Bicycles aren’t vehicles

As we all know, bicyclists must follow the same rules as other vehicles; from time to time one hears of a story such as this one:

I was involved in an accident with a bicyclist. He was going west along a main road, I had a stop sign. After stopping and yielding to on-coming traffic I entered the intersection. It was evening and the sun was almost down and he didn’t have any lights on his bike. I crossed and the cyclist slammed in to my passenger door. I was cited for not yielding to on-coming traffic. I challenged it and won the decision based on: The law says motorist are to yield to all on-coming vehicles. In Arizona, bicycles are not defined as vehicles. One of the major points also (as a side note) in this case was the bicyclist didn’t have a light on his bike.

There are a couple of reasons I can think of why this story may be both true and misleading at the same time. The first is that justice and municipal courts often make errors. See Take the Lane for just three examples of justice/muni court decisions reversed on cyclist cases. These courts are not “of record” and there’s really no way to track down the reasoning. A second explanation is the court may have found that the bicycle was required to have been lit at the time of the collision; if so then the motorist would not be responsible for the collision. In my guesstimation, the latter explanation is quite likely, and that the motorist misunderstood the reason for dismissal, after all how can whether or not the cyclist had a light have been important to his case that purportedly revolved around the fact that a bicycle is not a vehicle?

On the other hand, the story may simply be made up, or embellished. In any event the central point bears closer examination.

In Arizona Bicycles are not Vehicles

§28-101 … 57. “Vehicle” means a device in, on or by which a person or property is or may be transported or drawn on a public highway, excluding devices moved by human power or used exclusively on stationary rails or tracks.

So then why do we say things like “bike must follow the same rules…”? It’s because of the applicability statute (As an aside,  NOTE WELL that there is no mention of motor vehicle in the applicability statute):

§28-812 Applicability of traffic laws to bicycle riders

A person riding a bicycle on a roadway or on a shoulder adjoining a roadway is granted all of the rights and is subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this chapter and chapters 4 and 5 of this title, except special rules in this article and except provisions of this chapter and chapters 4 and 5 of this title that by their nature can have no application.

A driver’s duty when entering an intersection is described by

§28-733. Intersection entrance

The driver of a vehicle shall stop in obedience to a stop sign as required by section 28-855 and then proceed with caution yielding to vehicles that are not required to stop and that are within the intersection or are approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard.

Ah ha! Then the anecdote is correct; drivers only need to yield to vehicles, right? And since bicycles are by definition not vehicles then drivers have every right to simple plow into them? Well no, not quite. Like all urban legends both a grain of truth and a huge, gaping flaw, which is the applicability statute also grants bicyclists “all the rights… of a driver of a vehicle”.

So a bicyclist has the right-of-way any time a similarly situated driver of a vehicle would have had the right-of-way.

A closely-related topic is Bicycles are not motor vehicles, and why it matters.