The Oregon Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court decision that found a bicycle rider guilty of passing on the right. The case is a rare interpretation of a bicycle-related statute from this upper court and it strengthens the rights of bicycle riders statewide.
Here’s what happened…
In September 2016, Ashland resident Nicholas Trygg was riding his bicycle in a bike lane as he approached an intersection. A bus operator in the lane to Trygg’s immediate left had passed him and signaled his intention to turn. At the intersection, Trygg continued straight and the bus operator turned across the bicycle lane. The two vehicle operators collided. The bus operator ran over Trygg’s leg and left him with permanent injuries.
Following the collision, an officer from the Ashland Police Department visited Trygg in the hospital and issued him a citation for violating Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 811.415, “unsafe passing on right.” The bus operator was not cited.
Trygg hired Portland attorney Charley Gee to contest the citation. After losing at trial in Ashland Municipal Court and at the Jackson County Circuit Court, Gee and his client appealed the decision. The Oregon Court of Appeals issued their opinion on August 3rd. Under Presiding Judge Darleen Ortega the Court of Appeals reversed the decisions of the lower courts and conceded that the state made a mistake by citing Trygg.
“The state concedes error,” the Court of Appeals stated in their opinion (PDF).
Here’s an excerpt from the ruling:
At trial, defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal, arguing that he was permitted to pass the bus on the right under ORS 811.415(2)(b). The trial court denied that motion, concluding that defendant could only permissibly pass if it was safe to do so. Defendant appeals, and the state concedes that the trial court erred.
We agree with and accept the state’s concession. Under ORS 811.415(2), passing on the right is permitted “under any of the following circumstances,” one of which is when “the overtaken vehicle is proceeding along a roadway in the left lane of two or more clearly marked lanes allocated exclusively to vehicular traffic moving in the same direction as the overtaking driver.” A marked bicycle lane is a lane of travel for bicycles, ORS 801.155; ORS 814.420, and bicycles are vehicles for purposes of the vehicle code, ORS 814.400(2).
In this case, it is undisputed that defendant was riding in a clearly marked bicycle lane that was located to the right of the lane of travel of the bus and going in the same direction as the bus. Thus, the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal.
Reversed.
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“I hope the government will keep this in mind when they try and apply the laws differently to road users on bikes or people walking. We will be around to challenge them no matter how many times we have to drive across the state and try a case.”
— Charle Gee, lawyer
The odd thing about this case is that the law is relatively clear. Section (2)(c) of ORS 811.415 states, “Overtaking and passing upon the right is permitted if the overtaking vehicle is a bicycle that may safely make the passage under the existing conditions.” Despite that language, the State of Oregon argued against the bicycle rider.
It took a persistent and drawn-out effort from Gee, Eugene-based appellate lawyer Travis Eiva, and his client to prove their case. In an email to me last night, Gee wrote that it was a “long process.”
Here’s more from Gee:
“I tried the defense case twice: once to the Ashland Municipal Court and again to the Jackson County Circuit Court. In both trials the City of Ashland — despite being a League of American Bicyclists Gold Level City and despite the plain language of the law — insisted that the law applied to cyclists differently than to all other road users. And they persuaded a judge. Twice. It was a frustrating endeavor, especially as a trial lawyer.”
Gee says the ruling is important on several levels. While he’s not aware of Portland police issuing citations to bicycle riders for passing other vehicle operators on the right, he said it’s become somewhat common in Ashland and Corvallis. When or if it happens again, Gee says, “Any person cited in these circumstances can point to the Trygg case as precedent (so long as they know it exists).” “More useful though,” he continued, “is that advocates in places like Ashland can use it to educate law enforcement as to what the law is and hopefully prevent future citations.”
Beyond boosting the rights of bicycle riders and being a tool for advocates, Gee thinks the ruling will send a message to police officers and trial court judges. “I hope this shows there is a core group of attorneys here in Oregon that will take these types of cases on despite the costs and time commitments. I hope the government will keep this in mind when they try and apply the laws differently to road users on bikes or people walking. We will be around to challenge them no matter how many times we have to drive across the state and try a case.”
You can read the full opinion here (PDF).
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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Yeah! a victory for the good guys (and girls) over the MOTROGS ( motoring troglodytes) in law enforcement and the court system. Kudos to Trygg, Gee and Eiva to have the fortitude to see this through. Truly a worthy fight against an entrenched opponent.
