DC Council passes contributory negligence fix bill, Bowser signals willingness to sign

In case you haven't heard yet, the DC Council unanimously approved the Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2015 yesterday and also passed the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Act of 2016 and transmitted it to the Mayor (with a response due by July 26th). Pretty big day for DC bicycle law. Not to diminish the importance of other laws like the DC Commuter and Parking Act, Bicycle Safety Amendment Act, Bicycle Safety Enhancement Act, etc...to have passed since I started blogging, but from the standpoint of DC legislation, its hard to think of a bigger year. Lots of progress has been made this summer. 

The first time I heard of the contributory negligence bill was back in 2008, when then WABA Executive Director Erik Gilliland wrote the Bicycle Advisory Council (BAC) about it.

Please see the attached file [about the case WMATA v Young].  It’s an appeals court judgment on a case involving a cyclist that was struck and severely injured by a Metro bus driver.  We have been talking about how the contributory negligence policy of DC (and MD and VA) might hinder the ability of cyclists to recover damages in a civil suit if he or she is found to have contributed at least a little bit to a crash. 

Over the next 8 years WABA, BAC, (once they existed) the Pedestrian Advisory Council (PAC) and others have been working to change this law, with WABA doing most of the heavy lifting. Shane Farthing wrote a great piece making the case for the change. GreaterGreaterWashington has been hitting the issue pretty hard for years. In 2014, David Grosso with Tommy Wells and Mary Cheh introduced the first bill that tried to fix this, the Bicycle and Motor Vehicle Collision Recovery Amendment Act of 2014, but even as it failed it set up yesterday's eventual success. Within months, Mary Cheh modified it to be more politically palatable (and frankly better for cyclists and pedestrians) and Kenyon McDuffie eventually moved it through committee. Even when he held up the bill last month, it appears to have been due to a general misunderstanding, not opposition. Finally the whole council has supported the change and it appears Mayor Bowser will sign it.

Success, they say, has a lot of fathers, and in this case it is absolutely true.

Comments

[Crickey7]

This is the biggest legislative advance for cyclists in DC in a really, really long time. Indeed, la victoria trova cento padri, a nessuno vuole riconoscere l'insuccesso.

[fongfong]

The fact this bill was approved unanimously makes me wonder about why AAA and the trial lawyers lobbying ended up being so ineffective. Is this really a tipping point where politicians are really worried about offending the all powerful bicycle lobby? If the answer is yes, then I can say I never thought I would see the day.

[Crickey7]

I think their arguments against the law appeared to be unsupported by the evidence (in the form of 46 states that don't follow contributory negligence, and still manage to have affordable auto insurance), and the negative effects were both easily comprehended and likely to be fixed by the proposed legislation. Not that even the most sensible laws always pass, but it helps.

[washcycle]

I don't think the lawyers opposed this bill. It was just the insurance companies and AAA (which as D. Alpert pointed out is also an insurance company). I think what really helped was dropping the word bicycle from the title and more strongly emphasizing pedestrians/engaging the PAC and All Walks DC.

Everyone* hates cyclists, but everyone is a pedestrian.

*Not literally everyone

[SJE]

I think another contributing factor is the benefit to DC.
DC streets have a lot of Maryland and Virginia cars, and the local AAA lobby is located in suburban MD. By comparison, DC has a growing population of cyclists and pedestrians and those modeshares are associated with better economic development than drive through people from MD/VA.

[Greg (not Billing)]

Let's not celebrate too early, here. B21-4 only passed on first reading. The Council goes into recess this Friday so the earliest the bill will receive a second reading is in September. This is more than enough time for the insurance industry to muck things up. I've seen this happen plenty of times on controversial bills, where CMs with opposition will vote yes to "go along to get along" with the promise of bringing up any concerns or amendments at second reading. There are several CMs on the Council who hate this bill and I don't really believe that they have all been convinced.

Good first step, no doubt, but don't sleep on this. Get ready to pick up the fight in September.

[Crickey7]

Noooooo!