Rules of the Road Include Bicyclists as well as Motorists

by Tyler Maritote

Everyday Tony Davis is cussed at, yelled at and honked at for riding his bicycle on the road.

The problem is he is not allowed to get off the road.

Cyclists like Davis are required by Illinois law to ride in the street unless there is a “sidewalk that has been officially designated and marked a bicycle route,” as the law states. It is a $50 fine to ride on the sidewalk.

Still, according to Davis, the profanities, complaints and obnoxious horns keep coming.

“They’re just dumb,” he said. “Not only do I have a right to be there, I am required to be there, just like them. They just don’t know the laws.”

According to state law, when a designated bike path is not present, cyclists should ride on the right side of the road, as close to the curb as practical or on the right edge of their lane and motorists should give them three feet while passing.

Three feet is not always granted and Davis has experienced firsthand why the law is in place.

He was riding south on University Street when a car pulled up alongside of him, rolled down his window and began yelling at him.

“He was leaning towards me in his car making some rude gestures,” Davis said, “and he started to drift towards me.”

Unfortunately Davis had no room to move, cars were merging onto the highway on the other side of him and the driver knocked into the side of him.

“Rather than falling I jumped off my bike,” Davis said. “You know, to save my nuts.”

Davis was able to get back on his bike and catch back up with the driver, who had been stopped by the light at Columbia Terrace.

Profanities were exchanged.

Davis got the driver’s license plate number, threatened to call the police and the driver encouraged him to.

“But then once he saw that I had my phone out,” Davis said, “he sped off.”

Still, the motorist was later ticketed, according to Davis, who said the police had him sign the ticket as a witness.

Davis was lucky that day and the other seven days he has been hit by cars in the last two years because many have been killed.

There were 698 cyclists killed by motor vehicles in the United States in 2007, 18 of which were in Illinois, according to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those deaths made up two percent of all traffic related deaths.

While he thinks that those numbers aren’t startling, Erik Pasillas, another cyclist, sees the significance.

“Even one death is significant,” he said. “Everyone is significant to someone.”

And Pasillas has also felt the significance of motorists’ threats, like one night riding through East Peoria with a group of about a dozen riders.

Pasillas was riding in the back of the pack, in the right turn lane, about a foot from the curb as they turned.

“A guy driving a mustang just came up behind me and started revving his engine,”Pasillas said. “So I made the turn quickly so he would have a whole lane to go around me.”

Once he was around the turn, though, and the driver had an entire open lane to go around the cyclists, he didn’t. He kept revving his engine.

Profanities were exchanged.

“So one of the riders yelled for everyone to slow down,” Pasillas said. “And another yelled to block the other lane.”

With 12 bikes taking up both lanes, the driver had nowhere to go so he pulled into a gas station.

“There was actually another entrance [to the gas station] before the turn,” Pasillas said. “If he actually wanted to get gas, he would’ve turned then.”

Despite the possibility of making the situation worse, Pasillas said he would do it again.

“I felt threatened when he was behind me,” he said. “But I felt safer when we took over the road.”

Among the riders that night was Alex Bostic, an Illinois Cycle and Fitness mechanic who has been riding for three years and admits that cyclists don’t always obey the rules of the road, like they are supposed to.

“We ride through red lights after checking to make sure it’s clear,” Bostic said. “Why should we respect the law if no one else does [by not giving three feet]?”

Davis, despite choosing to obey all rules of the road in hopes of setting a good example, pointed out that many states are beginning to adopt an Idaho law that allows cyclists to ride through red lights – as long as it’s safe, of course – because it is actually safer than stopping.

Going through red lights allows cyclists to get out ahead of traffic, where there is more space for cars to go around them, rather than cyclists and motorists having to battle through clustered traffic.

“But if you’re acting like an idiot,” he said. “Then you’re no better than a motorist being an idiot.”

Pasillas added that a cyclist riding through a red light doesn’t affect anybody else.

“But giving a guy on a bike room is common sense,” he said. “And they probably don’t even know that we are breaking the law when we go through a light.”

All Davis, Bostic and Pasillas want is for motorists to use their common sense.

Or, as Bostic put it: “Three feet please.”