There is something seriously wrong with a system that goes as long as someone can make a case that a cyclist could/should be riding somewhere else they are riding illegally. This kind of attitude results in no matter how a cyclist is riding they are riding illegally.
Follow the link in "read more" to follow the story of a cyclists from Wilmington, DE
https://bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=335730oldId.2007082315262441
3 Replies to “Police order cyclist to DISOBEY a traffic control device”
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While some cyclists may elect to use the lefthand
portion of a right turn only lane, this certainly
isn’t required. Someone entering the main road from a
sidestreet could refuse to yield the right of way to a
cyclist, claiming that the cyclist’s lane position
committed him/her to making a righthand turn onto the
sidestreet. Also, some ramps blend into the right turn
only lane/shoulder. An example would be the Valley Rd
right turn ramp blending into the SB Falls Rd
shoulder. A cyclist using the shoulder could get
nailed.
Delaware’s Law requiring the cyclist to ride as far
right as practicable basically follows the UVC in
providing exceptions, including but limited to ,
substandard width lanes that are too narrow for a
cyclist and a motor vehicle to safely share side by
side. With some traffic pulling trailers, boats, lawn
equipment, busses, trucks, etc; an 11′ lane is
substandard width that’s too narrow for a cyclist and
a motor vehicle to safely share side by side. If the
truck/ trailer is 8 1/2 feet wide – 9′ with a six inch
mirror – and the cyclist is about 2 1/2 feet – an 11′
lane doesn’t allow any clearance between large
vehicles and the cyclist. The 11′ lane is too narrow
for many vehicles to safely pass a cyclist. Being
that this is a 4 lane road, motorists can easily use
the passing lane. The cyclist should prevail in
court. A cyclist shouldn’t be expected to endanger
himself to expedite the flow of traffic.
-JM
From the Delaware cyclist:
Well, sorry to keep you all hanging for so long but I finally have an update and it’s not the one I had hoped to give. The judges’s conclusion after the trial was that [paraphrasing] it is an "utter folly" to believe that a law that states that cyclists should ride as far right as practicable allows me to ride in the center of the travel lane. If my interpretation were correct, we’d have cyclists all over the place taking up a full lane on the roadway because 99.9% of lanes in Delaware are not wide enough to share. I am not only hazardous to myself and others, I am "suicidal" and riding in the center of the lane is a "recipe for disaster".[end paraphrasing]
My one regret during the trial was that I did not attack the officer’s opinion (and it is an opinion as nothing actually happened) that I was a "legitimate hazard" on the roadway. I solely spoke about the lane width being too narrow to share which is of course what I was actually cited for. Apparently, emotional response trumps logic at least in the lower Delaware courts. I will be appealing. Oh, and my fine was raised (by $80 and now totals $183 with court costs). Is that even allowed?
From the DE cyclist –
Of course I could have gotten out of the ticket. All I had to do was agree with the officer at some point. He had three sets of "laws" for me to agree with:
1. Cyclists should ride on the bike path (referring to the right turn lane where he pulled me over).
2. Cyclists should ride "as far right as practicable on the shoulder" (he acted as though he was reading this from his book).
3. Cyclists should ride as far right as practicable on the roadway (ignoring the exception that if the lane is too narrow to be safely shared that this law does not apply).
If I had agreed to any of the above, he would have let me go. If I had not had almost the same discussion with another cop about a week before this incident I might have just let it go. Getting pulled over is not something I enjoy so in order to be able to continue to use this road in a manner that I feel is the best, I stood my ground. It got me a ticket so now I’m going about dealing with it.
https://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.php?p=5749505&postcount=556