Mopeds on Highways: SB333

Virginia Senate Bill #333, which has been shelved for reconsideration next year, would ban mopeds from highways where the posted speed limit is greater than 35 miles per hour. Full text:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+ful+SB333

I have a pretty good idea who proposed this bill to State Senator Carrico. Reckless drivers did. Reckless drivers have also proposed banning bicycles and pedestrians from highways.

Maybe you need to be familiar with Gate City to understand why I've heard so much about this. (Though "Carrico" is a Gate City name, I don't think the State Senator himself has ever lived here.) There are basically two ways to get from one end of Gate City to the other. Although they are mapped, confusingly, as either Route 58 or Route 23 (Bypass) and Route 58 or Route 23 (Business), local people recognize the older, two-lane "business" route as Route 58 and the newer, four-lane "bypass" route as Route 23.

Which alternative do you choose? If you're driving, and you want to shop downtown, you take old 58. If you're driving a vehicle with a stick shift, and you don't want to stall or slide backward at a light at the top of an upgrade, you might be better advised to take 23.

If you're walking, and you want to see and be seen and chat with people about where you're going and why, you take old 58--although it does not have a smooth dry shoulder for most of the distance across town, and part of the time you will be walking through long grass and/or puddles and/or people's front yards, and you will be within inches of passing logging trucks if something else happens to be passing in the other lane at the same time. If you're walking, and you value either privacy or safety, you take 23 and walk on that full-sized, smoothly paved shoulder, where passing trucks still generate enough wind to ruin your umbrella (I'm now on my fourth umbrella in the past twelve months) but at least they don't actually brush against your coattails. I know the hazards of both routes well.

Reckless drivers would like to be able to race down that three-mile strip of Route 23, veering onto the shoulder in order to speed past law-abiding drivers, without any concern for slower vehicles, or people, or wildlife. More than once I've been told that the reckless drivers are trying to get legislation enacted to make walking on Route 23 illegal. I know this is what's going on whenever a local police officer stops and says--in what's become a routine conversation by now--"We've had a report of a person in distress on Route 23! Are you in distress?"

I find this harassment very annoying, and so (I hope) do the local police. I want legislation to the effect that the people who annoy the police, and me, with these calls can be arrested.

I know what the reckless drivers want to accomplish, and I don't think it would serve anyone's highest good in any way. Pedestrians, bicyclists, and moped users are physically safer on the shoulder of the Route 23 "bypass" than they are on the "business" route. Fellow motorists are physically safer, too, when reckless drivers are forced to drive at a reasonable traffic speed--which, in some weather conditions, is 25 or 35 miles per hour wherever they are.

My opinion is that even this compromise with the reckless drivers would be a bad thing, at least for Gate City, and probably for any other jurisdiction where the reckless drivers are pushing for legislation to clear the roads for their purposes. At least, if any new legislation is enacted to restrict anyone's access to any public road, such legislation should include a speed limit of 35 miles per hour for any public road within ten miles of any private home or business.

We don't actually need more road races on Route 23. Although most of the "bypass" is separated from downtown Gate City by guard rails, bluffs, and woodlots, making it unlikely that wrecked cars would encroach on any private property except other cars, many trucks hauling hazardous materials use Route 23 and many HazMat spills have occurred on this highway as it is. We need to make Route 23 safer, not more indulgent of reckless drivers.