Montgomery County police say "Get out of the way" or something

Disappointing article on WTOP.

Washington Area Bicyclist Association Director Shane Farthing says bicyclists have the right to use the full travel lanes at all times and that cars must yield and simply wait behind a slow-moving bike.

"Cyclists can't necessarily always go as fast as traffic, but the law does give cyclists the right to use the road," says Farthing.

So far, so good...

But Montgomery County Police Lt. Bob McCullough, deputy director of the traffic division, says that's not the case.

Slow-moving bikes need to move to the right-hand side of the roadway particularly "when they reach a point that they are impeding traffic."

Is Bob McCullough calling in from the 80's? But it gets worse.

D.C., Maryland and Virginia law states bicyclists can ride the center of the travel lane only if they're going the speed limit.

There is no such law. The speed limit is an UPPER limit, not a lower limit. You are not required to maintain that speed, and there is no law against "impeding traffic".  The law in Maryland reads:

Riding to the right not required when traveling at the speed of traffic, operating on a one-way street, passing, preparing for a left turn, avoiding hazards, avoiding a mandatory turn lane or traveling in a lane too narrow to share.

So there are many more excpetions to "riding right" in Maryland than just "traveling at the speed of traffic" which is not the same as "the speed limit." In DC the law is even farther from what WTOP reports:

Operate a bicycle in a safe and non-hazardous manner... so as not to endanger himself or herself or any other person.

WTOP, you are not the New York Post. Don't try to be. 

Comments

[Rob F]

WTOP are a bunch of muppets

and that officer is a muppet too. maybe thats why he had to leave his position in media relations: http://towson.patch.com/blog_posts/police-reorganize-public-information-office-mccullough-out-armacost-in

[Dan]

this does not bode well for MoCo's new bike share...reading those comments on the article seriously bummed me out

[duffmanrb]

The "impeding traffic" standard only relates to whether bikes can ride two abreast. It has nothing to do with moving to the right.

[Joe]

Not sure the officer should be taking all the heat, yet. Might be the way the writer presented the info, to make it more argumentative. WTOP is infamous for bullying cyclists.

My main issues is that while the speed limit is the maximum rate of speed a road user can travel, in reality it is treated as the minimum speed. This erodes the value of all the rules of the road and it is it becomes pure hypocrisy when attempting to inforce the rules on one user group but not another.

[Dan]

does anyone know how to contact MoCo police about this? I would certainly like to voice my opinion as a tax paying resident.

[TheEdge]

Any body have this moron's, er, officer's email address? I want to email him and my County Council member. Please post.

[JeffB]

I was surprised last night when, shortly after 11pm, I heard this segment on the radio.

I don't know if WTOP had been broadcasting this piece all along but given that it was, by that time, about a day and half since the above linked article was published why would WTOP still be broadcasting information seriously in question and potentially incendiary?

That WTOP failed to do even the most basic fact checking before publishing the article (and presumably broadcasting the same over the radio) is clear as was immediately indicated by some of the early comments.

It has been a long fight for cyclists to win their right to use the public roads without the expectation of harassment or worse. For WTOP then to "promote" such erroneous and unfactual information is like turning the clock back 30 years.

Worse is the audience to whom they broadcast it to. There are a few, thankfully very few, but not zero motorists out there that are just one step short of being homicidal maniacs. What I fear is that this erroneous piece , irresponsibly reported, will lead to such a motorist enacting a piece of "street justice" upon some poor unsuspecting cyclist.

On the whole WTOP is a fine news organization. They are better than this and need to purge themselves of these occasional appeals to the crassest elements in their drive-time audience.

[Frank]

You could get in touch with the director of the Traffic division, I presume he is Bob McCullough's boss.

[email protected]

via http://www6.montgomerycountymd.gov/poltmpl.asp?url=/content/pol/districts/FSB/TrafficDivision.asp

[Frank]

Also, WTOP's VP of news is Jim Farley. You can ask him if he sanctioned this. If I were VP of news and knew about journalism this sloppy I wouldn't be happy. But ask him yourself and make a stink if you think this deserves it:

Vice President of News and Programming: Jim Farley
[email protected]
877-222-1035

via http://www.wtop.com/?sid=2243710&nid=700