Judges are human, sure. But it is so infuriating to see judges reading the law with an activist, driver-centric mindset. It’s just like the bike-lane-disappears-in-every-intersection problem. Our legislature should not have to write laws twice, and our Court of Appeals should not have to clarify unambiguous laws, just to protect citizens from anti-cyclist bias in our legal system. What a waste of everyone’s time.
i agree charley. i wasn’t in the courtrooms and i don’t have all the details, but this smacks of yet another situation where personal biases against bicycle users and a sense of paternalism remains rife among law enforcement officers, lawmakers, judges, and the general public. we need to call that out and root it out at every opportunity. i’m very grateful to Gee, Eiva and Trygg for taking this on and fighting to the end.
I have had this ‘conversation’ with cops on at least three occasions, over here in Bend. In all three cases, I slammed on my brakes as I was almost right-hooked, observed by cops. I flagged either Deschutes County Sheriff or Bend PD officer, and they gave varying versions of ‘you are responsible for avoiding a right-turning car crossing your bike lane’. I was dumb-founded. The cops were never rude, or hostile, just swore that was the law. At least one of them was clearly anti-bike, but the other two were just clueless. Unfortunately, I was unable to cite statute, or I might have made some headway in my ‘discussion’.
I would’ve been right hooked by a cop SUV here in Bend if I rode differently. I never pass or ride along side a driver if they have the option to make a right turn. Cops often drive down the wider sections of bike lane on 3rd to make right turns, too.
This is confusing to me. I thought that the “passing on the right” law was passed only in the last few years as a compromise for when there was no bike lane, and allowed bicyclists to “filter” forward past stopped auto traffic without granting any ROW to those bicyclists. I had no idea it was even remotely related to the ROW conferred by operating in a marked bike lane.
As far as I could interpret laws (as a lay person with no legal training), motor vehicle operators were required, without exception, to “yield to a rider upon a bicycle lane”. This was, in my prior thinking, part of the reason for the infamous Zusman decision (and subsequent decision in Bend) that a bike lane vanished through an intersection: The only way a driver could be deemed not guilty of failure to yield to a rider upon a bicycle lane is if there was no bicycle lane. Now we’re saying that Zusman could have simply accused the bicyclist in that case of “unsafe passing on the right” and been done with it?
In what other non-freeway setting is the user of a free-flowing, separate traffic lane required to yield to someone who wants to enter that lane? I can only think of the case where a city bus is reentering traffic after servicing a stop (not while making a right turn) and is flashing the red, triangular “YIELD” signal on the back of the bus.
I’m always on hight alert while passing cars on the right, bike lane or not, but when I’m in a bike lane, I expect the full protection of the law in the event a driver moves across that bike lane without yielding—is that view subject to interpretation?
Only to activist judges in rural parts of the state, apparently. The law is very clear. It is important to be careful, but we can’t read minds. If a driver suddenly moves into the bike lane without looking, it is outrageous to cite the cyclist.
Yeah… this whole thing smells of malicious prosecution from beginning to end. A plain reading of the statutes make it bewildering that a citation would even be issued in this case let alone prosecuted.
But the Ashland police appear to have discovered some like minded judges locally and at the county level that will enable them to stick it to people they personally dislike. So no matter what the ORS says, they can just write fantasy citations and run with it because there are more than a few judges and a DA’s office who will have their backs in doing so.
I’m confused; how do you interpret ORS 811.050 to allow filtering past stopped vehicles in a mixed lane, i.e., when there is no demarcated bike lane? That rule says “A person commits the offense of failure of a motor vehicle operator to yield to a rider on a bicycle lane if the person is operating a motor vehicle and the person does not yield the right of way to a person operating a bicycle…upon a bicycle lane”
Not sure whether you’re asking me, or just agreeing that this is incorrect. Section (2)(c) of ORS 811.415 (linked in the story) is what allows “filtering” by bicyclists in the absence of a bike lane. ORS 811.050 is what requires motorists to yield to a bicyclist in a bike lane. In the case described in this story, the bicyclist was in a bike lane, so ORS 811.415 should not have even been considered applicable. Even section (2)(b) of ORS 811.415 states that overtaking on the right, regardless of vehicle type, is permitted in a separate “clearly marked [lane] allocated exclusively to vehicular traffic moving in the same direction as the overtaking driver.” So if ORS 811.415 is to be applied in this case, it should serve to exonerate the bicyclist, not to cite him.
Okay, I see. I was confused because I was not sure if you were talking about 811.050 or 811.415. Thank you for clarifying.
>>> In what other non-freeway setting is the user of a free-flowing, separate traffic lane required to yield to someone who wants to enter that lane? <<<
I would add in what other setting are vehicle operators expected to make a right turn from a position left of a lane of going-straight vehicles? I usually find the system works better than I expect it to.
Thank you to Misters Gee, Eiva, and Trygg for persevering.
