{"id":133440896,"date":"2009-03-25T10:54:56","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T10:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=133440896"},"modified":"2009-03-25T10:54:56","modified_gmt":"2009-03-25T10:54:56","slug":"bike-safety-bill-likely-dead-this-year-lawmaker-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=133440896","title":{"rendered":"Bike safety bill likely dead this year, lawmaker says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[This could easily have been written about here as well.]<br \/>\nBy JENNIFER JACOBS<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nDes Moines police say the driver was clearly at fault, but no traffic ticket was issued.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s cases like this that trouble cycling advocates. They\u2019re pushing for state legislation that would offer bicyclists more protection \u2013 and heavier penalties for drivers who break the law.<br \/>\nBut the new legislation likely won\u2019t become law this year, a key Democrat said today.<br \/>\nThe bill, Senate File 117, passed the Iowa Senate last month, but probably won\u2019t pass the House in the few remaining weeks of the session, said Rep. Brian Quirk, D-New Hampton.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s frustrating to Iowans like Sherman, a 48-year-old software developer who has been riding competitively since 1986.<br \/>\n\u201cI understand they\u2019ve got big fish to fry with the budget, but this costs nothing,\u201d Sherman said. \u201cI can\u2019t see how they\u2019re going to be voted out of office because they voted for safety. What these guys are cowering at I don\u2019t know.\u201d<br \/>\nQuirk said he doesn\u2019t oppose the bill, but one sticking point is that the it would prohibit a driver from depriving a bicycle of the full use of a lane if the lane isn\u2019t wide enough for them to share<br \/>\n\u201cYou have liability issues when you give a bicyclist full lane privileges,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n,,,<br \/>\n\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand,\u201d said Sen. Bill Dotzler, D-Waterloo, a key backer of the bill. \u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018Don\u2019t let them bike on the roads!\u2019 I\u2019ve got news for them. They already have the right to the road. We\u2019re just trying to make it safer so somebody doesn\u2019t get killed.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cThe bill is not about special rights for bicyclists,\u201d the Iowa Bicycle Coalition\u2019s Mark Wyatt said. \u201cRather it clarifies that cyclists have the same protection as vehicles in the Iowa Code.\u201d<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/article\/20090323\/NEWS\/90323020\/-1\/NEWS04\">https:\/\/www.desmoinesregister.com\/article\/20090323\/NEWS\/90323020\/-1\/NEWS04<\/a>oldId.20090325105456212<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This could easily have been written about here as well.] By JENNIFER JACOBS &#8230; Des Moines police say the driver was clearly at fault, but no traffic ticket was issued. It\u2019s cases like this that trouble cycling advocates. They\u2019re pushing for state legislation that would offer bicyclists more protection \u2013 and heavier penalties for drivers &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=133440896\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bike safety bill likely dead this year, lawmaker says&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133440896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133440896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133440896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133440896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133440896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133440896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133440896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}