Posted on Sunday, 17th August 2008 by Bruce
After negotiating Chicago traffic on Wisconsin’s roadways on the way back from my northwoods weekend retreat this afternoon, I had a few rare unclaimed minutes to sit down and catch up on some recent papers and magazines. One of the things on my stack was this week’s dead-tree version of Madison’s Isthmus.
I haven’t picked on the Madison Police Department in recent weeks; largely because, aside from participating in a safety campaign last week aimed at returning UW students, in response to the still-unsolved murder of Brittany Zimmerman, they’ve been doing a pretty good job of avoiding the media spotlight.
This week’s Isthmus contains an intriguing little story about a Madison cyclist who, while sitting in the emergency room waiting for x-rays to be taken after being struck by an abruptly-opened car door, received an unexpected visit from a Madison police officer. The officer was there to issue the injured cyclist a $10.00 citation – the result of the officer’s selective enforcement of a little-known state law requiring cyclists to allow “a minimum of three feet” between themselves and parked vehicles.
When made aware by Isthmus of the officer’s issuance of the citation to the injured cyclist, a Madison PD spokesperson was, according to the story, “dumbfounded.” “Wow,” said the PR flack. “I’ve never heard of that.”
Wisconsin has a national reputation for being a great place to ride a bike. As an avid cyclist, I’ve put on thousands of miles in both Madison and Milwaukee, many of them in the road-marked bike lanes that seem to be part of almost every major city’s road improvement plans these days.
I can attest from personal experience that many of these bike lanes bring riders within far less than 3 feet (if not mere inches) from the cars parked to the right of cyclists, adjacent to the curb. Cyclists often rely on the conscientiousness of parking motorists, and the love of a merciful God, to protect us from a sudden and unexpected “thud.”
If our municipalities are going to continue putting these bike lanes this close to parked vehicles, it would seem to me that a change in this obscure state law is in order. Or, maybe it’s time to peel many of the existing bike lanes off our roads, in the interest of defending the law.
In either case, the emergency room is an awkward place for the Madison PD to choose to uphold an obscure and rarely applied state law, isn’t it?
Posted in Home | Comments (5)
5 Responses to “Madison Police Department dispenses justice upon injured cyclist”
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August 17th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
What are the chances the car door belonged to one of Madison’s finest or an attorney?
August 17th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Agreed this is a ridiculous situation and a ridiculous law that should be overturned.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:45 am
Reminds me of a W.C. Fields movie. (I was going to say an old W.C. Fields movie but then that would be redundant.) In the movie, W.C. Fields gets upset with people who either park and leave their driver side car doors wide open or just fling their car doors open without checking to see if traffic (or bicyclists) are approaching. Fields buys an old car and goes out looking for parked cars with their drivers side door wide open. He then proceeds to take those car doors off by driving right through them. Ever want to do that yourself?
August 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I would assume the bicyclist would get a ticket even if he was hit by the car from behind. He didn’t keep his 3-foot distance!
August 19th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Charlie Sykes talked about this, and a bus driver emailed that he has taken off many doors, and in each case, the driver of the car was held at fault. And another woman called saying she got a ticket when she opened her door into the path of a car.this cop made a mistake.