Hearing for AZ version of Idaho Stop law this morning

January 26, 2012 • Posted by: Michael McKisson

State Representative Daniel Patterson is the bill's major sponsor.

Once again Arizona Legislators have introduced the “Bicycles, Yield at Stop Signs” bill and it gets it’s first hearing in the House Transportation Committee this morning.

The hearing takes place at 9 a.m. and can be streamed live. Click here to see the stream.

Ed Beighe of AZBikeLaw.com is reporting the bill appears to be the same bill that was introduced last year that did not make it out of committee.

The law would allow cyclists to slow at a stop sign, but not come to a complete stop if the intersection is clear.

Be sure to check out Beighe’s take on why the bill isn’t perfect for cyclists and places too much blame on bike riders if there is a crash at a stop sign.

Here’s last year’s story about the proposed law, which appears largely unchanged.

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5 comments

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Ed Beighe

i doubt it will have any discernible impact. We put the question " Do you have statistics to identify the direct impact of this law on public safety?" to Mark McNeese (the Idaho ped/bike coordinator at the time) and he answered "No impact; nothing changed; current behavior was just legalized "

silverpedals

I don't like that this bill would put cyclists in a bad legal position if they are hit by a driver who must stop but doesn't.

Ed Beighe

it was a pretty interesting hearing. i watched it online, and within a day or two it will be archived. The bill hearing is way into the meeting; perhaps and hour and a half in. Follow that link to azbikelaw in the article above for the archive.

Kjg

It passed out of committee. I caught the last bit of the discussion and the vote on the video feed. There were some concerns about age restrictions, e.g. how will a driver know whether the rider is 16 and not stop. [A spurious argument, as the "no stop" is only when it's clear and safe to do so, as for a yield]. There was a suggestion of allowing local jurisdictions to opt-out, which was met with objections about cyclists would have difficulty knowing exactly where one ended and the next began. After the vote, the chair asked for more statistics from ADOT and also a review of safety data from Idaho. We'll see how this winds up.

Frank Tellez

Hey what if cyclists only had to stop at 2 way stop signs? At 4 way stop signs and at T intersections cyclists would only need to yield, unless crossing the T causes the cyclist to cross a lane of traffic. It wouldn't be the same bill and it would be a safer compromise.