Thanks for sharing the article David.
But don't expect compliance by motorists to increase as time rolls on.
As an example, Florida has had a similar law on the books for many years but general awareness remains slim.
For the most part, the best that riders can do is take steps to mitigate the risk that comes with sharing roads with vehicles which virtually guarantees that, in any encounter involving contact between a vehicle and a bike:
- the driver of the car will suffer NO physical injury of any kind
- the rider of the bike, much more than likely, WILL go down.
Such mitigation steps include but by no small stretch is limited to:
- minimizing travel on busy roads, roads with limited shoulders and roads with speed limits exceeding 35mph.
- using a rear view mirror (and not caring how it looks) to increase awareness of approaching vehicles from behind.
- use of DRL (daytime running light), preferably on strobe, to increase visibility of a rider to other vehicles.
- assuming whenever in proximity of another vehicle that the driver DOES NOT SEE YOU.
- use of recording front and rear-facing video cameras (there are many) to document any encounter, heaven forbid the rider should ever need it.
- maintaining uninsured motorist coverage (yes it so applies to riding a bike), heaven forbid the rider should ever need it.
Cheers All,
Carl Benda