Government

Denver's Law Lets Cyclists Treat Red Lights Like They Probably Already Do

Yellow lights may now be taken as invitations to pop a wheelie.

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Pov point of view of couple cycling on tropical island

(Image by Getty)

Some good news just hit for the lawyers in Denver who commute to work on their Cannondales! Or their 30-year-old beach cruiser they bought off some guy who was also selling homegrown shrooms at a yard sale. I feel like both of those things are proper Denver behavior.

Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law on Wednesday that allows bicyclists to get out of intersections faster by treating them as safety stops.

Under the new law, anyone who uses a “low-speed conveyance” – including bicycles, electric bicycles, electric scooters, skateboards and wheelchairs – can treat stoplights as stop signs, and stop signs as yield signs, when they have the right-of-way.

Finding out that this law was passed made me happy for two reasons. The first is that less time spent in intersections hopefully means that more people get home safely — intersections are a hot spot for accidents. The second is that I now have a new way of classifying my hot ride. Most of us are familiar with the age old how-to-think-like-a-lawyer hypothetical of asking if a vehicle ban in a park excludes bicycles. The scenario is a good way of getting people to try their hand at analogical reasoning — is an 18-wheeler really the same type of thing as a Huffy? Surely a motorcycle would be a vehicle for the purposes of the park ban on account of its speed and noise, as would a car, but would it make sense to ban a bike along those lines? Now we can cut straight through the Borromean and argue “low-speed conveyances” are an exception to the vehicle rule! That might not be true, but it would at least help you think like a lawyer by asking if redefining a thing lets you do what you want!

That’s a lawyer thing, right? Tax lawyer, at least.

New State Law Lets Bicycles, Scooters Roll Through Stop Signs When They Have The Right-Of-Way [9 News]

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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