When Ann Purcell is tooling around the state on her Honda motorcycle, the weight of the sport bike is often not enough to trip the sensors at red lights.
Most people would grumble -- and worry about the safety of being trapped in an intersection -- in silence. But Purcell is a Georgia legislator, so she is pushing her colleagues to approve a measure to let bikers go through red lights when the signals don’t know they’re there.
“We just want to make it so you can go through without, quote, breaking the law,” said Purcell, a Republican representative from Rincon. “We understand we would have to go through with great caution.”
House Bill 161 basically would allow motorcyclists to treat red lights like stop signs. They could proceed after waiting 60 seconds to check traffic.
Eight states -- including neighboring North Carolina and South Carolina -- now give some form of that consideration to bikers, according to the American Motorcyclist Association and a government website for the state of Missouri. The Kansas Legislature just approved a similar measure last month.
But the powerful House Rules Committee has so far held Purcell’s proposal from a vote. Some members have repeatedly fretted about letting motorcyclists follow a different rule of the road.
“The traffic laws apply to motorcyclists and to cyclists,” said Rep. Wendell Willard, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. “I have concern about letting any group break the statute.”
At least one state has addressed the problem with a technical change. California requires new sensors, which function much like metal detectors, be able to sense both motorcycles and bicycles.
Georgia has 40,000 intersections with the sensors that would need to be adjusted or updated, according to the state Department of Transportation. The time and cost to do that led Purcell to believe the only option was letting her and fellow bikers run the lights.
The American Motorcyclist Association agrees, noting that bikers would be at fault if the move led to any accidents.
“The burden is on the motorcyclist to make a safe decision,” association spokesman Pete terHorst said.
Skeptics still worry which driver would be liable for medical damages in a crash. And the Federal Highway Administration has urged states to consider other options, such as the technological upgrades in California, as safer ways to address the problem.
Still, Purcell is convinced she has found a safe solution for bikers and motorists alike. It can make people in cars just as nervous and frustrated to see a biker stuck in a turning lane, and not all motorists realize it when a biker is trying to motion them forward so the car can trip the signal.
"It's hard for people to understand if they've not ridden a bike or been in that situation, that it's scary to be stuck in an intersection like that," Purcell said. "But it is a safety issue for most everyone."
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