
New California law requires drivers passing cyclists to give 3 feet of clearance - t23
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26539096/new-buffer-law-requires-drivers-passing-cyclists-give
======
mahyarm
So according to this law, you cannot practically drive in a lane beside a bike
lane because you will be less than 3 feet? If there is a lot of traffic
somewhere and a bike lane, will you slow down the entire road to 10mph around
you because of this law? It will have the same traffic effects as a
rubbernecking accident on a highway.

" Will the law apply when passing a bicyclist who is riding in a bike lane? We
were originally told that it does not, but upon closer examination there is
some grey area in how the law was worded which will probably not be worked out
until a case goes to court and a judge rules on it. However, there is no
language in the law which specifically says that bike lanes are not covered,
so for now we are advising drivers to always pass bicyclists with at least a 3
feet buffer in every situation"

~~~
drivingmenuts
In general, I think it's a good idea. The specifics leave a bit to be desired:

Since bicyclists want to own the lane, they'll ride to the outside, which
means I have to be three feet from the outside line - which puts me into the
other lane at times. Great time to be a police officer.

Occasionally, one cyclist will be in the lane and their partner will be in the
car lane, riding beside them. Thus, I am stuck driving 15 mph while they
merrily tool along. If I pass them, well, another great time to be a police
officer.

~~~
eggie
Cyclists aren't trying to "own" the lane any more than you are. Really, both
of you own it, as citizens and road users.

The reason for being in the lane is safety. In many situations, impatient
people who feel they are impeded will try to squeeze past a cyclist who is not
riding safely in the lane. This is among the most frightening and dangerous
things that can regularly happen to any road user.

I'm not trying to chastise you. I just hope that you can imagine the situation
that other travelers are in so you don't hurt someone in impatience.

~~~
dcherman
I know this is ( hopefully ) not a common occurrence, but let me tell you
something that I recently witnessed.

I was driving on back-roads to my parents house, and it's not uncommon to see
bikes on these roads since they are pretty good biking roads as I understand
it. The difference is that these bikes were riding 4 wide on a single lane
road, and they had a car in front of them driving between 15-20mph with their
hazard lights on, presumably in an attempt to keep cars from passing them.

How is this not "owning" the lane? That was not the first time I've seen this
happen either. Bikers also need to understand that this behavior is not
reasonable.

~~~
revelation
So, if theres some farm vehicle on the _back-road_ going 10mph, presumably you
will be writing to the farmers association to say that you think "farmers need
to understand that behavior is not reasonable"?

I think you need to understand that 1) roads aren't for cars going the speed
limit 2) the speed limit is a limit.

~~~
tzs
In my experience, farmers do not purposefully try to block the road. If you
come up behind two farmers driving their tractors side by side down the road,
they will almost certainly switch to single file to let you pass.

~~~
revelation
I don't get it. Why would two tractors be side by side in a single lane road?
You can barely fit one on a single lane.

I think one of us is confused about the exact setup we're talking here. But of
course it is wholly irrelevant; some time ago a cab in NYC jumped the curb and
crushed a tourists leg, yet I'm not here screaming for cabs to be banned from
the roads or asking the cab driver association why they think they can drive
on the sidewalk.

------
chollida1
Sounds like a good idea:) I'm guessing this is a law that won't be enforced
too often when no accident occurs but will be something that can used to
charge a driver when they collide with a biker.

In Toronto we could use a rule like this on our streets with street cars.
Image a 2 lane road with a train riding on the inside lane and cars trying to
speed around on the outside lane to pass it.

If you are biking on these streets you have about 3 inches of clearance
between yourself and the side walk and about 12 inches between you and the
car, and that assumes the car has about 12 inches of clearance between it and
the street car.

It's not for the faint of heart.

> The law doesn't require motorists to stay behind cyclists until a narrow
> road ends or widens -- but allows a driver to pass within 3 feet if he slows
> to a safe speed, said CHP Officer Mike Harris.

I think this is a very reasonable compromise. That way car's aren't forced to
be stuck behind a slow biker, who probably doesn't want the car tailgating
them anyway.

------
herbig
"A long-standing law required drivers passing cyclists to maintain a safe
distance, but it failed to define just how big that space had to be...[The
law] allows a driver to pass within 3 feet if he slows to a safe speed, said
CHP Officer Mike Harris."

Now we just need to define "safe speed" and the law might mean something.

~~~
baddox
And have some way for drivers to know the exact distance between their car and
cyclists.

~~~
wiredfool
Until you have a handle on that, perhaps you should just leave a bunch of
extra space.

~~~
sliverstorm
I have a handle on the amount of space I appreciate as a bicyclist, and that's
what I give to other bicyclists. I don't know how many feet it is.

Accurately measuring feet with your eyes is hardly a prerequisite to safe
driving. Do you measure your following distance in feet, or time & intuition
for your own stopping speed?