“I would add in what other setting are vehicle operators expected to make a right turn from a position left of a lane of going-straight vehicles?”
Trains… the answer is trains.
We just need crossing gates at every intersection now. Not that that has stopped people from finding ways to get hit by trains…
Yes, “trains” is a good answer, but in the spirit of your question (which is, I assume, in the context of non-rail vehicles), I would answer with another question, which is “whose fault is that?” Then I would answer my own question with, “those who make the laws, not those who are bound to them”. The lawmakers of Oregon found themselves (and continue to find themselves) in a situation of their own making as they carry on the tradition of attempting to appear to offer legal protection to second-class roadway citizens. Why are bicyclists second-class citizens? Because the legislature made them so by confining them only to certain areas of the roadway (except under conditions which are purposely ambiguous so as to allow paternalistic interpretations) and effectively stating, via statute, that bicyclists and pedestrians MUST STAY OUT OF THE WAY at all times, unless they feel like taking their chances with getting run over. But also, drivers must yield to bicyclists who are obediently confining themselves to the edge of the road to stay out of the way, if there’s a special, extra-wide white stripe on the side of the road, not a regular, more narrow white stripe (or no stripe), in which case you are not legally bound to yield.
On one hand, drivers are told they should never have to slow down for a bicyclist, and on the other hand, they are told they must yield to (i.e., slow down or stop for) bicyclists—but only under certain, complicated conditions, such as if a lane is “too narrow”, or they are going over 35 MPH or there is a wide stripe, not a narrow stripe, unless there is a wide stripe, but something only a bicyclist can see or anticipate prevents safe travel on the other side of the stripe…. Given this conflicting messaging, Law Enforcement officers and Judges appear to be free to decide which message they want to reinforce.
Ideally, we ought to be able to cooperate in good faith on the roadways, all vehicle operators treating each other as equals, competently operating their vehicles so as to avoid causing needless harm to others. “Protest Driving/Riding” would be unnecessary, we’d all pay attention and be able to get where we’re going with minimal (not zero) delay, and roadway deaths and injuries would plummet. But alas, we’re all selfish humans.
I have never been told I don’t need to slow for cyclists when driving. But as to the question of “whose fault is it?” I would answer road designers who combine turning and merging into a single action. The best solution (though hardly perfect) is to separate those: merge first, turn second. The downside of this is that sometimes that requires cyclists to be between automotive lanes, or to occupy the entire traffic lane, both of which are uncomfortable for some.
By “told”, I don’t mean someone taps on your window and says, “you know, you don’t have to slow down for bicyclists…”, I mean rather that the laws as formulated place a heavy emphasis on bicyclists and pedestrians staying out of the way, and the de facto enforcement (and/or Public Opinion) bias is to blame bicyclists for being in the way rather than drivers for speeding. It’s a message, whether explicit or not.
“…road designers who combine turning and merging into a single action. The best solution (though hardly perfect) is to separate those: merge first, turn second. The downside of this is that sometimes that requires cyclists to be between automotive lanes, or to occupy the entire traffic lane…”
There might be a tiny bit that road designers could do in this regard, but those designers generally follow legal requirements, and California seems to have solved the merge, then turn issue by legal means, rather than design approach. Our problem in Oregon, is that we don’t want to let bicyclists think they can just ride down the middle of the road whenever they darn well please. The prohibition of cars merging into the bike lane is the corollary to the “bikes MUST use a bike lane” theorem. If we adopted the California Rule to allow cars to merge into the bike lane, we’d almost have to repeal ORS 814.420—or add so many exceptions that it was meaningless to begin with. For some reason, confining bicyclists to the edge of the road is of paramount importance here.
There are plenty of examples of where we create a go-straight bike lane to the left of a right turn lane and to the right of a go-straight car lane so there are no conflicts moving through the intersection. We do this in Oregon, in compliance with all laws and social norms, maintaining a bike lane reserved for bikes only.
(As an example, see the lede photo in this article.)
Well, yes—we can indeed paint different lines, we can also allow different behavior in the context of existing lines. Either one works to some extent, however it is interesting that painting a bike lane to the left of a RT-only lane is legally unnecessary, since that is one of the explicit exceptions in ORS 814.420. A bicyclist may already use the lane to the left of a right-only lane if they are going straight, so this is an example of “design” aligning with pre-existing law, but the law came first.
Also interesting is that there is no exception in the law for a bicyclist to leave a bike lane when proceeding straight through an intersection where motor vehicles may turn right, only when they must turn right. What would the design “fix” for that situation be? Sharrows? Do sharrows have legal meaning? What would the ramifications be, especially given recent legal amendments, of intentionally making a bike lane disappear through an intersection in favor of sharrows? If a bicyclist were right-hooked in such an intersection, would there be any legal recourse? Could we paint both a bike lane and sharrows?
