Cyclist stop on red legislation-- anyone notice this?

Odd to not have heard anything about such a potentially significant change.

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/state-and-regional/illinois/article_...

I wonder if Chicago is far behind . . .

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Permalink Reply by Joel on June 1, 2011 at 4:49am

There are similar laws in many other states -- so it isn't surprising that it wasn't contested.

Mike Keating said:

I did a post on this on www.IllinoisBicycleLaw.com.

This bill has problems that should have been fixed early on in the drafting stage. What is "reasonable?" I don't understand why they couldn't have quantified the time before going through a red if the light doesn't change.

What is also interesting is this bill was originally put forth by the motorcycle lobby. It's interesting that the motorcycle lobby got this pushed through with what appears to be little resistance.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Keating on June 1, 2011 at 4:57am

It went through the house 101 yays -011 nays -00 presents and through the Senate 43 yays - 21 nays - and 1 present.

I'm not surprised that it passed, I'm surprised it passed relatively easily especially when it is such a poorly drafted bill. I'm not against the intent of the bill, but it needs to be cleaned up and made more specific. Otherwise there will be many traffic court and civil court battles over what is a "reasonable" time to wait before going through the red light.

Joel said:

There are similar laws in many other states -- so it isn't surprising that it wasn't contested.

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Permalink Reply by Joel on June 3, 2011 at 4:50am

The law is really only intended for traffic lights that turn only when a vehicle is waiting. If no car is there, it never (or rarely) goes green. It isn't meant for sneaking through a long light early.