~~~
anigbrowl
Why not perform some measurements the next time you get on your bicycle, which
might make you a better cyclist and driver?

I think that you probably know quite well how much space that is and are quite
well able to estimate a 3 foot distance too. Nobody is asking you to maintain
logs of your intra-vehicular distance for all your travels.

------
kyrra
A lot of states and cities have similar laws. Austin passed similar laws a few
years ago[0]. Austin's law is a bit interesting as they make large trucks give
bikers 6 feet.

> (1) three feet if the operator’s vehicle is a passenger car or light truck;
> or

> (2) six feet if the operator’s vehicle is a truck, other than a light truck,
> or a commercial motor vehicle as defined by Texas Transportation Code
> Section 522.003.

[0]
[http://www.3feetplease.com/images/pdf/austinordinance.pdf](http://www.3feetplease.com/images/pdf/austinordinance.pdf)

------
TrainedMonkey
"The CHP says it's prepared to enforce the law but is not gearing up for any
big crackdown and ticket-writing campaign to catch motorists a few inches
inside the three-foot space."

"It's a great educational tool for people to share the road," Prinz said, "but
the law will only be as effective as people allow it to be."

For some reason article does not give me confidence that law will be enforced.

~~~
bertil
My experience is that the best enforcement method is carrying a large blunt
object: car drivers seem to actively fear scratching their paint job a lot
more than maiming someone.

~~~
dspig
I once carried a 2m length of 19" rack strip through town. Wow - instant
respect from car drivers - and annoying that it made such a difference.

------
f055
It's interesting how HN is valley-centric ;) BTW such laws are quite common in
EU, for example in Poland you are required to give 100cm of clearance, so
about 3.28 feet.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
I don't think the Netherlands has any such law, and if we do no one cares.

There's basically one simple law that the US should copy: if you hit a weaker
road user, be it a cyclist, pedestrian or anything else, with your car, you
are completely liable unless there's proven utterly reckless behavior by the
other party.

~~~
jackmaney
That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Full stop. Not exaggerating in
the slightest.

Pedestrians and cyclists are perfectly capable of breaking laws and are most
certainly capable of being at fault in an accident with a motorist.

~~~
anigbrowl
Traffic mortality in the Netherlands is about 60% of that in the US, despite
NL being one of the most densely populated countries in the world. So perhaps
they are on to something. It's also somewhat safer per unit of distance
traveled.

[http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/UK/FS_International_pe...](http://www.swov.nl/rapport/Factsheets/UK/FS_International_perspective.pdf)

~~~
jackmaney
And you can have it, thank you very much. I'll be over here in the US.

~~~
anigbrowl
This seems a pretty irrational response. Although I live in the US now (as
well as having lived in in NL before) lowering traffic mortality seems like a
Good Thing given the economic costs to society resulting from avoidable
deaths.

You'll also be missing out on higher speed limits (it's perfectly legal to
drive at 80mph on the Dutch equivalent of freeways), _much_ nicer roads, plus
if you do get a speeding ticket it's proportional to the degree to which you
exceed the speed limit. Well, enjoy your xenophobia!

~~~
jackmaney
Obvious troll is obvious.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm not trolling you, and for that matter I don't even own a bicycle. Driving
in the Netherlands is simply not the horrid experience you seem to imagine it
must be.

------
r00fus
As a bike commuter, I'm a bit ambivalent about this - even assuming 100%
compliance, will this cause more accidents than it fixes, as cars in narrow
roads drift into lefthand lane to ensure keeping 3' away from a cyclist?

~~~
mholt
Drivers can slow down behind the cyclist voluntarily to stay safe, or the
cyclist can claim the lane to essentially force drivers behind to slow down
and follow or pass when clear.

------
alrs
The article says that no one is going to bother enforcing this new law.

Instead of waiting for law enforcement to care, the best thing you can do as a
cyclist is give $25 to the MIT Press and read Effective Cycling. John Forester
is an engineer with decades of cycling experience.

"Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles"

[http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-John-
Forester/dp/026...](http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Cycling-John-
Forester/dp/0262516942/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling)

------
IvyMike
My take: because of the ambiguities in the language and difficulty in
enforcement, this law accomplishes very little except to make car v. cycle
resentment that much stronger.

------
Mandatum
Here in New Zealand it's 1.5 meters (almost 5ft), have had that enacted for
20+ years. There are cyclist deaths every year or so, but it's usually a drunk
driver or someone road raging, in the past 10 years the only time someone has
killed a cyclist to the best of my knowledge by not leaving enough room is
when I truck was going around a corner and the cyclist was too, he thought the
cyclist was going to stop but ended up running over him. :\ Poor bastard.

