Jeff Frings I salute you!
Jeff and I have had a few e-mail conversations in the last year about his treatment by local authorities, and there wasn’t much I could do for him. He said he was going to see if some media exposure might help.
I have to say he did an incredible job! It appears his efforts have sent lots of officers to bike-awareness school, for one. I would love to see that happen here!
His blog about riding is here at http://bikesafer.blogspot.com
–Erik Ryberg
March 8th, 2009 at 10:14 am
It seems to me that the prosecutor/city involved here have reached similar wrong conclusions as the city of Tuscon
http://azbikelaw.org/articles/TucsonImpede.html
March 9th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I was pulled over for impeding traffic at 10pm on a road with three travel lanes (6 lane road). Then continually harassed on how I should ride on the sidewalk as he didn’t want to peel me off the road.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:42 am
Erik,
Thanks for the mention. I don’t know how much good it will do with these particular authorities, but I’m working with a local advocacy group and possibly a state transportation official to educate more police officers about what the bike laws actually mean.
Ed,
You are right. I read your link and the legal opinion seems to disregard the law just as the city prosecutor did in my case, to suit his own belief of what the law should say, rather than what it actually says.
In the legal opinion the AG actually says the section of the statute that expressly only covers “motor” vehicles applies to bicycles even though he admits that bicycles aren’t motor vehicles. He/she disregards the fact that 28-812 states that portions of the chapter, “that by their nature can have no application” don’t apply to bicycles. In the slow moving vehicle section there are 3 paragraphs one, which deals with “motor” vehicles, and one, which deals just with vehicles. How this AG can form the legal opinion that they both apply to non motorized vehicles is beyond me. Clearly the legislature recognized that motorized and non motorized vehicles are different and may, as in this case, need slightly different laws.
Since a bicycle is by definition not a motor vehicle, a section of a statute which applies only to motor vehicles but has a section dealing with non motorized vehicles can’t apply to non motorized vehicles. Seems pretty simple. Maybe Erik can give a better explanation of what I’m trying to say, but it seems pretty simple to me that this AG and my city prosecutor just don’t like bikes and they are trying to make the statutes fit their opinions instead of reading and applying the plain language and intent of the law.
Jeff