Delaware Senate Passes Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act

Making cycling and walking safe, convenient and fun in Delaware

Delaware Senate Passes Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act

July 1, 2017 Legal and Enforcement Legislation and Policy Traffic Control 5

With overwhelming victories in both the Delaware House and the Delaware Senate, the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act now goes to Governor Carney for action.

  • To quote a News Journal reporter who had trouble maintaining his professional objectivity: "Ye-haw"!
  • With leadership from Senator Sokola and Senator Hansen, the Delaware Senate passed the Bicycle Friendly Delaware by a vote of 20 to 1 just before midnight. The bill now heads to Governor Carney for action.
  • The Prime Sponsor of the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act is Representative Larry Mitchell, who represents the Elsmere area. (Click on slide to read Representative Mitchell's Facebook post.)
  • There are five elements of the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act.
  • Cyclists are mostly killed at intersections in collisions with cars and trucks. Bicycle traffic signals are an indispensable engineering tool to prevent these deadly crashes. The Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act would enable the Delaware Department of Transportation to deploy bicycle traffic signals in Delaware as a safety countermeasure.
  • Cyclists can easily be startled and swerve into traffic by vehicle horns designed to be loud enough to be heard inside other vehicles. The Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act would prohibit honking at cyclists when passing when no imminent danger of a collision exists. (Image credit: Bikeyface.)
  • It can be extremely dangerous for motorists to try to “squeeze” by cyclists in a travel lane that is too narrow. The Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act would require motorists to change lanes to pass cyclists (and farm equipment and animal-drawn vehicles too!) in this situation. (Image credit: IAmTraffic.org)
  • Current Delaware law about “where to ride” is so confusingly written that sometimes even police officers can’t understand it. The Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act would rewrite these confusing sections of state law so that everyone – cyclists, motorists and, especially, police – understands where cyclists can ride.
  • The Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act would permit cyclists to either stop completely or to slow down and yield to other traffic at stop sign-controlled intersections.

 

 

5 Responses

  1. […] to invest in high-speed rail, leading the U.S. to fall further behind its global peers. And Bike Delaware reports that the state legislature just passed a package of bike safety measures, including one […]

  2. […] to invest in high-speed rail, leading the U.S. to fall further behind its global peers. And Bike Delaware reports that the state legislature just passed a package of bike safety measures, including one […]

  3. Henry Murphy says:

    Pedestrians were around lone before the bicycle was invented and use to share he road with the vehicles. Why not include them in new legislation to share the roads with bicycles and cars and tractor trailers? Because it would be UNSAFE? Because pedestrians are slower then today’s vehicles and it would cause accidents? Why should that matter when we are talking about their rights? Don’t NON-BIKERS have the same rights as BIKERS? Common sense, keeping slower traffic such as pedestrians and bicycle OFF the roads with cars, hasn’t mattered with regards to BICYCLES, why should common sense be used regarding pedestrians? I am physically unable to ride a bike, this law violates MY rights as an American With Disability to the same right to use the roads as a pedestrian.

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