches, no more, no less. What technology do you have in mind that will let such a tiny distinction be proven in court?

And if the city ordinance follows the justifiably failed state attempt, it will be even more difficult to enforce. It’s probably easier to judge whether you’re three feet from a bike than it is from, say, a wheelchair (lower to the ground) or a pedestrian.

It is very, very difficult to accurately judge distance and scale from inside a moving vehicle. Signs look smaller than they really are, and car lanes also appear smaller than they really are. And not even a policeman following close behind a car and a cyclist will be able to accurately judge a distance of three feet. The law will be unenforceable. It’s a stupid law. We don’t need more stupid laws.