Florida’s bicyclists take to the streets for exercise and recreation, but sharing the state’s roads with motorists can be dangerous. A bill in the Florida legislature aims to provide greater protections by increasing penalties on careless drivers.
Rep. Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples) is sponsoring the House measure increasing punishments and laying out safety requirements for drivers. Some of those requirements are mundane—give three feet when passing, don’t make a turn across a bicyclist’s path. And some of the punishments seem as though they should’ve been in place long ago—for instance, the bill makes it a first degree misdemeanor to throw something at a bicyclist. Passidomo put the bill forward after her law partner Charles Kelly was severely injured by a driver while riding with a number of other cyclists. His wife, Tish Kelly spoke before the committee Tuesday.
“He was initiating a left turn, leading us all in a lawful turn, and a man came down on the wrong side of the road,” Kelly says. “He was trying to pass our long group, and instead of thinking maybe that’s not a great idea, I can’t get past these people, he gunned it and he hit my husband in the intersection.”
Kelly explains the impact threw her husband more than fifty feet, but the driver got off easy.
“The police officer on the scene, he gave an unlawful passing ticket to the motorist—who had fled also, some cyclists caught him, and he paid a $170 fine and went on his way,” Kelly continues. “My husband had twenty five broken bones, a punctured lung, a broken back, and he’s still pretty crippled up.”
Passidomo’s measure passed its committee but Rep. Keith Perry (R-Gainesville) voices concern that adding penalties might lead to more recklessness. He points to Gainesville’s experience with crosswalks on major roads as an example.
“We just had two kids run over,” Perry says, “because the motorist wasn’t looking, there’s no lights, there’s nothing there, there’s no red light, it’s just a cross walk that has a sign says you’re going to stop by Florida law when people are in the crosswalk. So we had two kids run over because we’re training kids not even to look for cars, they just walk because the law says that the car has to stop.”
But that being said, Perry did support the bill. Meanwhile, the Senate Criminal Justice committee pared back a similar measure, removing a number of penalties. One portion calls for a non-criminal infraction that leads to cyclist’s injury or death to become a criminal offense if the driver does the same thing a second time within five years. The Senate version dropped it. Senators also removed the bill’s harassment and taunting language because they say it singles out cyclists and other laws for offenses like battery cover throwing objects at people on bikes.
“Is that, is that true for taunting? Like, I’m reading here where folks have been squirted with mustard, and things like that. Is that also a battery?” Sen. Audrey Gibson (D-Jacksonville) asks of Captain Mike Fewless from the Orange County Sheriff’s office.
“The taunting portion I don’t believe would be, but if you squirt any object on a person, anything that reaches out and touches another person against their will would be considered a battery,” Fewless says.
Both bills passed committee. But the Senate amendments create a fork in the road with the two measures offering different paths forward for Florida’s cyclists.
