Lawyer?

[4827north]

Should I get a lawyer? I was recently involved in an accident. A young driver abruptly turned right in front of me and I collided into him and was injured. There were oddly no witnesses. The attending police officer coded on his report a strange contributing factor - that I was following too closely! How can that be when I had not "taken the lane"? Does anyone out there know MVA well enough? My reading leaves me wondering if BC is well overdue for an MVA rewrite that more clearly articulates a cyclists expected behaviour. The way it's written now is at their convenience we are a "driver" or a "cyclist". It's illogical. I've sent a persuasive argument to the police officer to correct his report. I had my Garmin on and it refutes his other "contributing factor". I would like to understand the weight of these claimed contributing factors as they relate to ICBC establishing fault. I in no way will accept any liability. The claim of contributing factors is equivalent to saying that because I was a cyclist riding as far to the right as is practicable that was a contributing factor. Do I need to lawyer up?

[4827north]

Thanks everyone. I have an appointment with Bob Cameron next Monday. I will be curious to hear his views/recommendations. The constable that wrote the accident report was adamant that I was following too closely despite the argument that 'following' can only occur if I am in the same lane. I am riding out of the lane of traffic, on the side of the roadway. To me, our laws are missing the notion of an implicit bike lane, where not marked, like an implicit crosswalk at an intersection despite one not being marked on the road. If we establish that I was in a 'different' lane then his claim of partial liability of following too closely is illogical, as it should be.

There is a worry of precedent here, where any roadway not explicitly marked with a bike lane means we ar riding in the 'lane' and therefore potentially held liable anytime we are close to a vehicle on the roadway. That would mean almost every other second we'd be temporarily placing ourselves in a liable position on the roadway as traffic passes, or as we pass traffic.

I don't think the police officer really understood my argument that I'm in essentially my own lane. God, I wish somebody would crack open the motor vehicle act a re-write the whole thing in a way that clearly defines a cyclists rights on the roadway.

[phox]

I'm assuming here that the driver started out behind you at some point.

IANAL, but the law allows for one of two sets of circumstances with essentially opposite implications:

a) The driver overtook you and had in fact at some point gotten far enough in front of you as to be able to consider that he has "finished" overtaking you. After that, you'd be tailgating and at fault.

b) The driver partially overtook you and never got to a safe distance in front of you, in which case the driver would be fully at fault and would have violated one or both of 157(1)(b) and 165(1) (his compliance with the latter would at least have given you warning that HE thought (correctly or not) that he was safely clear, but I guess he likely didn't).

The relevant sections are as follows:

157 (1) Except as provided in section 158, the driver of a vehicle overtaking another vehicle
[...]
(b) must not cause or permit the vehicle to return to the right side of the highway until safely clear of the overtaken vehicle.

165 (1) If the driver of a vehicle intends to turn it to the right at an intersection, the driver must cause it to approach the intersection and then make the turn as close as practicable to the right hand curb or edge of the roadway.


If you didn't put yourself in situation (a) above, you're not at fault.

I am also appalled at the staggering ignorance of law enforcement officers as to what the law is (let alone how it applies). I'd like to organize a complaint against a number of detachments to be submitted to the OPCC including firsthand accounts of crap like this.

[phox]

And I agree 100% that the fault here lies with legislators: What kind of idiot writes "instructions for doing something safely" in legalese?

The end result is that motorists don't know who has what rights and responsibilities, nor do cyclists, and—most shockingly, as you've alluded to—nor do the police. I've even watched bike skills course instructors do dumb things like "signalling" a lane position change (as part of a pack of cyclists) by pointing down and to the left: To me as a motorist and a cyclist, that's "pothole or debris"!

It's not perfect, but do consider reading the GVCC's BikeSense manual, if you haven't: http://www.bikesense.bc.ca/manual.htm

[Peter Erickson]

This is interesting to read, because I had an interaction with a motorist that attempted to over take me and failed to do so before turning right. I was able to avoid him, and while he waited for a gap in the traffic I offered feedback on his driving. He did not like that one bit and informed me that I was in violation for following too close. I told him that he was in error, but apparently on duty police officers do not like to be challenged. All is well that ends well, but there is a lot of ignorance and ego out there.

Ride safe and know your rights.