There will be a hearing on the Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Act of 2014 this Monday and if you can go and testify in favor of it, you should. The bill would allow crashes between cyclists and drivers to be adjudicated on a Comparative Negligence Standard instead of the current Contributory Negligence standard. This is probably the most important bike law proposed in DC (or MD or VA) since this blog was started oh so many years ago. I haven't been writing about it very much lately, because so many other places have.
Here's GreaterGreaterWashington on it yesterday.
The DC Bicycle Advisory Council will be voicing their support, and so will WABA.
If you want to testify, you have to sign up by the end of today.
For those wishing to testify, please contact Nicole Goines at 724-7808. Include your name name, address, telephone number, and organizational affiliation, if any, by 5 pm Thursday, September 25, 2014.
And here are some old posts of mine on the subject (but there are more)
Back in 2008 - Contributory Negligence and Last Clear Chance
A wishlist item - CWL 2009 #12 Comparative
About Maryland's - Two Chances to Reform Contributory Negligence Doctrine in Maryland
And about Grosso's bill - Grosso introduces bill to change car-bike crashes from contributory negligence to comparative negligence
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