SDPD Issues Bicycle Traffic Enforcement Guide to Patrol and Traffic Officers
Posted By Sam Ollinger on August 22, 2011
As promised, Assistant Chief of Police, Patrol Operations, Boyd Long, sent me the memorandum he sent out to the San Diego Police Department’s Patrol and Traffic Officers today. This memorandum will be placed in the officers’ line up books. Although our discussion last Friday revolved around CVC 21202 and its exceptions, the memorandum also includes other bicycle related sections that relate to the safe operations of bicycles in the City of San Diego. I’ve included both pages of the memorandum below. Click for a larger version.
Bicycle Traffic Enforcement - Page 1
Bicycle Traffic Enforcement - Page 2
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6 Responses to “SDPD Issues Bicycle Traffic Enforcement Guide to Patrol and Traffic Officers”
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It would be nice if he would send a copy to all the other city and county law enforcement agencies
Jim,
It would. I would also encourage you to contact your law enforcement office and point them to this memorandum and have them implement a similar program.
While I appreciate the effort and the specific note about the door zone, it would have been nice to also have some clarification of what a “substandard width lane” really is.
21202(a)(3) defines it as “a lane that is too narrow for a bicycle and a vehicle to travel safely side by side within the lane” which is still not specific enough for most untrained people to get right. According to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the League of American Bicyclists and most other safety experts, anything under 14 feet is too narrow to safely share. That’s if there are no parked cars. If there are parallel parked cars present, then the door zone adds to that.
On most roads that don’t have bike lanes, the outside lane tends to be no more than 12 feet wide. It’s relatively rare that 21202 genuinely requires bicyclists to keep far right. The so called “exception” is the usual case.
Nice work BikeSD. I’m going to keep a copy on my person and my bike.
[...] riders, San Diego will now train its police officers on cyclists rights and the laws of bicycling; here’s the order they issued. The Modesto Bee says we have to go back to the basics we learned as children, and co-exist as [...]
The lane width where I was ticketed was 13 feet from the lane line on the left to the parallel parked cars on the right. The width of a police cruiser is 7 feet. In court I said that the officers may not have considered the door zone to be applicable to subsection (3). Maybe now they will?
That memo works toward righting that wrong. I like it. And, always remember to qualify anyone offering input on the way you ride, unfortunately there are very few police officers that are.
Thanks Sam, William and Jim