A bill that would clarify right of way laws for bicyclists and pedestrians was advanced from general file April 4.<\/p>\n
LB716, introduced by Omaha Sen. Rick Kolowski, would clarify that any bicyclist who is riding on a designated path that intersects with a street or highway would have the right of way within the crossing if he or she follows all traffic signals.<\/p>\n
In the event that a motor vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian all are present at an intersection, the pedestrian would have right of way.<\/p>\n
Kolowski said the bill would make roadways safer for everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to change our laws so we can better protect people who ride bicycles,\u201d he said. \u201cThese common-sense legal clarifications strengthen the rights of cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omaha Sen. Robert Hilkemann supported the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cNebraska is currently ranked 48th in bicycle friendliness in terms of safety for riders,\u201d he said. \u201c[LB716] will improve that bike safety in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
LB716 also would repeal a current statute commonly referred to as the \u201cmandatory sidepath\u201d provision. This states that whenever a usable path for bicycles has been provided adjacent to a street, a bicyclist must use the path and not the street.<\/p>\n
Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln said he has concerns about repealing this provision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t understand the rationale behind removing a requirement to use a sidepath when there\u2019s one parallel to the highway,\u201d Coash said. \u201cIf we have a poorly kept sidepath, we should repair it, not remove the restriction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the adoption of a technical amendment, senators advanced the bill to select file on a 26-5 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A bill that would clarify right of way laws for bicyclists and pedestrians was advanced from general file April 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-19238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transportation-and-telecommunications","tag-sen-rick-kolowski"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19239,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19238\/revisions\/19239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}