Vermonters should pay $28 a year for the privilege of riding their bicycles in public, according to a new bill from Franklin County Republican Sen. Carolyn Branagan.
The legislation would require Vermont residents to display license plates on their bicycles, and to carry proof of registration. It would also bar bicyclists from drinking and riding.
Branagan said the bill has almost no chance of passing, and said it’s meant only to start a conversation which shouldn’t be about the specifics of her bill, but rather about safety, and a pattern of cyclists breaking laws.
“I know that it’s going to start the discussion … on how we can make sure these bicyclists are safe, how do they become aware of what the rules of the road are in the state of Vermont — because many of them are out-of-staters — and how do we remind them that even though they are on vacation, everybody around them is not necessarily on vacation,” Branagan said.
Branagan’s bill would actually apply only to Vermont residents, however; vacationers from out of state would be free to ride bicycles without a license plate or registration.
The legislation, S.196, requires a resident 18 years of age or older who operates a bicycle on state highways to register the vehicle. A new resident of the state has up to 60 days to register.
Branagan said the problem of ignorant cyclists appears most extreme with tourists who visit the state. “We’ve already had a conversation in Franklin County … [about] how we can make sure these bicycle riders are safe, that the summer people understand what’s expected of them: When a car goes by on the road, you’re supposed to get out of the road, and so forth,” she said.
That’s not actually what the rules are in Vermont, though. Cyclists in Vermont have all the same rights and responsibilities that motorists do, according to Vermont law, although they are at the same time required to ride as far to the right “as practicable.”
That means Vermont cyclists by law may — and sometimes should — ride in the middle of a traffic lane, said Matt Boulanger, a planner in Williston who rides his bike to work from South Burlington.
“One behavior cyclists engage in for their own safety [is called] ‘taking the lane,’ and doing that as a defensive act when it’s really not safe [for drivers] to pass you,” Boulanger said in an interview.
Often during his own commute, Boulanger said, at known blind spots where drivers might endanger him by passing dangerously close, he’ll ride in the middle of a travel lane until it’s no longer dangerous for drivers to pass.
“I’m not going to do that unless I have to, if it’s really important to my safety,” Boulanger said. “A lot of drivers see that and think, ‘He’s breaking the law’ … That’s not true.”
Drivers are often unaware not only of the laws that apply to them, but also of the world around them, Boulanger said.
“There’s little about a bicycle that makes you feel safer than you ought to feel,” he said. “There are a lot of things about cars making you feel safer than you ought to feel, because you’re really insulated.”
Branagan said she introduced the bill on behalf of a longtime friend who told the senator that on two separate occasions she nearly hit cyclists while she was driving. Worried about cyclists’ safety, she urged the senator to take action.
“Bikers [near her elderly friend’s summer camp] are on vacation, and they act like they’re on vacation, and so she’s concerned about their safety — as well as the well-being of local people,” Branagan said. “Everybody’s safety is her concern.”
Boulanger said safety is a bigger issue for bikers than drivers.
“What puts cyclists in danger — and sadly in Vermont has killed cyclists — is getting hit by cars,” he said.
“I’ve seen no cyclist, in the time I’ve been riding, with both hands off the handlebars using a cellphone,” Boulanger said. Drivers engage in reckless behaviors like this with such frequency that they don’t even notice the threat they pose to others, he said — “but that’s highly visible to me.”
Cars get registered and bikes traditionally don’t because cars are much more dangerous, said Jason Van Driesche, the interim executive director at the Burlington-based cycling advocacy group Local Motion. Cars were involved in the deaths of more than 37,000 Americans in 2017, whereas it’s “exceedingly rare” for cyclists to harm others, Van Driesche said.
Nevertheless, legislators periodically bring bills forward like Branagan’s, which are almost certainly produced with good intentions, but which are usually counterproductive, Van Driesche said.
For instance, the cost to administer a bicycle registration program almost certainly exceeds the revenue from a $28 registration fee, he said. It’s also a better use of police officers’ time to address dangerous driving behavior, he said, than to be checking for licenses and registrations on bicycles.
Branagan insisted the bill wasn’t her idea, and says she wishes she’d included a notice that she’s introducing it for a friend. She also blamed the bill’s drafter — one of the Legislature’s in-house attorneys — for writing the provision for a fee. The registration fee isn’t an important piece of the bill, Branagan says.
An advocate for poor and homeless Vermonters said the fee would represent a really big deal for the folks he’s trying to help.
Homeless people often depend on their bicycles, and even poor people who live indoors often can’t afford to buy, insure and operate motor vehicles, said Stephen Marshall, an advocate with the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance.
That’s why he considers a bicycle “the plebeian form of transportation,” Marshall said. “It’s the next step out of poverty a person can take to improve their transportation.”
But, “if you can’t afford to register a bicycle, and you can’t have a bicycle [as a result], you don’t have recourse to any other rapid transit besides your feet, which don’t count as rapid,” Marshall said. “If you’re a poor person paying $40 for a bike and you have to pay $4 or $20 or $40 to register, you’re not going to buy that bike.”
Branagan said she has personally seen dozens of instances where cyclists, in a vacation community near where she lives, have broken the law. She refused to describe a single incident, but said this behavior “happens all the time.” She was unable to explain any connection between bicycle registration and cyclist safety.