Another eyebrow-raiser is that there is zero provision in the law, except by extrapolation, for allowing a bicyclist to leave a left-side bike lane when it is striped to the left of a lane from which motor vehicles must turn left. Any time we stripe a left-side bike lane, we are putting design ahead of, and possibly in conflict with, pre-existing law, which assumes all bike lanes are on the right.
The underlying trouble we currently have is that there are legal requirements for building infrastructure, and legal requirements for using infrastructure, and those may very well conflict with each other. Many of our “design fixes”, e.g., sharrows, cross-bikes, bike boxes, have no legal meaning and so are fairly literal suggestions to bicyclists to put their fates in the hands of motorists—“here, bicyclist, ride right here in this conflict zone, but don’t come crying to me if you get run over.” In the event “design” and “law” do end up conflicting, it is usually the bicyclist who ends up suffering both physically and legally. How do we best reconcile the two? Is it even possible to “design” in a way that puts bicyclists in compliance with all laws if the design is followed? Would such “design” make bicycle travel more or less convenient? Would it make motor vehicle travel more or less convenient?
>>> Also interesting is that there is no exception in the law for a bicyclist to leave a bike lane when proceeding straight through an intersection where motor vehicles may turn right, only when they must turn right. <<<
Cyclists can always leave the bike lane for safety reasons, but if vehicles in a lane may be going straight, being to their left may not be the safest position. The design solution in this case is a bike box, so cyclists can get ahead of potentially turning, potentially going straight vehicles where they are visible. I wish more cyclists would figure this out and stop plugging/jamming the entrance to the boxes so everyone could use them.
Your other questions are good ones, that I am not equipped to answer. Maybe someone else can.
The general rule should be something like this: The driver of any vehicle that has over 100 horses under the hood (Honda Fit: 130 hp; Corvette: 650 hp; etc) needs to exercise extreme care and not endanger any moving thing with less horsepower. How ’bout that??
AKA Strict Liability.
And there is really no reason to set the threshold so high. 5hp would communicate essentially the same message, and cover more vehicles.
“AKA Strict Liability. And there is really no reason to set the threshold so high. 5hp would communicate essentially the same message, and cover more vehicles.”
setting liability based strictly on size/power is unsettling but i lack eloquence to say why exactly….
i suspect if we made PDX 1 big contained MUP with no directed flow of traffic, and simply prescribed that randomly moving pedestrians have ultimate ROW, that we could all imagine the fallacy that might-makes-wrong w/ pedestrians darting erratically
on the other extreme, trains are the largest beast any of us deal with on roadways, but no one would logically pass edict that if a pedestrian gets hit by a train then the train bears all/oversized liability simply b/c of size differential
Just so we’re clear on our terms here, strict liability is an insurance arrangement. I have no idea how insurance claims involving car/bike crashes play out here, so don’t know how different this is in practice from what happens here. Regardless, if it were shown to help, I would support implementing it here.
From Wikipedia:
A form of strict liability has been supported in law in the Netherlands since the early 1990s for bicycle-motor vehicle collisions. In a nutshell, this means that, in a collision between a car and a cyclist, the driver is deemed to be liable to pay damages and his insurer (n.b. motor vehicle insurance is mandatory in the Netherlands, while cyclist insurance is not) must pay the full damages, as long as 1) the collision was unintentional (i.e. neither party, motorist or cyclist, intentionally crashed into the other), and 2) the cyclist was not in error in some way. Even if a cyclist made an error, as long as the collision was still unintentional, the motorist’s insurance must still pay half of the damages. This does not apply if the cyclist is under 14 years of age, in which case the motorist must pay full damages for unintentional collisions with minors. If it can be proved that a cyclist intended to collide with the car, then the cyclist must pay the damages (or their parents in the case of a minor.).
It’s not just an insurance arrangement; it’s a standard of care for civil liability. So, rather than have to prove another person was negligent (the default SOC), they’re simply assigned liability automatically where they committed an act and an injury resulted. Where a person is insured, their insurer may be on the hook for that liability, but it would also apply to suing the person individually.
I’m not sure I see the practical difference in a world where everyone should have liability insurance. If they don’t have insurance, there usually isn’t much that you can do regardless of standards of liability. Blood from stones and all.
“While he’s not aware of Portland police issuing citations to bicycle riders for passing other vehicle operators on the right”
I was in 2015.
