Tag: pretext

Justices side with Arizona police in ‘stay right’ case

Interesting pretext traffic stop case. Pretext case law is intriguing because it can reveal deep dark details of traffic law that are never revealed in traffic court.

The law in question was

§ 28-721(B) Driving on right side of roadway... On all roadways, a person driving a vehicle proceeding at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing shall drive the vehicle in the right-hand lane then available for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway, except when overtaking and passing another vehicle proceeding in the same direction or when preparing for a left turn at an intersection or into a private road or driveway.

Continue reading “Justices side with Arizona police in ‘stay right’ case”

Ruling: cyclists are required to satisfy nighttime lighting requirements even on the sidewalk

There’s a recent (7/11/2013) Arizona Court of Appeals District 1 (“Phoenix”) ruling Arizona v. Baggett  (full text via findlaw, or direct link from CoA, or google scholar) that affirms that bicyclists must use a headlight during nighttime, 28-817, not just when riding in the roadway, but also on the sidewalk. Cite case as:

State v. Baggett, 306 P.3d 81, 82 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2013)

By extension, other bicycle-specific rules (generally 28-813 through 28-817; so for example one-seat per person; the one-hand rule; stuff like that) would also apply to cyclists using the sidewalk; while those that specifically mention the roadway, e.g. 815A and B do only apply on the roadway. Look up the bicycle statutes at bicycle-laws.

This ruling adds to a very slender body of case law involving bicycle laws in Arizona; see also Maxwell v. Gossett, and Rosenthal v. County of Pima for the only other published (it’s not clear to me that Baggett is “published”?) cases I am aware of in the history of Arizona!

Is it illegal to cycle on the sidewalk in Phoenix?

There some mis-information floating around in the media, see e.g. yumasun.com and azstarnet.com sourced from something called “Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services”. It claims sidewalk cycling in Phoenix is illegal under city code; that is explicitly not part of the decision — so, i’m not sure where or why that was said. Here is the passage from the news article (my emphasis added): Continue reading “Ruling: cyclists are required to satisfy nighttime lighting requirements even on the sidewalk”