Commentary: Legislators vote to keep safe-yield law to reduce bicycle crashes

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On the very last day of its 2021 legislative session, the Delaware Senate voted unanimously to make Delaware’s safe-yielding law for bicyclists approaching stop signs permanent. This followed a similar unanimous vote by the Delaware House of Representatives on June 17, so the bill headed to Gov. John Carney.

Delaware’s safe-yielding law is often referred to as the “Delaware yield.” It permits cyclists to treat most stop signs as yield signs. The law does not grant a bicyclist any preference over vehicles already in an intersection — he or she must yield to those vehicles — but it does permit the bicyclist to slow down and proceed carefully through an intersection without having to come to a complete stop, if the coast is clear. This practice, which has been routine — and, until 2017, unlawful — among nearly all bike riders, has now been permanently legitimized. As a Delaware State Police lieutenant who worked on the original bill said, “It’s best when traffic laws reflect how people actually behave on the road.” In addition to legitimizing behavior common among bike riders, safety is improved, since bicyclists spend less time in intersections, where most motor vehicle/bicycle crashes occur. Convenience for motorists is improved, since bicyclists can clear intersections faster. Convenience for law enforcement is improved since there is no longer a need to issue tickets for a safe and widely practiced behavior.

The Delaware yield first went into effect in 2017 as part of the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act, which gave the First State — according to bikelaw.com — the most pro-bike rules of the road in America. But at the request of DSP, the 2017 legislation included a “sunset provision” that would have automatically ended the Delaware yield later this year. The police asked for that sunset provision because at the time, only one other state — Idaho — had a safe-yielding rule of the road for bicycles, and the police wanted the law to automatically expire if it turned out that crashes involving bicycles at stop sign intersections increased after its enactment. DSP data showed that such crashes did not increase; they actually decreased by more than 20%.

Rep. Larry Mitchell, D-Elsmere, and Sen. Dave Sokola, D-Newark, were the prime sponsors of the Bicycle Friendly Delaware Act in 2017, and this powerful legislative duo returned to finish the work they started by removing the sunset clause created in their original bill. Reps. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark; Gerald Brady, D-Wilmington; Ruth Briggs King, R-Georgetown; Bill Bush, D-Dover; Debra Heffernan, D-Bellefonte; Larry Lambert, D-Claymont; Sean Matthews, D-Brandywine; and Ed Osienski, D-Newark; as well as Sens. Sarah McBride, D-Wilmington; and Jack Walsh, D-Stanton, joined them as co-sponsors.

The first safe-yielding law was enacted by Idaho in 1982 (and became known as the Idaho stop). Inspired by Idaho, over the next 35 years, numerous states tried (often repeatedly) and failed to duplicate Idaho’s law. It took Rep. Mitchell and Sen. Sokola to finally break that streak in 2017. Once Delaware showed it could be done, however, it broke a logjam. In the four years since, six other states — Arkansas, Oregon, Washington, Utah, North Dakota and Oklahoma — quickly followed in Delaware’s footsteps. There are now eight states with statewide Delaware yield rules (cyclists may treat stop signs as yield signs) and three states that have both the Delaware yield and the Idaho stop (cyclists may treat red lights as if they are stop signs). Interestingly — at least for now — Delaware remains the only state east of the Mississippi with either of these pro-bike rules.

John Bare serves as Bike Delaware’s Bicycle Friendly State Coordinator, focusing on cyclist safety and making Delaware a more bicycle-friendly place for cyclists of all types, ages and abilities. John leads the effort to reform the Rules of the Road for bicyclists in Delaware.

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