------
smutticus
IMO we need better road design, not additional legislation.

We need dedicated cycling lanes, or at the very least designs that place
parked cars between cyclists and drivers. You can't just draw a line on the
road and call it a bicycle lane. So long as cars and cyclists are forced to
occupy the same space cyclists are going to get killed.

------
mholt
Utah has had this law for some time now, but it's rarely (if ever?) enforced,
unfortunately.

------
rawland
Which is 2 feet less, than Germany.

------
tedchs
This would be great if a) bikes didn't already often ride 2+ feet from the
edge of the road, and b) some roads weren't so narrow that putting my car 3'
from the edge of the road would put my side mirror in the opposite lane.

~~~
cespare
(a) Often the pavement at the very edge of road is rough, has debris, or is
otherwise unsuitable for riding on, and you can't necessarily even see that
from your car. Furthermore, riding at the very edge of the road encourages
some drivers to pass when there's not actually room enough to do it safely.

(b) Do you think it's safe to pass a cyclist on a section of road that narrow?

~~~
bryanlarsen
(c) motorists use the distance from the bicycle to the edge as a gauge for the
"safe passing distance".

(d) leaving 2+ feet of space to your right gives the cyclist the ability to
swerve right if needed.

------
ojbyrne
Its interesting that the first picture on the story shows a violation even
though there's way more than 3 feet of separation - my understanding is you're
not allowed to cross a double yellow line to maintain the distance,

~~~
mindslight
In regions with more observant drivers, painted lines are not treated as hard
barriers but mainly serve to establish who has priority. With visibility and
no oncoming traffic/left turns/active driveways, I will often have my right
wheels next to the double yellow when passing a bike, because it's more
pleasant for all involved.

The written law should indeed be updated to differentiate between a quick pass
of a slow/stopped vehicle on a city street, and a long pass on a similar-speed
vehicle like two cars on an undivided highway. But until then if one is still
adverse to driving on some paint, they can continue being overcautious by
slowing down and passing at +5mph when possible.

------
lazyant
One meter, pretty standard since I can remember in (many/some parts of) Europe
and Canada iirc. This is common sense, who's going to leave less than that gap
at speed?

~~~
vec
Based on personal experience, 5-10% of drivers.

On my commute home from the office, there's a short stretch (about half a city
block) between where I exit from a low-traffic residential street onto a main
thoroughfare and where the road widens from 2 lane to 4 lane + bikelane. On
that stretch I get buzzed uncomfortably fast and close about once a week.

------
Havoc
Is that even feasible? Round here that would result in no cyclist being
passed...ever.

~~~
83457
the article states that if you can't comfortably pass due to narrow roads and
such then you slow to a safe speed

~~~
Havoc
Round here _all_ roads are narrow enough to break the 3 feet rule. Narrow to
the point that I'm usually cutting into the opposing traffic lane to give the
cyclist a bit of room. (Plus I'd rather hit a car than a cyclist)

------
buckbova
Yet another non-law that will there will be no enforcement.

------
jackmaney
It was a summer night--right around dusk--circa 1996. I was driving on highway
with one lane in each direction, the usual dotted yellow line in the middle
(which allows one to pass, as long as there's no danger of hitting oncoming
traffic).

No other cars were in sight, but there were two bicyclists ahead: one near the
right edge of the lane and the other near the center of the road (but still in
the right hand lane). I carefully signaled and moved into the left hand lane,
giving the cyclists as much room as possible.

As I passed them, I saw movement out of my right eye just in time for the
nearest cyclist to swerve directly into my car, shattering the front passenger
window and injuring herself horribly (a spiral fracture in one of her legs,
broken hip, broken ribs, at least one shattered arm).

She and her family sued my auto insurance company and lost. It was determined
that she was completely at fault. It was also discovered that she was drunk at
the time of the accident.

If this idiotic law had been in effect at the time, the three foot barrier
would no longer have existed as she swerved into the side of my car, and I
would've been at fault.

So, a hearty "fuck you" to anyone who thinks this law is a good idea.

~~~
83457
you are incorrect

~~~
jackmaney
According to this law, the driver is responsible for maintaining a barrier of
at least three feet when passing a cyclist. Motion is continuous. Therefore,
by the Intermediate Value Theorem, if a cyclist crashes into a car, there will
no longer be a three foot barrier. QED.

Or, as the kids like to say it, nowadays: NO, U.

~~~
anigbrowl
Law does not work that way. Even if it did, this law allows for the existence
of narrower gaps if the motor vehicle lowers its speed.