I wrote about this in the comments here over the years.
https://bikeportland.org/2015/03/12/get-legal-ray-thomas-passing-right-riders-perspective-135457
Frustrating experience. A huge time sink. Mark Ginsberg’s law firm was extremely helpful.
Bulldog tenacity!! Love it, thank you so much for not giving up on what’s right.
Isn’t there a law stating that motor vehicles turning right have to yield to bike lane traffic?
ORS 811.050
I neglected to add to my previous comment my gratitude as well for fighting so hard to argue a case that should have been cut-and-dried from the beginning. I am grateful, but also a bit alarmed that such cases, though rare, seem to pop up from behind the looking glass, as it were, with surprising and sometimes shocking interpretations of existing laws.
There isn’t anything odd about discrimination, and Ashland is by far from being “rural” any longer, they ceded that decades ago. Law enforcement works in strange ways, if the overall amount of populace has a belief about a preemptive vehicular maneuver and it usually has the physical means to achieve it, then most likely the adjudicating body will follow in a legal result. Fighting to the top is the only route, and it applies to may other movements beyond cycling. Having achieved 17K in fines in Davis, Cal I would know about the court appearances, etc and finally doing almost three months time to make it all go away. Making this a case of rural vs city is an over-reach and wholly unwarranted, this crap happens all over the place.
Tri-met has the same issue..Have had this happen to me a few time(not run over by the bus thankfully), but they pass a person on a bike and 20 ft or less ahead pull over at a bus stop and block the bike lane..or turn right, right in front of me…
Im not sure if this is the same?? Rude, but is it illegal, Jonathan?
pardon my ignorance, but does Ashland now have to pay Trygg’s legal fees?
And now that he’s been proved to be in the right, how about suing the bus company for his medical bills, pain and suffering?
The arc of this story follows much like the cyclist’s citation in Medford in 2014… Guilty until proven innocent, but even then a judge’s bias still says you’re guilty…? So wrong! https://bikeportland.org/2014/04/15/judge-dismisses-medford-mans-protest-over-citation-for-leaving-bike-lane-104622
Same cop believe it or not.
Jonathan – I am not sure your choice of photo “ideal” based on the more likely striping of the bikeway down south. [The striped bike lane likely was not the green conflict bike lane but may have been a conventional bike lane and had a solid line vs a dashed line too…just the “plan-ginger’ in me…say’in]
Correction: I typed “plan-gineer” and Google (or whatever bot) mis-corrected it to “plan-ginger”.
[Perhaps a new operation code word for bike way design and the law enforcement outcomes?]
The cyclist could have gotten behind the bus and passed on the left. While I am for being able to pass on the right (by cyclists), it would be, probably and possibly, the safer option to take. One needs to take in physics on the road, the actions (and possible actions) of others, into account as well as actual safety~ versus “what the law says”. Presently, the roads are discriminating against cyclists, endangering their lives. That said, the aggressive action by the bus driver should be cited.
It is one reason I am for “Take the lane”, to show that bicycles have a right to be on the road as well. It is, too, one of the dangers of “protected lanes” as it makes drivers think even more so that cyclists should not be on the roads.
New “green lanes” should be given greater precedence on the road, indicating a yield situation. Traffic signals should be geared to accept cyclists for greater safety using new technology and the Idaho Stop instituted nationwide (on a state by state basis).
Cyclists need to be assertive as they are cautious. While bike roads (!) are a great idea, cyclists need to wary when they are underdesigned and, actually, make safe travel and accessibility less. The goal should be comprehensive design, not “all inclusive design” (on the present roads), as the latter makes everyone unsafe. (Are you listening? bike organizations…)
The event described could have been a dead person, for which the laws would mean nothing. So, while it is good to indicate and offer that cyclists have rights, taking one’s life in one’s own hands happens every time a cyclist rides on the road and it is better to be alive than “right under the law”.
Cyclists need to be assertive as they are cautious. “Take the lane for safety, if needed!”
The underlying moral of this story is that the law offers little protection to people cycling and that attempts to work within the system involve an enormous amount of effort simply to maintain the status quo.
Until cycling politics is willing to move beyond what is currently “legal”, these kinds of pyrrhic victories are a best case scenario.
The OR driver’s manual clearly states that cars must yield to bikes in the bike lane.
“You may turn across a bicycle lane, but do not
move into a bicycle lane in preparation for a
turn. Always check for bicycles in your blind spot before turning.
Watch for bicyclists who may ride up beside your vehicle while you
are preparing to make a turn. You must yield to bicyclists in a bicycle
lane or on a sidewalk.”
If you’re continuing along in your lane, the relative speed of traffic in other lanes is not relevant legally. It IS NOT PASSING.