The transportation minister says it's another step "in modernizing our rules to keep up with new technologies that are changing how people are getting around."
New regulations have created a new minimum distance B.C. drivers must maintain when passing cyclists, the province announced Thursday.
Under changes to B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act, drivers must maintain a distance of one metre when passing cyclists. On highways with a speed limit above 50 kilometres per hour, that distance increases to 1.5 metres.
“These new regulations will keep people safer on our roads and encourage even more use of active transportation,” Rob Fleming, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, said in a statement.
In Germany, the rules are 1.50 meters within city limits and 2.00 metres outside. I feel like the situation has improved for cyclists since that law was enacted, but not nearly everybody sticks to it.
The same cyclists that stick up their nose at signed and designed cycle routes and instead choose roads with highway speeds, narrow infrastructure and excessive traffic?
The cycling infrastructure is pitiful in many popular areas, and enforcement can only do so much. “Share the road” signs have no place outside of residential low-speed areas (looking at you, Mary Hill Bypass) and cyclists plowing down main drags at half speed are selfishly putting themselves at huge risk. The whole dynamic is a hot mess.
That’s not even getting into the cyclist-on-cyclist viscousness I’ve experienced when I was cycle commuting and following silly rules like stopping at red lights.
The only acceptable distance between 7-ton steel boxes at 60kmph and squishy 180lb creatures is One shrubbery minimum.
It's how they do it in civilised countries; we just need to emulate what they're doing, if we can collectively get over the Little Brother complex all new countries have.