Manassas-Area Delegation to the Virginia General
Assembly
Public Hearing for the 2015 Legislative Session, January
8, 2015
Statement by Allen Muchnick, Virginia Bicycling
Federation board member
Good
evening, legislators. I’m Allen Muchnick,
a long-time Northern Virginian, now living in the City of Manassas. I’ve followed the General Assembly in several
capacities for two decades, but I’m speaking tonight only on bicycle-related
legislation.
For the
past six years, the Virginia Bicycling Federation has sought to improve justice
for bicyclists injured by negligent motorists by proposing minor changes to
conform a few Virginia traffic laws to those of most other states. While our proposed changes are simple,
straightforward, and nonpartisan, they’ve repeatedly encountered unwarranted
partisan opposition. Please help ensure
that this doesn’t happen again this year.
A one-word
change to Virginia’s “Following Too Closely” law, Code of Virginia § 46.2-816,
would cover bicyclists and other road users not inside a motor vehicle when
rear-ended by a negligent following motorist.
In 2014, HB 82, patroned
by now-Congresswoman Comstock and co-patroned by Delegates Lopez, Hugo, and
Rust, passed in the House with only 28 Nays, but was killed in the Senate
Transportation Committee, which had previously reported similar legislation in
2011, 2012, and 2013. For 2015, the same
legislation will be patroned by Delegate Bill DeSteph of Virginia Beach as HB 1342
and separately in a Senate Bill by Senator Bryce Reeves of Fredericksburg. Thank you, Senator Colgan, for supporting
this legislation on four separate occasions.
I ask Delegate Miller to support this legislation in the House.
Virginia
remains one of a handful of states that does not prohibit motor vehicle
occupants from opening a vehicle door “adjacent to moving traffic unless it
is reasonably safe to do so.” SB 882
patroned by Senator Chap Petersen would create a simple $100 traffic
infraction, not subject to driver demerit points and not applicable to
emergency responders, for doing so. In
2013 and 2014, similar bills were passed by the Senate, only to be killed in
House Transportation. With bike lanes
adjacent to parking lanes in many urban communities in Virginia, a law that
requires auto occupants to look for traffic before opening their door is more
important than ever. Thank you, Senator
Colgan, for supporting this legislation in the past. Please support SB 882
this year.
In 2014,
Virginia finally enacted a simple Code change that requires drivers to a leave
a three-foot or wider buffer whenever passing a bicyclist. This year, Senators Alexander and Reeves
will each file bills to allow drivers to carefully cross a double-yellow line
to pass a pedestrian, a human-powered device, or a stopped or slow-moving
vehicle, something that’s already a common Virginia driving practice. Please support this simple and practical
legislation. The number of Senator
Alexander’s bill is SB 781.
Finally,
please support HB 1402,
patroned by Delegate Loupassi, which would not reduce highway maintenance
payments to localities that have implemented road diets, whereby the space
occupied by two conventional travel lanes is reallocated as two bike lanes plus,
typically, a two-way-left-turn lane.
Road diets have been an effective tool for retrofitting bike lanes in
Northern Virginia while improving capacity and safety for motor vehicles and
should not be discouraged.
Thank you
for considering my requests, and best wishes for a productive legislative
session.
