‘One-metre rule’ likely to become law

Meagan Philpott, News Contributor

A new bill brought to the House of Assembly this month will keep cyclist safer in Nova Scotia.

Known informally as the ‘one meter rule’, vehicles won’t be allowed to drive within one meter of cyclists when passing them. Drivers going over 80 kilometers an hour must stay at least one and a half meters away.

Dartmouth East MLA Andrew Younger brought forth this bill in early November. The bill went through the first, of three, readings in the House.

Most recently, transportation minister Bill Estabrooks said that he will make this change to the law as a government bill, as an amendment to the Motor Vehicle Act.

Younger, who committed to this bill during Bike Week in June, says this is about more than cycling safely. The one meter rule is something that the province’s cycling community, including the members of Dal’ Campus Bike Centre, has been lobbing for for some time.

“It’s a safety issue, but what it actually does is, in the case of an accident it actually does set the rules of the road for who’s liable,” says Younger. “It’s a clarification for legal purposes more than anything else.”

Younger hears a lot of cyclists report that cars sideswipe them and says a lot of motorists complain about cyclists.

Daniel Brown admits he’s not a model commuter. He says that he often makes some poor choices as a cyclist, but he agrees that this law will give more credibility to bikers on the road.

“Even if it doesn’t keep the (accident) rates down, it will give legal weight and authority to a biker as they were invisible before,” says Brown.

Fellow biker, Jill Manderson, enjoys biking to campus from her home about two kilometers away.

“Sometimes when (cars) do come close, they’re almost making a point that we shouldn’t be on the road,” she says.

Manderson agrees that this rule is as good for justice as it is for safety. “I try to visualize when it would be the cyclists fault. If a car hits a bike going by, how could they if they aren’t within a meter?”

Under the new law, Estabrooks also said that parking in bike lanes will be illegal.

Younger says this is an obvious next move for the Act.

“The reason you can’t be ticketed for parking in a bike lane at the moment is because the laws haven’t been updated to reflect that bike lanes exist,” he said. “You’re dealing with a motor vehicle act that’s 30 years old. People weren’t commuting by bicycle back then.”

Younger thinks the one meter rule will be law before people take their bikes out the garage this coming spring.